System Shock TV series: Binge announces live-action show based on video game

Last Updated on October 15, 2021

Night Dive Studios is working on a remake of the 1994 first-person shooter video game System Shock that they plan to bring to PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, and Xbox One, but while fans wait to hear a release date for that game Night Dive is also joining forces with Binge, an upcoming gaming entertainment streaming platform, to make a live-action System Shock TV series.

Deadline offers the reminder that the original System Shock game

plunges players into Citadel Station in the year 2072, where an unnamed hacker wakes from a coma only to be confronted by murderous robots, killer cyborgs, malicious mutants, and a malevolent AI named SHODAN that seeks to control Earth.

Binge’s Chief Content Officer Allan Ungar will be producing the show, with Night Dive’s Stephen Kick and Larry Kuperman serving as executive producers. Kick provided the following statement:

I’ve always believed that a live action adaptation of System Shock would be the perfect medium to retell the harrowing story of Citadel station and its rogue AI that subjects the crew to unimaginable horror. We’re very excited to see the talented team at Binge bring System Shock to life in horrifyingly real and new ways.”

Ungar added:

System Shock is an iconic franchise adored by gamers for more than two decades and a series that helped redefine what it meant to play an FPS. We’re excited to do right by the franchise – and the genre – in bringing System Shock to life. Get ready for SHODAN.”

System Shock was followed by two sequels; 1999’s System Shock 2 and 2015’s System Shock 3. The Wikipedia page notes that the games Deus Ex and BioShock are considered to be “spiritual successors” to the System Shock games… and I have never played any of them, so I don’t know what to expect from this TV show. Maybe a future episode of the Playing with Fear series will give me the lowdown.