Trivia / System Shock 2

• Acting for Two: Terri Brosius provided her voice to both SHODAN and Dr. Marie Delacroix.
• Contest Winner Cameo: The audio logs of Norris are voiced by a System Shock fan who won the contest.
• Dummied Out: A number of minigames, still functional if summoned via console.
• Executive Meddling: A positive one. See What Could Have Been down below.
• Real-Life Relative: SHODAN is voiced by Terri Brosius, wife of Eric Brosius, who served as sound engineer and composer. Both were too Looking Glass employees at the time.
• Science Marches On: There is an audio log from a doctor remonstrating with a nurse who claimed to have seen a monkey sign the passcode to a supply closet to another monkey, who then proceeded to open it. The doctor confidently states that "there have been literally tens of thousands of studies of primate intelligence, and there is no evidence of behavior even remotely that sophisticated." Since the release of System Shock 2, there have been a lot of studies of primate intelligence that displayed, if not this exact behavior, similarly sophisticated behavior.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: The ending cutscene came out of miscommunications between Ken Levine and the cutscene artists, who had not used the script written for the ending. Due to time constraints, the cutscene could not be redone and parts of the game were hastily rewritten to account for the differences.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: System Shock 2 was one of the most requested releases at GOG.com. Unfortunately, due to Looking Glass Studios' assets being acquired by Meadowbrook Insurance Group after they closed down and EA holding the trademark of the System Shock name, it took until February of 2013 for Nightdive to get the rights to re-release it.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The game did not start as a System Shock sequel, actually - it was none other than EA who, when Looking Glass pitched the idea to them, said to make it into a sequel to System Shock.
  • A cut log would have explained the extreme rate of weapon degradation as a corrosive gas unleashed by the Many that affected mechanical objects but not organic material, making firearms far more unreliable. The developers expressed regret at cutting this log, feeling that the complaints against the weapon degradation mechanic would have been much softer had an in-game justification been provided.
  • A zero-gravity level was considered, with the player going from the Von Braun to The Rickenbacker by making their way across the exterior of both ships. It was deemed far too complicated with the technology available at the time and was cut.
  • Visceral Games were originally planning on making a System Shock 3 before the release of Resident Evil 4 inspired them to retool the game, turning it into Dead Space.
  • The dynamic sound system (in regards to how music would be determined and played) present in the first game was originally going to be included in the sequel. However, due to a number of complaints about the way the soundtrack was handled in the first game, and the fact that players were unaware of this feature, the developers cut it entirely.

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