The pitch document for the game, going by the working title Citadel.
In 1994, System Shock was released for MS-DOS. It was developed by Looking Glass Technologies and published by Origin Systems. During the development of the game, a Sega Genesis port was pitched. The port did not make it past the pitch phase.
Plot[]
In 2072, a hacker is arrested after hacking into the TriOptimum Corporation. He is taken to the infamous Citadel Station, orbiting the planet Saturn. The corrupt CEO of TriOptimum Corporation, Edward Diego, makes an offer to the hacker: remove the ethical constraints of Citadel Station's A.I. "S.H.O.D.A.N." in exchange for a military-grade neural implant and his charges cleared. The hacker agrees, and removes S.H.O.D.A.N.'s ethical constraints. Six months later, when the hacker wakes up after his recovery period, he sees that the A.I. has taken over the space station. It's a first-person fight to the death.
Why It Was Cancelled[]
The Sega Genesis is not powerful enough to run System Shock (without an enhancement chip such as the Sega Virtual Processor). The pitch document acknowledges this, stating that "There's the risk that we can't do anything remotely like a first-person walking around game on the Sega Genesis."
Result[]
System Shock was released for MS-DOS in 1994. No ports of the game ever materialized. In 2015, an enhanced version was released by Nightdive Studios.