A Live-Action System Shock Series Is On The Way
Hoping to show the competition how it's done, Nightdive Studios is apparently working on a live-action System Shock series. Alongside the long-awaited remake of the 1994 original, there's a glossy remaster of 1999's sequel. System Shock 3 is also on the way, but if all of that wasn't enough, are you ready to see SHODAN on the small screen?
System Shock is held as one of the defining survival horrors, and long before Amanda Ripley was running away from the Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation, System Shock was trapping us in the cold depths of space with mutated monsters and rogue AI. Better yet, BioShock is even a spiritual successor to System Shock.
What is the System Shock series?
According to Deadline, a System Shock series is officially on the way. The show is the work of upcoming gaming and streaming service called Binge. This relative unknown doesn't give us much hope, and while we'd have loved to have seen System Shock on Netflix, it's sadly not going to happen.
Binge has teamed up with Nightdive to bring the '90s relic to life as a live-action series. Nightdive’s Stephen Kick and Larry Kuperman are Executive Producers, while Binge’s Chief Content Officer Allan Ungar is a Producer.
Discussing the potential of the series, Kick explained, "I’ve always believed that a live-action adaptation of System Shock would be the perfect medium to retell the harrowing story of Citadel station and its rogue AI that subjects the crew to unimaginable horror. We’re very excited to see the talented team at Binge bring System Shock to life in horrifyingly real and new ways."
Hyping the horror, Ungar added, "System Shock is an iconic franchise adored by gamers for more than two decades and a series that helped redefine what it meant to play an FPS. We’re excited to do right by the franchise – and the genre – in bringing System Shock to life. Get ready for SHODAN."
What will System Shock be about?
For those unfamiliar, System Shock has become known for the sadistic SHODAN ruling the roost. In the first game, you blasted off as a nameless hacker on a space station known as the Citadel. This cyberpunk horror involved you hacking SHODAN and waking up six months later - to find the AI has gone wild, robots are now hostile, and the human crew are mutated monsters. Whoops.
Expect the plot of the series to be much of the same, although it's currently unknown who will take the lead in terms of talent. Sci-fi horrors are nothing new, but with video game series based on The Last of Us and a Resident Evil show about the Wesker children, there's a ravenous appetite for this kind of content.
Bing is slated to launch next year, with plans for a live-action series based on Ubisoft's Driver and working with El Rubius for his Rubius Checkpoint series. Way back when, Gore Verbinski had been working on a live-action BioShock movie, and although the idea still has plenty of legs, we'll have to make do with System Shock for now.
