Warren Spector, who is known for his work on Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Deus Ex, has joined OtherSide Entertainment as a studio director.
The news was announced in a press release by OtherSide, which is currently producing System Shock 3 and Underworld Ascendant. The studio was founded by Paul Neurath, who worked with Spector on Ultima Underworld, an RPG series.
Spector, after working on Epic Mickey back in 2013, has been teaching film classes at the University of Texas at Austin and created the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy, post-graduate program for video game development. In an quote given to gamesindustry.biz, Spector explained:
I’ve loved working with students as Director of the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy in the University of Texas’ Moody College of Communication. But when the opportunity to have a bigger role in bringing Underworld Ascendant to life, as well as playing in the System Shock universe once again, helping to bring these games to a 21st century audience, I just couldn’t say no. Working on System Shock was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done in my career and it’s hard to describe how much I’m looking forward to sharing with players what SHODAN has been up to since the last game was released.
Spector will join OtherSide full-time once this semester ends – he has been serving as a creative advisor to the company ever since its inception.
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, released in 1992, was a first-person RPG that takes place within an underground cave system holding the remnants of a failed utopia. It is considered the first RPG to show first-person action in a 3D environment, and was a critical and commercial success.
System Shock was originally released in 1994 as a first-person action RPG, where the player assumes the role of a nameless hacker and must fight an A.I. named SHODAN. The game was released to critical success, but was ultimately a commercial loss. Deus Ex, another action RPG, released in 2000, is considered the spiritual successor to the game, and Bioshock shows signs of creative influence as well.