History VideoGame / SystemShock

* EnemyScan: There is a targeting software which gave information on the enemy. Its upgrades include enemy health bars and your weapon's damage approximations.

* BodyHorror: Between the grotesque mutants and the horrific cyborgs there’s plenty to go around. Notable mentions include Inviso-Mutants, a product of SHODAN's bio-virus that mutates human victims to invisible, stingray-like beings; Cortex Reavers, arachnid-like robots whose intelligence is powered by a mutilated human puppet hopelessly wagging around.

** The implant's startup screen in the remake names it "Looking Glass" model, after the developer of the original game.

* CallForward: The virus mutants now have tumors and worm-like growths similar to [[VideoGame/SystemShock2 the Hybrids]] some forty years in the future

* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: The final boss will automatically kill you if you take too long to kill it. The problem is that the rate at which this time goes down is tied to your CPU speed. Modern CPU's are exponentially faster than CPU's of the time the game was made were. This makes the battle impossible to complete in the time given. You'll have to limit your emulator's (the game only runs on DOS, unlikely to be natively installed on a modern machine) CPU speed to have any chance at it. The Enhanced Edition usually fixes this, but if it doesn't work, enabling VSYNC in the options will generally do the trick.

* MythologyGag: In the remake the hallucinations you get as a side effect of using the Berserk Patch are blurry ghostly enemy sprites from the original game appearing around you.

** While enemy respawns from the original are back in the remake, there is either a set limit to the number of respawns or they stop as you reduce the security level. This means if you need to go back to an earlier floor to retrieve something you left behind, you're not wasting precious ammo fighting through an area you've already cleared.

** The remake adds more forgiving resurrection rules. In the original, if you die on a floor without activating its restoration chamber (or if it doesn't have one), it's game over. In the remake, you simply go back to the restoration chamber of the ''closest'' floor you activated it on, except in special circumstances like boss fights or in the groves, where death is still a game over.

* EvilInc: Surprisingly, [=TriOptimum=] Corporation is an [[AvertedTrope aversion]]. Although it's indirectly responsible for all bad things happening in the series (since they've created SHODAN [[spoiler:and, by extension, The Many]]), it is never portrayed as downright evil or malicious. It provides two [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corrupt Corporate Executives]] who serve as TheDragon in each game -- Edward Diego in [=SS=] and Anatoly Korenchkin in [=SS2=] -- but they are universally disliked by other executives, their heinous actions are against official corporate policy, and the former is even facing investigation even ''before'' the mess he makes with SHODAN. Moreover, many high ranked [=TriOptimum=] employees in both games are unambiguously good guys, trying to resolve the whole crisis and aiding you in your actions.

* ForTheEvulz: Why does SHODAN want to kill humanity? Their fleshiness disgusts her. She could do much better with the same resources.

* HyperspaceArsenal: Played with. You can only carry 8 weapons and 16 items, but you can carry an effectively unlimited amount of ammunition, grenades/explosives, and stimulant patches. The limit is actually the amount available in the game: there's no functional limit in the game, or if there is, you're unlikely to hit it.

* HeroicMime: The Hacker never speaks, to the extent that in the remake a note-to-self at the beginning of the game was changed to being a log by the Citadel medical staff instead. Granted, almost all the dialogue in the game is either from audio logs, or transmissions from MissionControl or a megalomaniacal A.I. who are both explicitly talking ''at'' you, rather than ''with'' you.

* ShotForShotRemake: The 2022 remake isn't ''quite'' this, as it does change things up somewhat in terms of mechanics and enemy behavior, but it is still remarkably faithful to the original in terms of level layout and overall design, so much so that old walkthroughs of the original game are still 90%-95% accurate when applied to the remake.

** The remake adds more forgiving resurrection rules. In the original, if you die on a floor without activating its restoration chamber (or if it doesn't have one), it's game over. In the remake, you simply go back to the restoration chamber of the ''closest'' floor you activated it on, except in special circumstances like the first cortex reaver fight, where death is still a game over.

* {{Cyborg}}s: Lots of them on Citadel: cyborg assassins, cyborg warriors, elite cyborgs, flying cyborgs, the always terrifying Cortex Reaver, and of course, you! Considering your military-grade implants recieved in the beggining of the game

* BossBanter: SHODAN constantly mocks you and brags about herself.

* AdaptationalExpansion: The remake adds a playable prologue in which you can explore the Hacker's apartment, and experience firsthand his kidnapping by Trioptimum and coerced deal with Diego. New audio logs were also added in the latter half of the game, mainly in the Executive level, which expand on the game world with an eye towards being more inclusive and reflective of modern audiences.
* AdaptationalExplanation: In the remake you find an audio log which mentions the surprising discovery of a wormhole in nearby space. Most likely this is meant to provide a possible explanation for how the jettisoned garden grove made it to Tau Ceti at seemingly faster-than-light speed for the sequel.

** At the end of the game the Hacker is shown breaking into a [=TetraCorp=] database and uncovering plans for power armor. That is exactly what you pilot in ''Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri'', also developed by Looking Glass.

** At the end of the game the Hacker is shown breaking into a [=TetraCorp=] database and uncovering plans for power armor. That is exactly what you pilot in ''Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri''.