There was a thoughtfulness about what games could and should be that I haven’t encountered much since.
Warren Spector, executive producer: That place was like a graduate school for game developers. Eventually it got bigger and had more problems, but in its early stages it was just a really raw creative place to work. Looking Glass was chock-full of talented, brilliant people who would set aside their egos. They were working out what they were going to do with the science fiction version of Ultima Underworld.
Rob Fermier, programmer: I joined Looking Glass in 1993, maybe even late ‘92, pretty much at the start of the project. Long before gaining legendary status, Looking Glass was experimenting with early 3D worlds. Here’s the story of how it was made, as told by the people who made it. As one of our interviewees tells us: “We were trying to build the holodeck.” This was not so much a game as an alternate reality. The creative figureheads behind Deus Ex and Dishonored were wrapped up in its creation, and forever changed by contact with Looking Glass and its unique philosophy.Ĭountless studios have used Citadel Station as a star to steer by, measuring their own work against System Shock’s commitment to simulation, dense atmosphere, and method-ish refusal to break character. Without System Shock, there would be no Thief or Gloomwood, no Prey or Dead Space. SHODAN broke free, and the world was never the same. 30 years of immersive sim development started here, as Looking Glass escaped the restraints of the RPG genre and embraced thoughtful first-person action. For a certain sort of PC gaming fan, System Shock is where it all began.
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