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System Shock
System Shock pairs a non-linear station to explore with combat and hacking: your route through Citadel Station is not fixed, and cyberspace can open alternate paths. It is at its tracked historical low, priced at $1.33 from 
Eneba. That makes this a timely option if you want a single-player experience built around working through enemies and branching routes; the player rating of 90% from 9,843 reviews offers another concise point of reference. At $1.33 from Eneba, System Shock suits players seeking a solo, non-linear station to explore, fight through and hack; its player rating is 90% from 9,843 reviews.
KinguinSystem Shock EU/NA PC Steam CD Key (valid until November 2026)All-time low ~ $11.99across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $1.352026-07Current Low Across Stores~ $1.33EnebaAt its historical low now
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
DLC
01About System Shock
System Shock is a first-person remake about exploring Citadel Station after a hostile AI takes control, while fighting cyborgs and mutants. Improve your skills, hack into cyberspace, and find alternate routes through the non-linear station. Steam players rate it 90% from 9,843 reviews.
Credits
WRITER
Chris Avellone
American video game designer
Developer
Nightdive Studios
Publisher
Atari · Nightdive Studios
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$1.352026-07-30 · KinguinBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Show 10 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | Yes | Yes | — |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | — |
| German | Yes | Yes | — |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Japanese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Korean | Yes | Yes | — |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Turkish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-13
02Before you buy
Language and play mode
The Steam PC version is single-player. German is available for the interface and subtitles; spoken audio is English.
Exploration and combat
Explore Citadel Station nonlinearly, fight cyborgs and mutants, and hack cyberspace systems to open alternate routes.
03Frequently asked questions
What is the premise?
A rogue AI has taken over Citadel Station. Explore the station and fight your way through its enemies.
Can I play solo?
Yes. The Steam PC version is categorized as single-player.
Does it include hacking?
Yes. Hacking in cyberspace can open systems and alternate routes.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
I need to preface this review by stating that I am the Director of System Shock I’ve had some time over the past few weeks to reflect on what has almost been a decade of my life working on this game and I couldn’t be more proud of what my team has accomplished - it’s a far cry from the Unity demo we released back in 2016, but this is the game we wanted to make. We made this as fans of the original and our one goal was to honor the legacy forged by Origin Systems and Looking Glass Studios - the legacy that can still be felt today in games like Deus Ex, Dishonored, Prey and countless others. If you give System Shock a try my only hope is that you enjoy your time aboard Citadel Station.Show moreShow less
193.6 hours at review2,643 people found this helpful
Received for free
Not recommendedSteam player
I've played for almost 3 hours. I don't really know what it is about it, but it's just not fun for me. Here's a bunch of thoughts: - I hate the recycling/scrap mechanic. It pads the length of the game by forcing (or encouraging me) to grab a bunch of random crap and scrap it. I would say that out of 3 hours, probably 1/4 of that is picking up random ♥♥♥♥, inventory management, and recycling. What a boring mechanic. And before you say "you can ignore it", that's just not a good argument. If I ignore it I lose out on credits, weapon augmentations, supplies, etc. I don't know if there's an auto-scrapper augmentation later in the game, but something like that should be available from the very beginning. - Melee combat is one of the worst I've ever seen. Feels extremely floaty, there's poor feedback in the attacks, the range of your weapon is not obvious, and the hits don't feel satisfying (there's no weight to them). Honestly, a basic block + counterattack system and some "oomph" would have made melee much more fun. As it stands, it's a chore. Honestly, it's basic game mechanic design: have the enemy charge up an attack that can be blocked and open up an opportunity for counter-attack, and if you screw up your timing you get punished for it. At the moment, the most effective startegy is charging up an attack, moving forward, releasing, moving backwards, rinse and repeat. Brain-numbing. - Ranged combat is a bit better, but it still lacks "oomph" for lack of a better term. The pistol feels like a pea shooter. I want every bullet fired to feel like a little explosion, not an airsoft BB gun. Leaning and crouching should make me a smaller target, but it seems that it doesn't matter -- as long as any part of my body is exposed, it will get hit. Rather than the combat being exciting, it feels more like a "peek, shoot, repeat" loop. Some modernization in this area would have been nice, for example mechanics where you have to interrupt an enemy's attack by shooting a specific point, or some sort of mechanic that prevents you from winning every fight via the "peek, shoot, repeat" technique (maybe faster flaking enemies?). In general, I feel like combat should be a faster and more deadly. Make it feel like a fight to the death, not a pool noodle slap contest. - A lot of the time feels wasted backtracking, e.g. when out of energy and looking for an energy station. There are teleporters in the game already, some sort of unlockable teleport-based travel system that allows you to move through a previously-explored level quickly would have been nice. Maybe die-hard fans of the original game will hate that, but the backtracking didn't age well as a game mechanic. My choice is to either: (1) waste a battery or (2) backtrack to an energy station. It's not a fun choice, as it depends on time and convenience, not resource management. I shouldn't be thinking "I will use a battery because I can't be arsed to spend 5 minutes backtracking to the energy station", I should be thinking "oh ♥♥♥♥, I'm being swarmed and if I don't use a battery I will die!". - Cyberspace looks great, but -- again -- the combat feels very bad and slow-paced. I really don't find it fun keeping M1 pressed forever while circle-strafing around every enemy. It's brain-numbing. How about a dash move and attacks that must be avoided that way? Some modernization/gamification here would have been nice as well. It also feels like everything IS SO SLOW. Projectile speed is slow. Movement speed is slow. It just feels "floaty", and I can't really explain why. - Too many animations. Seriously, I don't want to watch the same animation every time I get an audio log. Play it ONCE, then never again. Or give me an options to disable it. Same with healing items, grenades, etc. It makes everything much more slow-paced and "artificial". This is something the original game actually did better, everything felt "snappy" and "instant". Do I really have to watch 50 coins drop ONE BY ONE at the recycler, every single time I recycle a bunch of stuff? Did nobody complain about this in beta testing? Same for battery usage and energy station usage. Yes, it looks pretty cool the first time you see the animation. After the 5th time, you wish there was no animation at all. - This is subjective, but the original's music was exciting and pumping. The remake's music feels more "professional" and "polished", but lacks the catchiness and excitement of the original's. This contributes to the slow-paced feeling. - I understand that some enemies are better dispatched with certain weapons and ammo types. However, there's no visual/auditory feedback about it. It doesn't have to be a CoD hit-marker, but some sort of hint that the weapon/ammo you're using is ineffective would feel great. Imagine a high-pitched ricochet sound + sparks when shooting a robotic enemy with normal pistol rounds. Likewise, imagine an electrocution animation + sound when using the mag-pulse. As an example, I wasted 20 pistol rounds on one of those floating toxic enemies before realizing that it was uneffective -- intuitively I would assume that it was an organic enemy, and kinetic ammunition would have been effective. But the game gave me no visual/auditory feedback on that. - I felt like I could cheese through any radiation/toxic area in the first three levels by using one or two medipatches, including the part where you grab the isotope. I don't remember if it was this easy in the original, but I just completely ignored radiation and toxicity. What's the point? Trading one medipatch to enter a specific area is not a fun game mechanic, IMHO. - Grenades are another example of something that could have been modernized to feel better and more fast-paced. Rather than equipping the grenade and then using it, it would have been nice to have a dedicated hotkey to throw one without having to switch your weapon, and another hotkey to cycle through grenade types. - I like the new puzzles. - I was really disappointed that the item-finding radar augmentation I found did not show objects on my HUD, rather only in the radar. It would have been cool to turn it on and see a bunch of objects being highlighted on the screen. In conclusion, I'm not really impressed. It is not a bad game by any means, but I am quite disappointed after the waiting time. Everything just feels too floaty/slow-paced and not really fun or exciting. It also doesn't feel scary or stressful, it just feels sort of plain. If it were me, I'd make combat more fast-paced and deadly, increase movement/shooting/enemy speed, remove all the padding (animations, recycling, etc), and focus on making the fundamental mechanics (combat, exploration, movement, hacking) of the game more fun, rewarding and better at providing video/audio feedback to the user. --- EDIT for those that either cannot read or assume things: I played the original and I am a fan of the original. It just didn't age well, and I expected the remake to make some sensible changes to make it more fun. Instead, what I found was added tedium in the form of a brain-numbing item collect-a-thon and scrapping/recycling system, and a melee combat system somehow worse than the one that was in the original. The original's combat system was never it's strong point -- it was crap. They had a chance to keep the original's great story and atmosphere with a more modern and engaging combat system, but they fumbled it. I also mentioned that the game is EASY, even with default settings. I completed Medical and Reactor in 2.2 hours, and I could have done that much faster if I didn't stop to collect random crap to recycle or if I was a bit faster at solving the puzzles.Show moreShow less
2.2 hours at review504 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Doom gave FPS life and System Shock gave it meaning.Show moreShow less
0.1 hours at review1,757 people found this helpful
Received for free
Not recommendedSteam player
Game could be amazing, unfortunately, it has been abondoned by developers shortly after the release date. They did not release any patch in several months and many issues still persist, including cloud saves not working at all - even when this feature is adverised on product page. I tried to report this several times using their support contact, but as I already said, there is radio silence for several months now.Show moreShow less
6.8 hours at review321 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
For the love of God, please redo SS2 just like you did this.Show moreShow less
14 hours at review1,220 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
UPDATED FOR PATCH 1.2 System Shock is a fantastic yet often overlooked game. This remaster provides a much-needed, somewhat modern refresh, but it's incomplete. The new 1.2 patch is out and fixed a few things, like cloud saves! It's also added some of the promised features from the kickstarter, and fixed the final battle. However, it hasn't fixed some of the issues I were hoping they would fix. Map marker labels are still not in the game, which the original game had. And ultra-widescreen is still not supported, which the old enhanced version supported. Note that the game does launch on ultra-widescreen and super ultra-widescreen, but the image is Vert-. That means that you'll get a very "zoomed in" image, which will just get worse and worse on wider monitors. This can be partially compensated by increasing the Field of view (FOV) setting, but even the highest FOV setting is not enough, and the game will never look correct on anything but a 16:9 aspect ratio. There's a community made fix for this though: Lyall - Ultrawide Patches It's been 9 months since release, and the remaster still lacks several features that Nightdive promised would be included. It's even missing some elements present in the original game, such as map marker labels, which are sorely needed in this game! The Steam store page also seems to advertise features that the game currently lacks, such as "Steam Cloud Saves." I'm not even sure how Valve allows this... Also, this "modern" remake doesn't support ultra wide monitors, which ironically was supported in the old "Enhanced" version. The game ending has also been altered, and it's objectively worse than the original. And I don't want to be "that guy", but Nightdive has a track record of releasing only a few updates post-launch, leaving doubts about whether we'll ever see a fully polished version of this remaster. Until these issues are addressed with updates, I'll maintain a negative review of the game.Show moreShow less
0.1 hours at review278 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
How to unlock FPS: - Enable VSync - Apply - Disable Vsync - Apply - Restart the game Kinda sad they didn't fix this, but it is what it is. Actual review The remake is pretty spot on. There are many improvements over the original but there are also some tideous aspects of it that carried over, but to be fair, without those it wouldn't be Shock as we know it. Some creative liberties were taken with the remake some for better, some for worse but in general it balances out pretty well. The gameplay loop is spot on. It really feels like a Shock game. Details There's a new scrapping system. You can vaporize junk (anything that's not weapons, ammo, consumable items or key story items) and turn them into little scrap cubes that you feed to a recycler to get money. Smells like Prey to me but a cheap Wallmart knockoff of it, but that's fine. It can help you out if you need a few extra bullets. They also added a cargo lift so you can transport items from deck to deck. Think of it like the storage box in the Resident Evil games. When it comes to inventory managment, its the good ol grid. If you can fit it, you can have it. You can also find inventory expansions which is a great design decision honestly. Exploration also seems to be as equally rewarding as in the original. As much as the game is dumbed down compared to the original it makes it up by bringing a lot of new stuff in. My gripes with it Both classic games had a banger soundtrack both ambient and techno rave. It's honestly written in their DNA due to how iconic some of these were such as MedSci and Hydroponics of SS2 and Executive and Reactor of SS1. It's a shame to see that they decided to not include some of these bangers in the game. The ambient music is often drawn out by eeire noises which kinda sucks. The Reactor deck in this reboot honestly has a great remix of the original Reactor keeping both the song's identity while appealing to the new more atmopshe oriented vision of the game. One last thing, the guns. Well not the guns themselves but how they interact wit enemies. The enemies upon dying just ragdoll in a silly manner like it's GMod. Is it worth the price? I'd say wait for a sale. It's a pretty good game that knows the target audience well but 40 euros seems like a bit of an overkill. A list of bugs and issues for Nightdive to fix - Gibs are really unoptimized and drop the otherwise fine framerate severely. - Pressing backspace in the log transcript doesn't bring you out of a log menu. - The combat music plays even when it really shouldn't. - The front hand is not gripping the shotgun properlyShow moreShow less
0.2 hours at review1,043 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
The problem with Steam's binary "thumbs up, thumbs down" review system is there's no nuance, but I kind of have to say "thumbs down" or it gets lost in the scramble. TL;DR: This game is pretty good, but there's a large number of issues that wouldn't be so bad on their own, but when taken together cause serious problems. You should probably buy it anyway, just to make sure the money men know that we want more of this kind of game. System Shock 2023 is a remake of the 1994 cult classic System Shock. This might seem so obvious I don't even need to point it out, but it sits right at the heart of many of its problems. It strives to recreate the feeling of the original game while upgrading it to match the advancements we've made in graphics and gameplay in the intervening 29 years. The problem is that the original game was intensely weird, fiddly and annoying to play. This has been reproduced successfully. The maps aren't 1-to-1 reproductions of the original game's maps, but they do still feel distinctly 90s in their bizarre, unintuitive layout. Even with the map and minimap, it's very easy to get lost because nothing is laid out in a way that makes any sort of sense. The game even commits the cardinal sin of pointing it out with an audio log that says the station was intentionally designed this way to make its residents anxious and confused, but here's the thing: you could've just made the levels make sense. The game is not terrific at indicating what you're supposed to be doing. It's not the worst, either, but many times I had to scrub through all the audio logs in my possession to work out what level I was supposed to be on to complete the current mission objective, which is described to you in the very vaguest terms. An innovation that many games have had in recent years is putting reminders for door access codes you know in front of you when you're at the relevant keypad, and this game could stand to learn from that - it just saves time. The enemies endlessly respawn, which is good at creating a constant sense of danger. What doesn't endlessly respawn are healing items or ammo, which means that eventually you will run out. Fortunately, with the exception of the hardest difficulty, if you've re-enabled at least one restoration bay on the station, you'll always have a place to respawn. The problem is it doesn't respawn you at full health, so ultimately the game can turn into an exercise in throwing yourself at a brick wall over and over with steadily decreasing resources. (There's also one particular place in the game that, if you die there, it's game over even if you have a regeneration bay active somewhere else on the station. The game gives absolutely no indication that this will happen.) The combat feels kind of limp and unresponsive. Enemies don't stagger or flinch very much even when smacked with very meaty-looking melee attacks. Enemy death animations are kind of awkward and sometimes difficult to tell apart from their regular behaviour, meaning you often waste several shots of very limited ammo on enemies that are already dead. None of these things would be much of a problem on their own, but a game that puts me in a weird maze with infinite enemies but very finite health and ammo and perform unresponsive combat while not making it very easy to remember what I'm supposed to be doing? This presents what I would politely describe as "a serious obstacle to my enjoyment." You should still buy it though, because how else are the moneymen going to know that we want more immersive sims?Show moreShow less
10.8 hours at review172 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Turns out the old folks were right, games have gotten worseShow moreShow less
35.2 hours at review930 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
TLDR : Great game, got some flaws though that can be frustrating, here's steps on how to mitigate those flaws and avoid annoyances. Ok, redoing this review, it'll still be negative even though I think that the game is really great otherwise. Why negative? Cause the game is not the best at giving you information so I'll do it for you and sometimes that lack of information can be really detrimental to the experience, and at one point in the game (80% through) if you did not know you were supposed to do something you'll have to backtrack through the entire game to find plot items to advance. An empty station mind you, and if you forgot where the plot items are then oh boy is it gonna be fun to just roam around like a lost confused chicken. The galaxy brains in the community will tell you to just pay attention, I won't, cause I paid attention and the game was not informative enough about what specifically I had access to and what I specifically should do. So I'm going to give some light spoilers below (not plot spoilers really, just to avoid unnecessary backtracking). These are negative points of the game that can be easily mitigated: First, don't assume that you can get access to every room, if you don't see any immediate way to get into the room even though you've been looking around for a button or something assume that it is plot locked and move on. And unless I missed something some doors are just not able to be unlocked at all. So don't waste too much time around one particular door, it'll open later or it won't. The map is not good at telling you information about where you are. It will tell you what section you're in, but not what each room is. Try to memorize the signs of rooms as best you can. There are a few things that are not on the map but are very important for later, write those world objects down and what the message tells you when you interact with it and where it is so that you can easily figure out what to do later when plot stuff happens. You need the head, the other plot items you don't need to carry with you. You'll be notified when you need those items, just move them to a more convenient location but don't waste inventory space carrying around plot items you don't know what they're used for. The game will sometimes just plop up codes on panels next to you without giving you any kind of notification that it did. Every time you hit a button or solve one of those wall puzzles or come out of completing cyberspace then do a double take of the room you're in and look at the computer/panel screens. In cyberspace you will destroy a central point that will unlock something, the message that you unlocked something will pop up in the top left corner for like 3-5 seconds and then disappear. Destroy these AFTER you've killed the enemies. Cause if you get distracted and you didn't pay attention to that message guess what? The game doesn't log what those messages are anywhere so you'll come out of the cyberspace going "what the hell did I just unlock?!?!" Anyway, on to the actual reason for why I originally left a negative review and why I'll leave this as a negative review as well. SPOILERS BELOW SPOILERS BELOW SPOILERS BELOW When you destroy the CPU Nodes (in real life, not cyberspace) there is a panel on the wall that has been flipping numbers, grab a pen and paper, write down the number and what level you're in. You're going to need these numbers later if you don't want to backtrack through the station. It is not optional, it is mandatory for progression when you hit a brick wall 80% through. Oh and don't think that the CPU nodes are optional to destroy, you need to find them and you need to destroy them and collect whatever number the panel on the wall ends up on. Period. You will come across something that requires authorization, when you get an email saying "earth has authorized", that means YOU are authorized. Once you hit Security and you walk through that one door it will lock behind you and you will not get access to anything prior that you didn't shove into the equipment elevator, keep that in mind. I went in with everything I needed but for anyone thinking they can backtrack back to whereever they stored all the upgraded weapons and ammo that they weren't using right now, forgot about it, they'll be locked off. PLOT SPOILERS BELOW PLOT SPOILERS BELOW PLOT SPOILERS BELOW The numbers on the panels are part of the self-destruct sequence. Once you destroy the antennas in Engineering, go down to Reactor, flip the switch in the irradiated area, go down to the platform below, put in the numbers you got in the order of the levels then go back to whereever you stored all your gear, gear up to the teeth, put whatever else into the storage elevator, and go up to Security. SPOILERS END SPOILERS END SPOILERS END For the developers: Personally I think that the devs of the game should update some of the audio logs (use ai generated audio if you can't get them back in the soundbooth) to be a lot clearer about what you're supposed to do. Some of the messages on the walls should be made a lot more noticeable, give it a little bleeping noise or something. When you destroy that swirly thing in cyberspace that unlocks something in real life it should be logged somewhere so that if you didn't pay attention for whatever reason then you can just re-read it there. The map should be updated so that individual rooms are named so that if we need to find the library again we can actually find it on the map. Why would a space-faring society not have an interactive map where if you hover over a specific room that rooms label is listed? And finally, if someone doesn't write down these numbers on the panels then they shouldn't feel like it's just a boring drag to go back to previous areas. Respawn some enemies, set up some ambush points, lock some doors, spill some radiation/bio contamination and make it fun.Show moreShow less
35.6 hours at review149 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.