At GDC 2025, I sat down with Stephen Kick and Larry Kuperman of Nightdive Studios to talk about all things System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster and I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream‘s new console release. During our time together, we discussed what changes are being made for this new remaster of System Shock 2, the story behind Nightdive Studios bringing I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream into the 21st Century, and more!
You can check out more about Nightdive Studios at their official website, on Facebook, on X, on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on YouTube, on Twitch, and on Steam.
You can preorder System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster on PC (Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle, Epic) and Wishlist on PlayStation 4, Xbox Series S/X. You can also check out the game on its official website.
You can buy I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream on PC (Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle), PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch. You can also check out the game on its official website.
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
OR: Hi, my name is Quentin H. with oprainfall, and could you two please introduce yourselves?
Stephen Kick: My name is Stephen Kick, and I am the studio head of Nightdive.
Larry Kuperman: Larry Kuperman, and I am Biz Dev for Nightdive Studios.
OR: Y’all’ve made several announcements this week. But the one I want to talk to you both at the moment is System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster. This was originally designed by the famed Ken Levine of now-BioShock franchise fame. What made y’all say ‘Let’s bring back System Shock 2 for its 25th anniversary?’
SK: Just to start out – System Shock 2 was the very first game that Nightdive ever released back in 2012. It’s been a wonderful decade and some years, and after the success of the System Shock remake, we decided that we were going to pay homage to the history of the studio and really kind of work the remastering magic that we’ve been able to really hone over the last couple of years on the game that started it all.
OR: What changes are there for this 25th anniversary that weren’t in your original re-release when you first opened up?
SK: Again, that very first release – it was more or less a straight release of the original game, with low res textures and models and cinematics. And so, we’ve gone back, and we’ve replaced all the cinematics with brand new ones. It’s as close to the original ones as we could get them. Updated character models, textures, new rendering engines to really push the lighting and horror upon the Von Braun. As well as controller support – because this will be the first time that the game will be available on console.
OR: There has been a lot of IP issues behind System Shock 2. Producer Warren Spector set up a deal where Electronic Arts got the series trademark while Looking Glass Studios kept the series development rights, the trademark was abandoned ultimately by EA in 2007 but with the possibility of reviving the mark, Looking Glass Studios permanently shut their doors on May 24, 2000, and their assets were acquired by Star Insurance Company afterwards. How did y’all navigate the complex maze of assembling all the rights into place to bring this series back to life?
LK: He’s done his research!
SK: He absolutely has. *laughs*
LK: You’re the first reporter who knew that backstory. So, the rights had gone to Star Insurance – it began by having trademark rights, they would later acquire copyright rights. Do I have that in the right order? They ended up with both. Copyright first-
SK: -And then the trademark when it lapsed from EA.
LK: So, by the time I arrived on the scene, joined Nightdive one year after founding, all of the rights were with Star Insurance who was a central place to go looking for them. It was persistence, but Stephen had contacted them at a perspicuous moment when they needed to show commercial usage in order to retain the rights. And Stephen had pitched them on re-releasing System Shock 2 as it was, or in a republishing deal. Fast forward a year later, and I joined the company and worked with their chief counsel over there. Again, it was a matter of persistence. It was over a year of – not even negotiations, but constantly renewing the offer, making sure they knew we were there, and eventually we were able to do that.
OR: It’s interesting – because them and their parent company [AmeriTrust Group, Inc.] are not in the gaming industry.
LK: That’s correct. And so, when they had to demonstrate commercial usage, they didn’t have the resources without working with an external studio. And Stephen was that external studio.
“…when an opportunity does arise when we can do something for the community, we like to put forth the resources to do it.”
OR: With System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster, are you working off of the original source code to remaster it? Or are you having to code it from the ground up?
SK: It’s been reserve engineered. So while it’s not the exact same source code, it’s been rebuilt and replicated as close to the original code as we could possibly get it.
LK: When people ask why the development process was as long as it was – that was the major reason. There are actually two-fold reasons: the first one was the reverse engineering process was really time-consuming and iterative. The second reason was that, as Nightdive achieved success – particularly for our remasters – companies began coming to us. So, when an opportunity to do a remaster of a Quake or a DOOM – you move things around and people around, and try to allocate resources as best as you can.
OR: From when I played this game decades ago, one of the biggest issues I had was small hitboxes like on the monkeys. Is this being addressed for the remaster?
SK: Yeah, absolutely. We tried to not mess with the original formula with the game as much as we can, because we understand that sometimes – the hitboxes are part of the charm, or part of what people remember positively. But in this case? We also understood that they could be adjusted to fit their 3D models better. So, when we were re-working those, we made sure to adjust them and test them out so that the gameplay felt a little more polished.
OR: An open secret among System Shock fans that a mysterious person known as “Le Corbeau” has worked on fan patches – especially NewDark – for System Shock 2 to the point where he/she/they [were] ultimately thanked in the September 29, 2017, Steam 2.46 Patch Notes for System Shock 2 Classic – and during a 2019 interview with RockPaperShotgun, Mr. Kick, you talked about how you had approached GOG after the license was secured with Star Insurance and provided them with the patch while also informing them of the origin of it.
Have you been in contact with Le Corbeau for this upcoming release?
LK: We have attempted on multiple occasions. The only way to reach whoever Le Corbeau might be – he, she, or them – would be the forums where they posted, and we’ve never had a response.
SK: Yeah, we’ve tried a number of times. We’ve never had any success reaching out. It is true – when I originally sent the build to GOG, it did include NewDark, which I informed them of. It must have been some miscommunication along the way, because the game did ship with that patch without attribution.
Since then, we’ve done a lot of things with the community to make up for that. There’re certain things we’ve done – not directly to atone for it, but when an opportunity does arise when we can do something for the community, we like to put forth the resources to do it. One great example: we had some modders who created a custom mission for System Shock reach out to us and ask if we could have Terry Brosius, as SHODAN, record some custom voice lines for their mission while we worked with her on the remake. And it was something that we were very happy to do. So now, this fan-made mod has Terry Brosius’ voice acting in it! And so again, anytime we have an opportunity to work with the community in that way, we like to do it.
OR: In August 2021, IGN revealed that there would be a VR version of System Shock 2: Enhanced Edition coming. How is the development of that coming along?
SK: We had an exclusive deal with Meta, but unfortunately, a number of years ago, their appetite for a lot of VR titles changed, and one of the titles cut was for System Shock 2. So right now, we do not have a VR version in development. But it may be something we add onto the [System Shock 2:] 25th Anniversary Edition in the future, depending on the appetite of our fans in the VR community.
LK: Some of those conversations are actually taking place in the background at events like GDC, but there is nothing definitive as of yet.
OR: What is both of yours favorite character build in System Shock 2, and why is it OSA on Impossible Difficulty?
SK/LK: *laughs*
OR: I’m joking- but what are y’all’s favorite character builds?
SK: I typically go Marines and then I kind of cross into the Navy side of things during the intermediary skill settings there. Mostly because I love to hack in the game. It’s a very simple minigame, but I am a packrat player, so I will go and basically try to horde as many resources as I can.
LK: And I’ll confide – people ask me. I’ve been in the game industry for 25 years, and people make the assumption that I’m a lot better at playing games than I am. I usually blunder around System Shock 2, like I do in a lot of other games. I’ve always chosen the Marine. I don’t know why, just seems the simplest one to me.
SK: He likes the big guns.
LK: It’s true!
OR: Tencent currently has the rights to System Shock 3. Is there anything you can tell us about that upcoming entry?
LK: There’s nothing we can say about that. I literally don’t have any knowledge.
OR: What is an expected release date and platforms for System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster?
[At this point, Nightdive Studio’s PR popped in to state that the date will be June 26, 2025.]
LK: And the other part of the answer is ‘all platforms’. PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC.
OR: It’s crazy that it hasn’t been on consoles before.
LK: Part of the lengthy development cycle this game had was because the controls have been optimized so console players can enjoy the experience as well.
OR: Which is something that I’ve been curious about. How do you port a PC-only FPS to a home console while still retaining the ‘feel’, and I don’t want to say emotions – but the attachment that people have to playing on PC with a keyboard and mouse.
SK: Well, we had some difficulties with System Shock Remake and porting, or should I say remapping, all those individual controls to a gamepad. But it took just a lot of playtesting to figure out the best place for certain buttons and interactions, because there are so many in an immersive sim. And we actually look to System Shock 2 to see how they handled it. And in a lot of cases, people regard the remake of the first game as ‘System Shock 1.5’, because it borrows so heavily from [System] Shock 2.
Now, when working on [System] Shock 2, we went to the remake to see how we map the controls there. And we used our experience to do the best we could. And, ultimately, it just takes a lot of repetition, but you’ll find that it’s not so different than something like DOOM Eternal – where you’re hitting buttons in succession and you’re performing a lot of actions in a short amount of time. And it feels very satisfying once you get the loop and hang of it.
LK: It was a real point of emphasis – because this game really only works if it is an immersive sim. And if the control scheme doesn’t feel intuitive, it really defeats the experience.
OR: On the home screen, I see a little button that says multiplayer. Can y’all talk a little bit about that?
SK: So, in the original, there were up to four-player co-op. And it was notoriously rushed, and kind of a back-of-the-box ‘hey, our game has multiplayer!’ selling point. It was pretty buggy, but when you could get it to work, it was really fun playing through the entire narrative mission of the game with some of your friends and being able to save and load that progress as you went on. It was something not a lot of studios had attempted before. We wanted to make that a major selling point of our game that you could not only play it and hopefully not crash but play crossplatform too.
So, people on Switch can play with people on Xbox, people on PlayStation can play with PC, and you could create a party of friends to experience it together.
OR: You mentioned something interesting about cross-platform with PC. A keyboard and mouse tends to be faster than moving your joystick to highlight whatever target you’re aiming at. How do you balance it out that PC gamers don’t get an unfair advantage with the multiplayer?
SK: It’s not competitive – I think console players can hold their own. A lot of the movement speeds and everything like that are very similar. But thankfully, it’s a competitive thing. If you’re playing with someone who’s nice, maybe they’ll share resources with you if they are running ahead and taking everything.
“One of the secrets of the gaming industry is that those of us who work within the space- not just within the games industry but within the retro side of things- we know each other.”
OR: This is completely off topic, but I have to ask: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’s console release was just announced this week for March 27, 2025. Can you give me a quick elevator pitch for the game, and what it was like adapting this 1995 point and click horror PC game for console release?
LK: So, there’s a great backstory behind that. It was one of the earliest games that Nightdive prepared. In fact, I don’t know if it’s still out there, but Stephen had a sitdown session and interview with Harlan Ellison. And I remember seeing that one when I cold-called him the first time. That’s how our relationship started. I remember seeing that on there and being impressed, because I have been a science fiction reader all my life. We had done that game, but it was something that – it’s a point-and-click game that, at its heart, is pretty dark. We really didn’t give it the love that it perhaps deserved.
And then a funny thing happened last year: it was discovered-slash-rediscovered on TikTok. We suddenly found this whole new fanbase for the game – there was clearly something in it that resonated with people. A lot of people. And at that point, we decided that we wanted to bring that experience [so] console players could enjoy it, as well. ‘Enjoy’ might be the wrong word – ‘experience’ might be, as well. Frankly, it was a difficult process, and we just did not have the resources, but we found a partner – QUByte Interactive – they did have in fact have the resources. So, it should be really clear, if you have a chance to write it up – it’s an emulated version of it. We did everything we could, but we were really limited in what the possibilities were. We felt it was important – both as an act of preservation and to satisfy an appetite that, until recently, we didn’t know was out there.
OR: Y’all released a physical copy of [I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream] through Limited Run Games, didn’t y’all?
SK: Yes, but it actually included the original release from 1995 inside of it. Alongside, I believe, a USB drive that contained the DOS Box and the latest version of the game. But there were only 500 copies made, because that’s how many copies of the original game we were able to get from Harlan Ellison himself that he had in a storage locker. So, it’s a really special edition because it’s ‘new’ but it also contains, basically, an uncirculated big box copy of the game inside of it.
OR: I feel like there is a story behind this – what made y’all ask him ‘Hey, do you have unreleased copies laying around?’
SK: Well, I am a big box PC collector, and one of the hardest ones to find is I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. I wouldn’t find this out until doing research on the game itself, but back in 1995, Cyberdreams, the original developer, worked very closely with Harlan, and Harlan lent his voice as the antagonist of this story. And also, [he] provided hundreds of pages of story to flesh out the game. As you know, the short story is only 60 pages, or however long – it’s pretty short. He was deeply involved in the development process, but when the game came out – a lot of the royalties were not received. And so, he sued Cyberdreams, but they couldn’t pay him with money; they paid him with unsold copies of the game. And so, he had boxes and boxes of Windows PC version, and thousands of the lenticular mousepads that came with the game originally as a bonus. There’re still some images online – they created a dress out of the mousepads for somebody to wear at one of the science fiction events he attended.
I feel like he made the most of it, but for the longest time, he had a website where you could order copies of the game. But it wasn’t like ordering something today on Amazon. You had to write a check and send it in and have that kind of transaction. And so, a lot of people didn’t know that existed. Meanwhile, prices for the game – used and beat up – were reaching $500, $600 apiece. And so, when we made the deal with Harlan, I was on his website: ‘[h]ow many copies of this do you have left?’. He said ‘[o]h, hundreds Stephen. Do you want them? I’m sick of looking at them!’.
So, they freighted them all to us, and then we worked with Limited Run to package them. We did sell some, and we did some giveaways before that, but it just seemed like creating an ultimate collector’s edition that only so many copies could be made would be the most fun that we could have with it.
OR: What was it like approaching Limited Run saying “[H]ey, let me tell you what I have?’
SK: They were really excited by it, because it’s in the name: ‘Limited Run’ – they only do a certain number of copies per release and then they’re never made again. So, this really kind of fit into their wheelhouse. And it was a one-of-a-kind thing. We’re probably never going to see anything like that again, unless some secret stash of some long-forgotten game is found and packaged that way.
LK: One of the secrets of the gaming industry is that those of us who work within the space – not just within the games industry but within the retro side of things – we know each other. So, getting Limited Run to accept that responsibility was as easy as calling up Josh Fairhurst and saying ‘[h]ey, would you like this?’
OR: So aside from System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster and I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’s console release, what else is Nightdive working on that you can share?
LK: We’ve been on a pace of about five releases a year. This year is not going to be any different. There are going to be a number of other titles coming out before the end of the year, but [we] can’t disclose what they are.
OR: For someone who has never played System Shock 2 before, and is looking at picking up the 25th Anniversary Remaster, what do you have to say to them?
SK: It’s BioShock in space! *laughs* It’s a bit snarky, sorry. If you’re a big fan of Ken Levine’s later work like BioShock or even the work from Arkane on Prey or Dishonored or Deus Ex or any of these games that came afterwards – it’s definitely worth your time to go back and see where it all began.
LK: The game alone is rewarding. It’s challenging, it’s really hard. It requires you to think. As we’ve done with other games, there is not a lot of hand-holding. You’re expected to figure things out, and we have found that our experience has shown us over and over again that players find that truly satisfying. That said: that’s the game. The game should be judged on its own merits, and I think it really succeeds on its own merits. But additionally, if you’re a gamer or if you’re interested in where our industry came from, this is a seminal work.
OR: Thank you!
Are you excited for the upcoming release of System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster or for I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’s console release?
What is your preferred build in System Shock 2?
Let us know in the comments below!
