Eight years after a System Shock remake was announced, it's finally here. It may not even be what we expect: In a chat with TechRadar, Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick discusses a straightforward remake of System Shock 2, a Citadel Station-set XCOM-like strategy game, and several other projects the studio is mulling over that could bear the System Shock name.

According to Kick, Nightdive may prefer to let the enhanced edition of System Shock 2 "breathe a little before committing to a full remake of System Shock 2."

Kick told TRG, "We're looking to bring the 'System We've talked about exploring the world of 'Shock' in different genres," and mentioned the idea of "something like 'XCOM' set before the events of 'System Shock 1,' which would be a 'Citadel Station' resistance."

In System Shock, about six months pass between the time the player character hacks SHODAN and breaks the ethical restraints and wakes up from his post-operative coma. You play as a staff member of the Citadel Station, which is a very different experience from the original game, in which the player character is a member of the staff of the Citadel Station. Presumably the very same people who would later collect voice logs in the original game, they were trying to resist the rise of SHODAN and were doing everything they could to "fight the SHODAN cyborgs and machines," Kick said.

"Personally, I think that's really cool," Kick said, and I have to agree. Considering that the Citadel resistance will not succeed in overthrowing SHODAN before the system-shocking player characters are introduced, the game will probably be quite tragic.

This is just one of several ideas Nightdive is moving around with right now, so there is absolutely no guarantee that it will be anything more than Kick's vague "sounds interesting," but the studio can at least put me in the "yes" column. I'm very curious to see where "System Shock" goes next.

PCG's review of the "System Shock" remake had me, uh, complaining about how faithfully Night Dive adapted the strengths and weaknesses of the original game, but I thought it did justice to such a beloved classic. I look forward to seeing how this studio develops in the future.