Last week, Nightdive Studios teased new in-game PC footage of its forthcoming System Shock remaster. Running on Unreal Engine 4, some prospective players suggested the reimagined Citadel Station looked better when powered by Unity—as it had been in last year's pre-alpha demo. The game's director Jason Fader has now addressed why Unreal was chosen, where he and his team's priorities lie, and what a "faithful reboot" exactly entails.

Speaking via a Kickstarter backer update post, Fader explains that the remake's visual appearance is still a work in progress and that the engine change and visual differences are in fact unrelated. "What you see in the video is a rough style we are experimenting with to push crisper visuals," explains Fader. "Art direction was a lower priority for the engine change since we wanted to be sure the technology could do what we needed first. Now that we have the pipelines set for getting art into the engine, we'll be iterating on the style and mood."     

Fader also suggests last week's footage represents one and a half month's worth of "direct content creation", compared to the the Unity demo's six months. "Not exactly the fault of Unity," admits Fader, "but as you see, it's easier for our team to create content in Unreal."

Fader then includes an extensive Q&A addressing would-be player concerns. This is worth reading in its entirety—it covers where the project is going, what features are yet to come and what will be reworked, and how audio is being implemented, among other things—however the following answer is worth repeating. In response to the question "Great, now you are making a console game with a PC port...", Fader says: 

"Whoa there! We never said that, and even if we didn’t switch engines, the game would still come out on consoles. Personally, I’m a PC gamer through and through (mainly because I can’t aim well with a controller). System Shock is being made for PC gamers first. It would be a shame if only PC folk could appreciate our game, so we’ll be bringing it to console as well, but PC is the main target for everything we do."   

As far as the "faithful reboot" maxim goes, Fader explains that while he and his team had first planned to make a "straight 1:1 remake", there were too many things they wanted to tweak and adjust this time round. The decision to craft a reboot, then, was arrived at—so long as it maintained "the spirit of Shock 1."

Source: PCGamer - http://www.pcgamer.com/system-shock-remake-is-made-for-pc-gamers-first-says-game-director/

It's nice to know that they acknowledge the other platforms, but at the same time they also know that they want to craft the game for their original userbase.

No one here must have ehart of System Shock

Chazore said: No one here must have ehart of System Shock

i guess no one plays great old games anymore..

i would also prefer unity over ue4 and hopefully we'll see SS2 remake

I'd guess it's because most on here haven't played an old PC game like System Shock, let alone care for it. Same goes for Quake as well.

Can't they just launch all version at the same time?

That would entail that they are gimping a version or two by going that route. They want to make sure it runs and works well for PC players, especially when you consider the other two games are PC exclusive. I'd rather it run well on PC first, then they spend the remaining time on scaling it to what current gen can run with, rather than the other way around and gimping the PC version.

Hmmm, I bet it sells more on consoles. Which begs the question, a dev comes out and declares their game is made for a particular audience but yet the game sells better to another audience?

Thats a contradiction if ever I have seen one. If they really wanna be all through and through PC? they should take the star citizen route or shut up.

It should be on PC only. This brilliant game will sell like 3 copies on consoles.

Hopefully they pull it off.

System shock inspired games like Deus Ex and Bioshock, which ended up consolified... And to me, suffered as a result.

You sound like you've not only made a decision that it's definitely going to sell a ton more on consoles, but also asking why don't the devs screw over the other platform instead. I have to ask why even?.

How is it a cotnradiction onto itself when 1) the game hasn't even been released and 2) you're basing it on your own opinion and ignoring long tail sales in favor of the short burst. 

Star Citizen route and shut up?, did that hit a nerve or something, because afaik consoles have their own exclusives and boast about it all the time. I honestly think it's fair for devs to assure PC players that they will be getting a good experience tailored to them.