Fleshy architecture has been a popular choice for developers looking to create uncomfortably squishy levels, but the original team behind System Shock 2–Looking Glass–might have taken things a little too far back in the ’90s. According to System Shock 2 artist Nate Wells, the structures inhabited by the hostile aliens known as The Many had a surprising origin, as the art assets included photos of another developer’s colonoscopy.
“When we were working on The Many, if you remember, it has this very biological vibe to it,” Wells said to Nightdive’s Locke Vincent in the studio’s Deep Dive podcast (via PC Gamer). It’s this fleshy mass that has taken over the Rickenbacker. We did these things called ‘sphincter doors,’ this sphincter that opens up. I was making the doors and doing the concept. I think I was searching through some gross biological [images], like endoscopy sort of stuff. [Looking Glass producer] Josh Randall approached me and said he had a video of his colonoscopy.”
Wells said that Randall gave him images from his colonoscopy video, and he used a frozen frame “from somewhere in his large intestine” to create a base texture for the sphincter doors in the game. “If you look at those doors, you’re seeing Josh Randall’s colon–audio genius Josh Randall’s colon,” Wells said.
The rest was history, as System Shock 2 garnered plenty of high praise when it was released in 1999, with most people none the wiser about having explored the inner workings of the human body while fighting a killer worms-like species–years before the Planet Express crew did so in an episode of Futurama.
System Shock 2’s 25th-anniversary remaster recently launched for PC, and after a slight delay, it landed on consoles in July. The project proved to be a labor of love for Nightdive Studios after it was first announced in 2019, as the studio didn’t have access to the game’s complete source code and it had to piece everything back together with some “extensive” reverse-engineering.