The Many

Lore & Background

Set in the year 2072, the protagonist — an unnamed hacker — is caught while attempting to access files concerning Citadel Station, a space station owned by the TriOptimum Corporation. The hacker is taken to Citadel Station and brought before Edward Diego, a TriOptimum executive. Diego offers to drop all charges against the hacker in exchange for a confidential hacking of SHODAN, the artificial intelligence that controls the station. Diego secretly plans to steal an experimental mutagenic virus being tested on Citadel Station and to sell it on the black market as a biological weapon. After hacking SHODAN, removing the AI's ethical constraints, and handing control over to Diego, the protagonist undergoes surgery to implant a neural interface. Following the operation, the hacker is put into a six-month healing coma. The game begins as the protagonist awakens from his coma and finds that SHODAN has commandeered the station. All robots aboard have been reprogrammed for hostility, and the crew has been either mutated, transformed into cyborgs, or killed. Rebecca Lansing, a TriOptimum counter-terrorism consultant, contacts the player and claims that Citadel Station's mining laser is being powered up to attack Earth. SHODAN plans to destroy all major cities on the planet in a bid to establish itself as a god. The hacker sabotages the laser, causing it to overload and misfire, thwarting SHODAN's attack. SHODAN then prepares to seed Earth with the virus that Diego planned to steal. The hacker, while attempting to jettison the chambers used to cultivate the virus, confronts and defeats Diego, who has been transformed into a powerful cyborg by SHODAN. Next, SHODAN begins an attempt to upload itself into Earth's computer networks. The hacker prevents the download's completion by destroying the four antennas that SHODAN is using to send data. After obtaining necessary codes, the hacker initiates the station's self-destruct sequence and flees to the escape pod bay. There, the hacker defeats Diego again and then attempts to disembark. However, SHODAN prevents the pod from launching. After defeating Diego for the third time and killing him for good, the hacker makes it to the bridge as it is released from the main station, which soon detonates. Using a terminal near the mainframe, the hacker enters cyberspace and destroys SHODAN. After his rescue, the hacker is offered a job

In Their Own Story

The air in the maintenance bay is thick with the smell of ozone and rotting meat. I press against the wall, heart pounding, as a low hum vibrates through the deck plates. Then I hear it—a whisper, not in my ears but inside my skull. 'Join us. Become whole. The flesh is weak, but together we are strong.' I peek around the corner and see a nightmare: a security guard, his arm replaced by a whirling saw blade, his face half-melted into the metal wall. He turns, and his eyes—both human and camera lens—lock onto mine. The Many has found me.

Reader's Guide

System Shock takes place from a first-person perspective in a three-dimensional (3D) graphical environment. The game is set inside a large, multi-level space station, in which players explore, combat enemies and solve puzzles. Progress is largely non-linear, and the game is designed to allow for emergent gameplay. The player uses a freely movable mouse cursor to aim weapons, to interact with objects and to manipulate the heads-up display (HUD) interface. View and posture controls on the HUD allow the player to lean left or right, look up or down, crouch, and crawl. The HUD also features three 'multi-function displays', which may be configured to display information such as weapon readouts, an automap and an inventory. The player advances the plot by acquiring log discs and e-mails: the game contains no non-player characters with which to converse. Throughout the game, SHODAN hinders the player's progress with traps and blocked pathways. Specific computer terminals allow the player to temporarily enter Cyberspace; inside, the player moves weightlessly through a wire-frame 3D environment, while collecting data and fighting SHODAN's security programs. Actions in Cyberspace sometimes cause events in the game's physical world. Outside of Cyberspace, the player uses the game's sixteen weapons, of which a maximum of seven may be carried at one time, to combat robots, cyborgs and mutants controlled by SHODAN. Projectile weapons often have selectable ammunition types with varying effects. Energy weapons and several types of explosives may also be found. Along with weapons, the player collects items such as dermal patches and first-aid kits. Dermal patches provide the character with beneficial effects but can cause detrimental side-effects. Attachable 'hardware' may also be found, including energy shields and head-mounted lanterns. When activated, most hardware drains from a main energy reserve. Weapons and munitions deal specific kinds of damage, and certain enemies are immune, or more vulnerable, to particular types.

Did You Know?

• System Shock was first conceived during the final stages of Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds development, between December 1992 and January 1993.
• The game was a moderate commercial success, with sales exceeding 170,000 copies, but Looking Glass ultimately lost money on the project.
• A sequel, System Shock 2, was released by Looking Glass Studios and offshoot developer Irrational Games in 1999.
• The 2000 game Deus Ex (produced and directed by Spector), the 2007 game BioShock, and the 2017 game Prey are spiritual successors to the two games.
• A remake by Nightdive Studios was released on May 30, 2023.