System Shock 2 released on August 11th, 1999 to universal acclaim, but mediocre sales. I wanted to violate that trust and make the player feel that they, and not the character, were led on and deceived'.

He stated 'Sometimes characters are betrayed, but the player never is. He believed game characters were too trusting, so he thought SHODAN's betrayal would affect the player. The game's lead designer Ken Levine decided it would be interesting for S.H.O.D.A.N to ally with the player and then betray them. Irrational enthusiastically agreed and EA allotted one year for the team to implement story changes. Electronic Arts, the publishers of the original System Shock, suggested to the team that Junction Point should become a sequel to System Shock. Irrational sought to make Junction Point extremely different from Doom, with RPG elements and a detailed storyline.Īfter 18 months of development and a budget of $1.7 million, the game was nearing completion. Originally, the game was to be titled Junction Point and involved the player assassinating a starship commander gone insane.ĭue to System Shock being seen by the media as a Doom clone upon release, it undersold. Irrational were fans of the original System Shock and wanted to create a similar game. In 1997, Looking Glass Studios approached Irrational Games with the idea of co-developing a new game. Irrational Games was the development company behind System Shock 2, as well as the Bioshock series.

System shock game wiki