System Shock 2's 'spiritual successor' underway

Irrational Games is working on a "spiritual successor" to System Shock 2, the developer revealed recently, which pits the player against the used-to-be-human occupants of an abandoned science facility.

BioShock, which Irrational is at pains to point out is not a direct sequel to any of the System Shock titles, will be a horror-themed first-person adventure in which your observations and experiences will be influenced by your choices in-game, according to general manager Ken Levine.

The game, which uses a heavily modified version of the Unreal engine, has apparently been in the design phase for three years, and now with Tribes: Vengeance out of the way the Australian developer is prepared to say what it's been up to.

Levine said that BioShock would be a "convergence of technology and biological life" compared to SS2's "convergence of technology and commercialism", and that in narrative terms it would have the same kind of dramatic ambiguity about it that SS2 and the film Fight Club had.

However we don't know too much about the plot for now. All we know is that the genetic laboratory that plays host to much of the game is strewn with corpses, and that it was originally used and abandoned for unknown reasons during World War II, and then revived for use in top-secret biotechnology experiments in the 21st century.

We also know that you won't be alone down there - the facility is buzzing with three types of creatures called drones, predators and soldiers, which form what Irrational calls an "AI ecology", where each has instinctive non-human behaviour about them, feasting on corpses and harvesting DNA which they return to their complex. Predators even feed on drones from time to time.

This is bad news because you need the DNA they have, which can be used to implant yourself and gain new abilities. For example, an increased resistance to heat, allowing you to enter a room full of enemies and fry them with the thermostat while you stand around quite contentedly.

There will be limited slots for these sorts of implants, called plasmids, and you'll find you have to go to certain places to swap them out, demanding a certain amount of strategic thought.

Fortunately you'll also have five basic weapon classes to master including pistols, shotguns and rifles, and each can be souped up with various prototype upgrades. You'll also have a bio scanner that can be used to expose weaknesses in enemies.

There's no word yet on when BioShock is likely to come out, and the developer has also yet to name a publisher - although we'd imagine the game is attracting serious interest. We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything else.