The RPG aspects of the game allow the player to take up bonuses in a field, such as hacking, weaponry, or mental powers, but numerous other skills can be discovered or earned throughout the game. They are a soldier and start the game choosing a specialty with which to defend themselves. To this end, the player has their own means as well. The only live link the player has is the voice of a supposed survivor to guide them through the chaos. Most of the ships inhabitants have either died or been mutated into horrific creators or cyborg hybrids of man and machine, while the robotic and defensive elements of the ship have turned against any living thing that crosses them. The ship has been taking over by virulent lifeforms that showcase a hive-mind intelligence, known as The Many. It begins with the player taking on the role of a soldier who is awakened aboard an enormous spaceship in the midst of a devastating crisis. In fact, much of System Shock 2 hosts many notable building blocks that would come to appear in the future star series of Irrational Games in both gaming and story. This kind of twist in video games was practically unheard of at the time and would become a foreshadowing of Levine’s later work on the Bioshock series. He wanted a twist that not only targeted the outrage of characters, but the player as well.

The desire for this came out of Levine’s exhaustion with games that coddle the player’s trust and characters that revolve around that trust. In charge of working SHODAN into the game, he wanted the player to team with SHODAN only to be led astray and eventually and harmfully betrayed by the malevolent, sentient program.

Ken Levine, renowned for creating interesting content and story in his games, was already pushing for divisive change as early as System Shock 2.

Bioshock sequel to system shock