Nightdive Studios is fulfilling a promise made six years ago by working on a remastered edition of the renowned Looking Glass game, System Shock 2. Both Nightdive and Sony have unveiled a trailer for System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster, along with a set release date of June 26th for various platforms such as PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

As the title suggests, this version is an enhanced edition of System Shock 2, not a complete remake like Nightdive’s impressive 2023 adaptation of System Shock. The trailer and images displayed on Sony’s announcement blog indicate some minor visual enhancements, such as refined enemy models, while preserving the essence of a game that is 25 years old, albeit with reduced blurring. (In addition, your weapons are now held by visible hands.)

For many players, an upgraded, user-friendly adaptation of its complex mouse and keyboard controls, complete with DualSense compatibility and a weapons and abilities quickbar, could be a significant improvement. However, if you are fond of the classic RPG interface, the visual style seems to have remained largely unaltered. Furthermore, there is even cross-play functionality for the famously unstable cooperative multiplayer mode in the game.

According to Nightdive’s website and comments from a moderator in the studio Discord server, the game is supposed to include some of the original’s existing community mods on top of offering broader mod support. The Discord moderator says the remaster will ship with the SS2 Community Patch or SCP, which rebalances some frustrating features, among other patches. (This was discussed by Nightdive back in 2020.) We’ve reached out to Nightdive to confirm the details on what exactly mod support will look like, including how the remastered version might play with the ShockEd fan mission editor. The System Shock 2 community has been essentially remastering the game for decades, but an official version makes those efforts a lot easier to find.