System Shock 2 - Interview @ Incgamers

Incgamers has an interview with System Shock 2 Project Manager Jon Chey who comments on Arkane’s ‘spiritual successor’ plans.

Peter : I was wondering … there’s actually some System Shock 2 related news that has emerged today. Arkane, who made Dishonored, are now taking over the development of Prey 2 and they’ve said they’re aiming to make that the ‘spiritual successor’ to System Shock 2.

Jon: Oh really? Wow. Interesting.

Peter: I don’t know how you feel about that?

Jon: It’s, um … Prey 2 by my understanding was … I don’t know a lot about that project but it seemed like it was pretty far advanced. I haven’t been following exactly what’s been going on with it, but yeah that’s interesting because obviously BioShock games are spiritual successors to System Shock 2 in many senses. But then I think there are other aspects of System Shock that, because it is such a multi-faceted game, the BioShock games have mostly run with the narrative side of it. The gameplay side of it they’ve sort of veered off into a different direction, a more classic action direction. So it’d be interesting to see if somebody would pick up the … I don’t know what they mean by that, if they’re intending to spiritually succeed it in terms of its atmosphere or its narrative or gameplay.

Peter: I’m not sure. It’s a lone email that says their pitch for Prey 2 was “spiritual successor to System Shock 2.” I mean obviously … I don’t know if either of you guys played Dishonored, but they pretty heavily influenced by aspects of the Thief series.

Jon: Well I mean, Harvey Smith worked on Deus Ex, so that came out at a very similar time and has a lot of similar ideas to System Shock and so that’s … I’m not surprised that they’re working in that area.

And I think System Shock 2’s one of those games where it probably didn’t spawn a whole host of similar games. There wasn’t an obviously gold mine to be dug there. But on the other hand I think it certain has influenced a lot of other … like Portal games, for example. They’re different games but they have the rogue AI which is taunting you, interacting with you and guiding you through.