Chris Gebauer
Warren Spector Returns to Game Development With System Shock 3
A new generation will learn to fear SHODAN.
02.22.16 - 1:02 PM

The gods of gaming were good to us this past week with an unexpected announcement; Games Industry legend Warren Spector, the man who directed Deus Ex and produced a vast number of other gaming classics, is returning to game development. Spector will be joining OtherSide Entertainment as the studio director later this year, and to make matters more magnificent, he will also serve as director of System Shock 3.

System Shock 2 Gameplay

Since the release of Disney's Epic Mickey 2 in 2012, Spector has been working at the University of Texas at Austin building a new post-baccalaureate game development program called the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy. Spector became associated with Boston developer OtherSide Entertainment in 2014 when the studio acquired the rights and cash (through crowd-funding) to develop a new Ultima Underworld game titled Ultima Ascendant. Having produced previous entries int the Ultima franchise, Spector was asked to join the project as a creative adviser while still overseeing the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy. Since that arrangement, OtherSide has started development on System Shock 3, another legendary franchise that Spector helped create while at Looking Glass in 1994, and apparently he couldn't pass on the opportunity to jump back into the series.

Spector stated the following in a press release announcing the move:

"When the opportunity arose to have a bigger role in bringing Underworld Ascendant to life, as well as playing in the System Shock universe once again, helping to bring these games to a 21st century audience, I just couldn’t say no...Working on System Shock was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done in my career and it’s hard to describe how much I’m looking forward to sharing with players what SHODAN has been up to since the last game was released."

Spector will be working with other System Shock veterans, including Looking Glass co-founder Paul Neurath, who happened to have co-founded OtherSide Entertainment back in 2014. Spector is expected to finish out the current semester at Denius-Sams Gaming Academy before joining OtherSide full time.

This news is most awesome.


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