System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster Review (PS5) – A Benchmark Example Of Game Preservation
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster PS5 Review. Before I get started, let it be known that I had never played the System Shock games until this year, with this review being my first experience with 2. With that out of the way, I can confidently say that System Shock 2 is a much better overall experience than the first one. That’s not to say that System Shock is a bad game, not even close. It’s so cool to see how far the genre has come in 25 years and yet how far along it was even back then.
System Shock 2 Remastered Review (PS5) – A Benchmark Example of Game Preservation
Appreciating Good Construction
The very first thing that stood out in System Shock 2 is how very differently it begins when compared to the first one. Instead of throwing you in the deep end, System Shock 2 opts to overcorrect the approach of the first game by giving all kinds of tutorials disguised as military training. Many games do this.
However, System Shock 2 spends most of the tutorial time letting an automated voice explain everything to you instead of letting you try it yourself. Some ask you to perform the action, but most do not.
Shortly after that, the game presents you with options for building your character. System Shock 2 offers three different chambers to enter, with each one providing you with specific stat boosts and new skills. This happens three times, allowing you to mix and match however you wish.
Having skill selection built into the world proper is such a cool implementation. It has happened before, but it doesn’t happen often; and System Shock 2 does a good job of building character development naturally into the game world.
Stick to The Original Vision
After this, the game experience plays out much like it did in the first one: Scavenge each locale to find and use clues to progress through the game. If you get stuck, the game comes with a guide. Just save your game and go to the Vault on the main menu.
From there, you can access all kinds of assets from the original game. Among them is the official Prima game guide. Navigating documents like this is cumbersome just because the Vault bundles them into several sections. In this case, each section houses 40 pages, so finding what you need initially takes some time.
Still, including resources like this helps to present the original game experience to a modern audience. While not quite in this form, this is part of the way many people played games 25 years ago, relying on things like schoolyard hints or printed guides for help. Naturally, googling a guide is much faster, but the sheer novelty that comes with this kind of historical coverage is second to none. If System Shock 2 gets that promised modern physical release, it will be a shining example of thorough preservation.
Not Completely Timeless
Visually, the game lacks a major overhaul, but that works for what Nightdive Studios did with this remaster. Just like with the first System Shock game, the team pushed for recreating the experience of the original game rather than upgrading it. That includes the visuals. Things get touched up for higher resolution, but you might not notice much difference without comparing the original right next to the remaster.
By 2025 standards, the gameplay in System Shock 2 is nothing to call home about. First-person controls work as you would expect, with most motion and actions feeling a bit slow by modern standards. Still, the even pace helps to keep the game consistent throughout the entire experience. Take that as you will, but personally it’s a nice change of pace to have a more leveled-out gameplay experience that doesn’t stress you too hard when it comes to skill.
This plays into the game’s hand nicely simply because the interface is incredibly dated. The efforts put forth in this remaster clearly took great care to keep as much of the original experience preserved. However, as System Shock 2 originally released as a mouse-and-keyboard game, it shows in the console port. Specifically, navigating menus and interacting with objects takes the brunt of the shortcomings with this change in controls.
Controller Support Needs Work
Firstly, objects you interact with get small, green boxes around them when you are close enough to interact with them. These also come with prompts and button cues for opening the objects. If the object is too big, then the green boxes get big enough to encompass the object, thus pushing down the button prompt. Thankfully, the button prompt doesn’t change, but the first couple of times you might do a trial run with different buttons to find the right one.
Second, menu navigation lacks a great deal of optimization. When opening a menu, the controls shift so that the D-Pad lets you move a select box around. In order to do certain things, like equip or bind an item to a button combination, you need to read the mini-menu that appears in the bottom half of the screen. Most of the time, menu interaction takes place in the top half of the screen. On a smaller TV, this might work better, but larger screens see these windows further and further away from each other.
The other problem comes when you inevitably end up (what I will call) stacking submenus. This comes up quite a bit when dealing with vending machines. Your inventory opens up alongside every vendor menu. It’s very hard to explain, so please bear with me. When you interact with one menu, the game sometimes registers that you are either interacting with another menu or not interacting with any menu at all. It becomes challenging to determine where your highlighted cursor is. This ultimately leads you to closing out of all menus and restarting.
A Well-preserved Time Capsule of A Beloved Classic
The System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster showcase just how well-constructed many games were back in the 90s and 00s. Equally so, much of the PC library remained on that format. With that comes menu systems that just don’t work intuitively with a console controller. While striking a balance between playability and the original concept, Nightdive Studios missed an opportunity to maximize the experience for a wider range of players. Still, the menu systems work well enough to get by, but they require an adjustment.
Even with that, System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster contains a complete package of the source material, lovingly maintained in its original form, alongside tons of assets and history that most preservation efforts can’t compare to.
System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster is out on for PC and hits PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One on July 10, 2025.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.
