Reading data disks and listening to audio logs are the only way to know what actions need to be taken to progress. Without the use of a guide, the game forces you to use your witt to figure out what needs to be done next. For anyone familiar with the BioShock formula, exploring is a necessity to unravel the plot and discover new weapons and abilities. Instead, everything is discovered by data disks and audio logs found throughout the station. There is no guiding arrow or objective list. When beginning the game, you wake up in the Medical Bay and have to figure out how to escape and progress through the station. Citadel Station has multiple floors ranging from Medical, Research, Maintenance, and many others. Now, you may think non-linear may reference an “open-world” type of story progression but that’s not exactly the case.

System Shock is a first-person immersive sim with a strong emphasis on exploration and non-linear narrative progress. You now have to fight for survival and face horrific threats, alone. A space station that has been overtaken by the chaotic SHODAN AI that seeks to purge the human race to its liking. Upon doing so, you are knocked out and when you come to, you awaken in a medical bed inside Citadel Station, an advanced space station orbiting Saturn. He orders you to remove the morality algorithm from the advanced A.I., SHODAN. He makes a plea with you, to give you what you want, in exchange for your services. You have been captured by the CEO of the very same tech giant you were stealing from. Until your apartment gets raided by a squad of rifle-bearing security and your journey begins. The game begins with you in your apartment, commencing a hack on the largest tech giant to gain sensitive information for your own motives. Cybernetics that can be plugged into your body, robots performing mundane tasks to assist humans, and interplanetary space travel. The year is 2072, you are a highly skilled hacker where civilization has progressed its technological advancement to the highest degree of capability.

System shock demo walkthrough