Nightdive's SiN remaster just dropped a new gameplay trailer and a Steam demo

Nightdive Studios has released a new gameplay trailer for its upcoming SiN remaster, along with a surprise playable demo that is currently available on Steam.

The project updates Ritual Entertainment's 1998 shooter and its Wages of SiN expansion. Nightdive originally announced the remaster in 2020 before pausing development to finish the System Shock remake. The studio re-revealed the game earlier this year. The new trailer provides a close look at how the KEX Engine handles the late-90s source material.

Bad timing in 1998

Launching a first-person shooter in November 1998 was a tough break. SiN hit store shelves just ten days before Valve released Half-Life. The resulting shift in the industry left Ritual's game largely overshadowed. It also suffered from a rushed development cycle. Ritual switched from the original Quake engine to the Quake II engine just months before launch. The resulting bugs required a massive 30MB patch. That was a brutal download size for dial-up internet users at the time.

The original game pushed its engine hard regardless of the rushed schedule. It included interactive DOS-style computer terminals and drivable vehicles. Players could even shoot weapons directly out of enemy hands. The story follows Colonel John R. Blade. He is a security consultant fighting a biotechnology megacorporation run by Doctor Elexis Sinclaire. The campaign actually includes branching paths. Destroying certain objects or failing specific objectives changes the layout of future levels.

SiN was Ritual's first full release after developing a mission pack for the original Quake. The studio would later go on to build Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2 and Star Trek: Elite Force II. The remaster preserves their original level design while overhauling the controls for modern gamepads and keyboards. The package also includes the Wages of SiN expansion pack. This extra campaign follows up the main story with a new mafia boss antagonist and a fresh set of mutant enemies.

The KEX treatment

The updated version supports 4K resolution at 120 frames per second. Nightdive added new high-definition textures and character models to smooth out the original blocky geometry. The new lighting and particle effects make the explosions pop much more than they did on a 1998 3dfx Voodoo graphics card.

Players who prefer the jagged polygons of the initial release can use a built-in toggle. This instantly swaps the graphics back to the original SiN Gold visuals. This is a standard option in most Nightdive projects, but it works particularly well here given the stark difference between the old and new texture work.

The audio also received a major update. Chris Mock mixed and engineered higher-resolution versions of the original Zak Belica soundtrack. The user interface and 2D menu art have been entirely rebuilt from scratch. Nightdive also tweaked the original map layouts to fix pacing issues and clean up collision geometry.

The demo is limited to PC players on Steam. It gives players a chance to test the modernized controls and see the visual toggle in action before the final release. The full game is scheduled to launch later this year across Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles. It will be interesting to see if SiN can finally find an audience without Gordon Freeman standing in the way.