Starbreeze AB, an independent creator, publisher and distributor of high quality entertainment products, has signed a publishing agreement with Otherside Entertainment regarding the game System Shock 3. Starbreeze will invest $12 million to bring the game to PC and other platforms.

System Shock 3 – The latest in the series of landmark, award-winning games from Otherside Entertainment is in development under the direction of industry legend Warren Spector and a dream team behind such ground breaking games including the original System Shock & System Shock 2, as well as Thief: The Dark Project and Deus Ex.

“System Shock is one of those iconic franchises in the history of games that still gets my blood going and Mr. Spector is one of the founding fathers of the modern action RPG” said Bo Andersson-Klint, Starbreeze CEO. “We’re greatly looking forward to bringing System Shock 3 to players world wide in our collaboration with Otherside Entertainment and Warren Spector’s team.  I’ll be first in line to play”.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Starbreeze for System Shock 3,” said OtherSide’s CEO Paul Neurath. They truly get games and gamers, and have been able to translate that understanding into a robust publishing business, and build thriving gaming communities around their franchises.”

Starbreeze will be able to recoup 120% of its full investment including marketing costs. Starbreeze share of revenues will become 50% after the investment is recouped. Otherside Entertainement will retain 100% of the intellectual property relating to System Shock 3.

The $12 million investment from Starbreeze means that we will almost assuredly not be seeing a Kickstarter campaign launched for System Shock 3. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; the sum of money Starbreeze is offering is substantially more than would likely result from a crowdfunding effort. The question, I suppose, is whether OtherSide will be afforded a reasonable amount of time to complete work on the game…

(Hat tip: Infinitron Dragon)