System Shock: Enhanced Edition

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This page is for the 2015 remaster. For the original game, see System Shock. For the 2023 remake, see System Shock (2023).

System Shock: Enhanced Edition

Developers
Original game	Looking Glass Studios
Enhanced Edition	Nightdive Studios
Publishers
	Nightdive Studios
Engines
	Kex Engine
Release dates
Windows	September 22, 2015
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control, Point and select
Genres	Immersive sim, Shooter, Metroidvania
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Cyberpunk, Horror, Sci-fi, Space
Series	System Shock

System Shock
System Shock	1994
System Shock 2	1999
System Shock: Enhanced Edition	2015
System Shock (2023)	2023
System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition	TBA
System Shock 3	TBA

System Shock: Enhanced Edition is a modern source port of the 1994 game System Shock offering features such as hardware acceleration, improved widescreen, in-game control rebinding, and more.

On 6 September 2018, a major update of the Enhanced Edition ported it to the Kex Engine, offering additional features such as higher resolutions, mouselook, rebindable keys and use of the high resolution assets from the Mac version

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

System Shock, the biggest forum about the game.

SHODANPEDIA - A wiki for the System Shock series

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
GOG.com		Includes System Shock as Classic Edition.
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Steam		Includes System Shock as Classic. Can be played without Steam by using the command-line argument -no-social.

Essential improvements

Skip Intro Videos

Set the value of seta g_showintromovie in kexengine.cfg to 0 (see configuration file(s) location)

Gigaquad's Enhanced log texts mod

Matches the text to the spoken audio.

Updated to work with the Sept 2018 source port.

VirtualMIDIsynth

Improves music playback. Users of Windows 8 & later may want to see MIDI mapper workarounds first.

The default Windows MIDI instruments library sounds rather low quality and out of place in many parts of the game, visit this Steam guide to learn how to improve it.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Nightdive Studios\System Shock EE\kexengine.cfg
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/410710/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Nightdive Studios\System Shock EE\savegame\archive\savgam**.dat %APPDATA%\Nightdive Studios\System Shock EE\savegame\archive\currsave.dat
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/410710/pfx/

Saves made before the Source Port Update are stored in <path-to-game>\res\data or <path-to-game>\res\missions\archive.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Proper support for widescreen resolutions was added with the source port.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Slider - 45-119° (horizontal).
Windowed		Toggle with Alt+↵ Enter.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Runs in Borderless Fullscreen by default.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Always on.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		MSAA x2, x4, x8 and x16.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Toggleable ingame.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Capped at 60 FPS by default. Possible to achieve higher FPS by editing config file and setting seta cl_engineFPS to a desired value. Tests need to be done to figure out if it affects the gameplay.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Always reads keys as if QWERTY keyboard layout was used.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity		Separate slider for cursor and freelook sensitivity.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

PlayStation controllers

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Enable reloading and switching ammo with a single keyboard key

Few people know that System Shock has (and always had) a shortcut for both reloading and switching alternate ammo types (Alt+← Backspace and Ctrl+← Backspace). Unfortunately these keyboard shortcuts are less than convenient for modern standards. Luckily they can be changed in Enhanced Edition.

With the Kex Engine sourceport version, you can change these bindings via the in-game control settings section. For the wrapper edition, use the config file edits below.

Edit controls.cfg (2015 wrapper version)[citation needed]

Add the following lines, preferably under the "custom profile" section: bind r cmd.ammotype default 0 bind shift+r cmd.ammotype default 0 bind tab cmd.ammotype default 1 bind {{key|shift|tab}} cmd.ammotype default 1 Requires R (stand) to be rebound for use by reloading. Additional binding that may be worth looking at and changing are Alt+' (throw grenade), Ctrl+' (next grenade), Alt+: (use patch), Ctrl+: (next patch) and Ctrl+A (automap).

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music, Digital FX, Audio Message Volume.
Surround sound
Subtitles		Toggle Messages setting under Audio Options. Words are not exact representations of audio. Fix available in the from of Gigaquad's Enhanced log texts mod.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio
General MIDI audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Czech				Fan - #1
French
German
Russian				Fan translation, download
Spanish				Fan translation, download

Issues fixed

System Shock won't launch

Fixed in an update.

Turn off MSI afterburner

Run the game in Windows 95 compatibility mode

Game crashes with "ERROR!" after intro

Move the game installation path to somewhere that is shorter than 64 characters.

Final boss fills the screen too fast

Enable V-sync

Reactor code is no longer randomized

Replace archive.dat
Download the archive.dat file and replace the one found in \res\data. The tool reactor-rng can also be used to patch a game that is already in progress. Note: This fix can cause issues with the automap MFD on the second level. The display can become off-center and significantly zoomed out, preventing the player from using the mini-map.

Lag spike whenever the mouse is moved

Replace bundled SDL2.dll[citation needed]
The SDL version bundled with the game contains a bug which causes lag spikes with high polling mice, this can be fixed by replacing the bundled dll with a updated one from SDL's website.

Blurry/choppy screen when looking around

Change renderer to Vulkan
Edit the config file and set seta r_rhirenderfamily to vulkan instead.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D		Added in source port update.
OpenGL		Utilizes SDL 2.0 for output.
Software renderer		Edit shock.ini and set SoftRenderer to on.
Vulkan

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Mods

The 6 September 2018 source port introduced official mod support.

SYSTEM SHOCK: ReWired

The very first full fan made singleplayer campaign for the original System Shock in over 24 years!

Cortex Reaver Challenge

A challenge room that pit the player up against Cortex Reavers using a Laser Rapier; kill as many as you can before you die, there is no restoration chamber.

High-res objects

This is version 3, which has been updated to work with the Source Port Update.

A version of this mod compatible with the game before the Source Port Update can be found here. Download only "hi-res3DSS.rar", ignoring "v2" - version 2 only adds adding parameters, useless if you don't want to mod the game.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7	10
Processor (CPU)	1 GHz	1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1 GB
Video card (GPU)	OpenGL-Compatible Card

A 64-bit operating system is required.