From E3 to Monkeys in 15 Months

And looking back, the general manager also remembers another alarming moment in System Shock 2's development: a conversation Levine had with Paul Neurath (the head of Looking Glass), who asked him, "Is this game going to be scary?" Levine was struck with a sinking feeling at that moment when he replied, quite honestly, that he couldn't say for sure. You might be surprised to hear this about a game that has gone on to win praise from its fans for its creepy atmosphere and its excellent use of sound, but apparently, this uncertainty came from the fact that Irrational wasn't looking to copy a popular horror movie or novel. "Movies don't scare me," the general manager explains matter-of-factly.

System Shock 2 was intended to feature emergent gameplay that offered players lots of options. But how would it be scary?

The team began growing over time, with the additions of sound designer Eric Brosius, artist Nate Wells, and designer Dorian Hart--who was actually co-founder Rob Fermier's roommate at the time. The group eventually identified four major points that it felt would successfully make for a scary game. Chief among these was a feeling of isolation; of being away from civilization, help, and all human contact--like being stranded on a spaceship full of corpses and bereft of survivors. The team also felt it important to instill a sense of vulnerability in the player. Rather than making players out to be extremely powerful, they would instead be fragile bit players caught up in a hostile world. The other two key factors in Irrational's estimation were excellent sound effects and intelligent use of lighting and shadows. That is, presenting environments that weren't as dark as pitch, but were instead scarcely lit, producing flitting shadows.

These overarching concepts led to features that didn't always work out favorably--many detractors have criticized the game for its highly breakable weapons and its constant respawning of monsters. Both these features were intended to induce tension and a true sense of peril--but many found them to be more annoying than anything else. Yet other aspects of the game's design seemed to work out all right with the fans, such as its emphasis on meticulous pacing, which included tacit signs that you weren't the first character to attempt to do what you were doing. Throughout the game, you'd find journals from fallen characters and even small caches of weapons and supplies. In effect, you'd read that someone else, just like you, had holed up in this very spot and attempted to make a last stand, and nothing but the smear of blood on the wall or the severed arm on the floor remained.

The midwife monster was conceived as a creature formed of both maternity and death.

Journal logs, or more specifically, narrative, was another key feature in making a game that was both frightening and tragic. Rather than filling up rooms full of huge, impossibly muscled monsters, System Shock 2 pitted you against some enemies that were previously human but were now pitifully small and weak. They'd either carry logs marked by the horrified realization that they were becoming something other than human, or they'd possess just enough humanity to beg you, in a broken voice, to end their lives.

Naturally, this brings us to the monkeys. Yes, monkeys. More specifically, one of System Shock 2's more-bizarre enemies was the abused lab monkey. These unhappy chimps had been subjected to horrible experiments, causing them to become feral. Though they were extremely fast and difficult to kill, they came about in the game by almost pure coincidence. According to Levine, much of the game's animation was recorded with clunky old motion-capture equipment and an equally clunky old SGI-rendering machine. One day, the team was actually ahead of schedule, and they still had use of the equipment for several hours after the regular motion capture had been completed. Urged by his companions to make the most of the expensive equipment, Levine's first thought was, "well...I do like monkeys..." The rest, as they say, is history. The monkeys, whose terrifying shrieks put many players on edge, had cemented their legacy.

So, why look back at System Shock 2? Come back tomorrow and find out.

But why even look back at System Shock 2 at this point? Because Irrational has been, and it plans to make a related announcement this Friday (tomorrow). The studio has decided that it wishes to further what it started in System Shock 2--to work on games that promote "emergent" gameplay--open-ended exploration that offers many choices and combinations of options to players. You'll see what we mean tomorrow. Be sure to come back then.