Playing Cyberculture. The Case of System Shock 2

Abstract

[EN] This article presents System Shock 2 (Irrational Games/Looking Glass, 1999) as an under-exam-ined cyberpunk videogame from the late Nineties that inherits key traits of cyberculture in order to under-stand its place within this form of digital culture that shaped the technological imaginary of the millenni-um’s last decade. The first part of the study introduces the cyberpunk aesthetic as the most recognizable form of nineties cyberculture, which is the form of digital culture that interfaced between the users and digital technologies, and situates System Shock 2 as one of its matured versions. The second part exam-ines this game to determine how it presents cyberpunk tropes and topics such as hackers, godlike Artifi-cial Intelligences, and especially cyberspace. Cyberspace is treated as a particularly relevant case insofar as this videogame displays an interactive version of this notion, providing a complementary experience to those offered by novels and movies.