It was the first project by a new studio called Irrational Games, a chance to prove it could deliver a game that matched the calibre of Looking Glass, the developer of the original System Shock, Thief, and other PC classics. “It was probably the most pressure I’ve felt in my life,” says Jonathan Chey, one of its three lead developers. “My strongest motivation was not wanting to look like a fool, because we’d never done anything like this before in our lives.”
Now, over 20 years later, Chey can say the gamble worked. System Shock 2’s sci-fihorror adventure made Irrational Games’ name, laying the foundation for a future in which it would make the likes of SWAT 4, Freedom Force and, of course, BioShock, and lately, Chey has found himself returning to it for inspiration. At the time, though, it didn’t quite light up the charts. Sure, it was critically lauded, but for Chey and his fellow founders, Ken Levine and Rob Fermier, it was simply enough.
ORIGIN STORY
These three developers, two programmers and a writer, met after joining Looking Glass, where Fermier had worked on the first System Shock.
This story is from the June 2020 edition of PC Gamer.
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This story is from the June 2020 edition of PC Gamer.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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