Without System Shock, we wouldn’t have Prey. We wouldn’t have BioShock. We wouldn’t have Dead Space – and, in fact, it’s Dead Space that’s the most notable in this list, because Visceral’s body-horror masterpiece was initially conceived as a System Shock sequel. System Shock, and its direct sequel, defined the horror genre and – to a degree – how we tell stories in games.
But it’s likely a part of games history that’s lost on a lot of people. Games that came along later, were available on more platforms, and appealed more to a generation of game-players on Twitter and social media platforms, redefined survival horror. Ken Levine and his action/horror splice of genres in BioShock stole System Shock’s thunder, and morphed the entire genre into its own image. Visceral and Dead Space shunted the genre into the hands of Call of Duty players. Both helped usher the genre away from survival horror, and more towards action horror.
Glen Schofield gleefully watching on as one million Isaac Clarkes shot off countless alien limbs, Ken Levine purred as one million Booker DeWitts found one million lighthouses and predicted one million plot twists. Each of these games toyed with genre convention to deliver something markedly different from System Shock… yet neither of them would exist without Looking Glass Studios’ masterful debut.
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