Displaying items by tag: Looking Glass Studios

Long, long ago in a development studio far away there was a concept for a game where the protagonist was something more than just another boss to beat. In 1994 LookingGlass studios launched the game System Shock. It was a 1st person shooter game where you take the role of a “hacker” onboard a space station in 2072. Your nemesis, a malevolent AI called SHODAN. The game was a critical success although it lost money for LookingGlass. System Shock also changed the genre of first-person shooters with its innovative style, story line and, of course, SHODAN.

One sad thing about the gaming world is the far too many great development studios seem to fade away and be absorbed by the big companies. If you look at the past we can see this repeated over and over again. One of the most recent to be assimilated is Irrational Games. This dev house was, in many ways, the spiritual successor of Looking Glass Studios who was responsible for the original System Shock and Thief. These two games gave us entirely new ways to move through a game world and have been the inspiration for a number of games since then.

Why do the really great game development companies seem to disappear? If you have been around for a while you might remember a game development company by the name of Looking Glass Studios. This company is responsible for titles like Thief: the Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age and System Shock 1 and 2. These games were amazing for their time (and still are today) with concepts that brought about a new thought process in what a first person game could be.

Those of us who are fans of the now gone Looking Glass Studios have always enjoyed the fact that some of their legacy of creative games has lived on in titles like Bioshock  (which has been described as a tribute to the System Shock titles), but while we have had a legacy for their first person thriller/shooter we have always had a large hole in their first person sneaker title Thief. This amazing game, for those that do not know, required more cunning and stealth than a willingness to run head first into a room, guns blazing. However, perhaps our long (over 10 years) wait is almost over as a new trailer for the follow on Thief title, Thief – Out of the Shadows, has surfaced.

In more software news it looks like the eagerly anticipate release of Bioshock Infinite is going to be pushed back a few months. Originally the game was meant to launch in October, but now has been pushed back to late February 2013. This delay has gotten some annoyed while others appear to welcome it, if it means a better game.