Architecture in game

Retro maze in System Shock Remake

Waking up at the Citadel is, for me, a return to the well-known motif of visiting a space station. The creators from Nightdive decided not to reinvent the wheel and here we get an old-fashioned maze. Fortunately, there is plenty of fun with light, and getting lost is part of the fun.

System Shock Remake is a return to the title that was originally released in 1994 on PC. And similarly to the 20th anniversary of Beyond Good and Evil, which I described, SSR should be looked at from the perspective of those times. The word “remake” suggests putting the same game in a new setting, and that’s exactly what it does. So we’re going back to the sci-fi vision of the 90s! Let’s fasten our seatbelts and fly into orbit!

Citadel

Let me point out that there were plenty of games and movies set on space stations. And it is difficult to distance yourself from comparisons with newer visions, which I will also show in this text. However, it should be noted that the original was the first to do many things.

The history of the station and its creator

The game takes place almost entirely on the Citadel space station, which orbits Saturn in the L6 orbit . It is a “lighthouse” model powered by a thermonuclear reactor located in the center of a characteristic spinning top.

Citadel Station / wikia.com

The facility was built at the request of the TriOptimum corporation in 2062 , in just a few months (the creators say that the corporation purchased a license to use the orbit in 2061, and a year later the station was already operating). Its main designer was Elizabeth Taggert. Some time later, an SI system, SHODAN, was installed at the station, which was supposed to improve its work.

Parameters

The citadel weighed two million tons and was 427 meters high. For comparison: the Palace of Culture and Science measures 237 meters. There were 9 levels in this space (some quite high with mezzanines, such as the storage deck). The crew consisted of 438 people and had luxury apartments, a restaurant, a library and other amenities at their disposal.

Map of one of the levels / own materials

Interestingly. The Citadel Station was not the largest of the facilities owned by the TriOptimum corporation. In terms of size, it was in third place. Importantly, however, for the entire plot, it was equipped with a powerful Tachyon mining laser, powered by the most powerful thermonuclear reactor available.

In a retro maze…

The creators moved the production released in 1994 thoughtlessly, but probably in good faith, not wanting to change too much. In order not to spoil the impressions known from the original and at the same time not to lose the characteristic atmosphere. Thanks to this, we have the opportunity to run through quite hermetic-looking corridors.

There are quite a few elements of the station’s design, all the switches, lights, grilles and covers behind which the installation elements are hidden make an initial impression. Especially since the Unreal Engine 4 , which uses amazing technology that generates lighting, does a great job. Even an uninteresting corridor, thanks to the quality of the graphics engine, seems intriguing when we traverse it for the first time.

If it weren’t for playing with light, most corridors would be the same / own materials

Unfortunately, System Shock Remake has not changed much in terms of gameplay and the player is still forced to explore the same empty areas many times. And you must remember that each floor has a slightly different layout. Due to the repetition of similar elements, it is difficult to identify the design nuances that allow us to find out which floor we are on at a given moment.

A map of each floor is available to the player and it is readable… for a while. When individual levels are divided into subsequent floors, the map ceases to function because it is difficult to notice the difference in levels.

The tags visible on the screenshot can be described / your own materials

But let me reassure you. I read in some reviews that there is a feature of markers on the map that the player can add. However, the tags do not have any subtitles. I’m calming down. This option already works and makes things a lot easier. During the journey, we can mark places on the map and label them, e.g. the switch for the reactor.

…feeling stuffy and afraid

What it certainly succeeded in doing was creating a sense of danger using a very sparse form. The Citadel station is completely devoid of “living” people, and only our opponents roam around it. But they do not make the heart pump blood faster. The atmosphere is created by the pattern of rooms stretching into infinity, with cameras tracking our every move.

It is the repetition and scale that make the player feel like a hamster on a wheel after some time. In the trap. In a trap that SHODAN constantly watches, wondering what he can do with us next. Going too realistic in the construction of communication routes (because they do not correspond to what the station looks like outside) would probably kill this unique atmosphere. And it was created at a time when the operating memory of computers was smaller than in today’s washing machines.

In old style

The designers didn’t reinvent the wheel. The Citadel resembles its original with all the flaws and splendors of the original. For example, I really liked the pixel effect that can be seen on all kinds of surfaces. Of course, it could have been done ultra-realistically, but it would not have captured the spirit of that legendary production. And it wouldn’t fit into the archaic gameplay from today’s perspective.

What we see outside does not in any way correspond to the layout of the rooms or individual floors, but when visiting the Citadel, you don’t think about it at all / own materials

To play System Shock Remake, I stopped playing Starfield and you can clearly see how the concepts of how we see the conquest of space are changing. The scale, solutions and ideas for spaces are changing. Of course, it cannot be clearly stated which vision is more interesting. Both offer quite a nice atmosphere and will find their fans.

Without the Citadel presented in 1994, there would certainly be no Citadel from the Mass Effect series or Talos 1 station from the game Prey. This last example is definitely my favorite for the title of most stylish location in our solar system. It was System Shock Remake that first showed loneliness in space. And SSR reminds us of this. It’s worth spending some time on it.

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