Early in the new year, we received a new update from Nightdive Studios, developers of the "System Shock" remake.1]

"This is not the first time we have announced a tentative release date: the scope and scale of the project has evolved dramatically and (publisher) Prime Matter's involvement in the project has allowed us to focus on quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, and localization support.

Nightdive details the areas of focus in the game, such as giving Citadel a "little makeover" for the big finale and adding enemy variants to create new challenges in later levels. New enemy types have also been added, which "call back to the originals that we originally left out, but decided to include," he said. The accompanying video simply shows them being blown up and disintegrated, so it is not clear what kind of threat they are.

Diego (the CEO whom Shodan makes cyborgize) makes a brief appearance, there are fancier weapon effects, and, to top it all off, a dismembered corpse of ludicrous levels.

"As you know, dismemberment is a top priority for us, and every enemy has a fully custom dismemberment model," Night Dive wrote.

This is accompanied by a video of the bird-like enemies, which unfortunately cannot be embedded, but can be viewed here (opens in new tab). Perhaps it's just me, but the video is unintentionally very amusing. But I suppose this adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game when it is played seriously, rather than trying to show off its technology.

The comments on this post are mixed, but there are two main reasons for this. One is that the game, which was announced in 2016, has suffered repeated delays, and those who supported it are now angry: as one reply says, "How do I change my shipping address?" I have moved four times since 2016. The other is that although it began as a "faithful remake," Night Dive has definitely made significant changes, whether positive or negative.

The fact that the studio is confident enough to say that it will finally launch in two months speaks volumes, but it will be in the pudding that this one will prove. I took a look at the remake's weapons a while back and found a lot to like (open in new tab).