ActionAdventure
System Shock
Give it 15 hours
Gets good by 15h then rated almost like by veterans
Fully opens up by 20h rated like by long-time players
Reach the ending 18% of players who started
Started playing 90% of owners
Steam reviews 90% positive of 13,100
What the data shows
- In the first 2 hours 1 in 4 reviews are negative (28%); after 20h it's 1 in 19 (5%).
- Fully opens up by hour 20.
- 18% of players who start reach the ending.
- The biggest drop-off is between “Through The Looking Glass” (Exit the Medical Healing Suites) and “Decrypted” (Destroy the Medical CPU Nodes): from 100% to 56% of starters.
- 90% of owners got the first achievement.
When it gets good
Share of positive reviews by how many hours the reviewer had played when writing the review.
before it gets good opening up fully opened up
Based on all 13,201 Steam reviews in every language. Median playtime in a sample of 297 reviews: 26.4h for positive, 6.8h for negative. Almost every game is rated lower in the first 2–3 hours: that window includes refunds and quick first impressions. What matters is how deep the dip is and how fast the game recovers.
Where players quit
Share of players who started the game and reached each story milestone. 100% is the most common achievement (89.6% of owners), so people who bought the game and never launched it don't count.
- Started playing 100%
- Through The Looking Glass Exit the Medical Healing Suites 100%
- Decrypted Destroy the Medical CPU Nodes Most players quit here 56% −44
- Override Superposition Disable the Safety Override for the Mining Laser 31% −25
- Thermal BOOMing Destroy the Mining Laser 29% −2
- I’ll Be Back Defeat Edward Diego 23% −6
- Anti-Virus Jettison Beta Grove on the Executive level 22% −1
- No Reception Destroy the Antenna Relays on the Systems Engineering level 21% −1
- Can’t Turn Back Now Start the Reactor Self-Destruct Countdown 20% −1
- Edward DIEgo Kill Edward Diego 19% −1
- Look At You, Hacker Complete the game 18% −1
story milestone ending biggest drop-off
Story milestones were labeled by AI from achievement names and descriptions; mistakes are possible.
All achievements (46)
story milestone ending side
- Through The Looking Glass Exit the Medical Healing Suites 100%
- Gut-Wrenching Find the hidden Wrench. This looks familiar… 67%
- Decrypted Destroy the Medical CPU Nodes 56%
- Look At You, Snacker Consume 30 Food and Drink items 44%
- Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb Kill three or more enemies with a single explosive weapon 36%
- En Garde! Acquire a Laser Rapier 36%
- Shields Up! Deploy Isotope X-22 and enable the Radiation Shields 34%
- Supersleuth Discover a Hidden Door 33%
- System Shocked Recharge 20 times at a Power Station 32%
- Override Superposition Disable the Safety Override for the Mining Laser 31%
- Thermal BOOMing Destroy the Mining Laser 29%
- The Longest Jump Jump across the big ramp in the Storage level 29%
- Hacking Skillz Solve 15 Circuit or Wire Panels without using a Logic Probe 23%
- I’ll Be Back Defeat Edward Diego 23%
- Jargon Cypher Replace the Interface Demodulator and fix Subsystem Relay 428 22%
- Anti-Virus Jettison Beta Grove on the Executive level 22%
- No Reception Destroy the Antenna Relays on the Systems Engineering level 21%
- Can’t Turn Back Now Start the Reactor Self-Destruct Countdown 20%
- Edward DIEgo Kill Edward Diego 19%
- The Key To Vector Sigma Use the Isolinear Chipset 18%
- Look At You, Hacker Complete the game 18%
- Get Ahead Defeat all of the Cortex Reavers on Citadel Station 17%
- En Passant Solve the Chess Puzzle in Delta Grove 16%
- Maxed Out Find the final version of all Hardware Attachments 16%
- Déjà Vu Defeat Edward Diego while en route to the Life Pods 16%
- Hacker? You Hardly Know’er! Destroy the Cyber Core in each Cyberspace level 14%
- Load ‘em Up! Buy 10 Ammo Items from Ammo Depots 13%
- Garbage Collection Salvage 100 Junk Items at Salvage Stations 13%
- All Patched Up Use every type of Dermal Patch 11%
- Enjoy Your Purchase Buy a Grenade from a Vending Machine 10%
- It’s Over. Defeat SHODAN 9.9%
- This Is My Boomstick! Discover all firearms 9.6%
- Asunder The Influence Kill 10 enemies while under the effects of the Berserk Combat Booster 7.7%
- Finish Him! Kill Edward Diego with the Laser Rapier 6.8%
- Off The Grid Destroy all of SHODAN’s cameras and CPU Nodes 5.1%
- In the Not Too Distant Future Find the hidden Audio Log 4.6%
- Goldberg’s Ricochet Kill an enemy by bouncing a shot from the Ion Rifle 4.0%
- TV Dinner Kill an enemy with an Overhead Monitor 4.0%
- Neon Annihilation Kill two or more enemies with a single Plasma Core 3.9%
- Not Even My Final Form Find and install every Weapon Modkit 3.1%
- Head Hunter Find Skully, the Nightdive skull, on every level 2.9%
- Remote Control Hack 20 enemies which have been acquired by the Target ID Hardware 2.3%
- Zapper Kill two or more enemies with a single Railgun Projectile 2.3%
- The Inside Scoop Find all Audio Logs and Data Sticks on Citadel Station 1.7%
- Don’t Forget To Salt The Fries Complete the game on the highest difficulties 1.0%
- I’ll See You Again, Hacker Collect all other Achievements 0.8%
Steam page Updated: 2026-10-18.