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Nightdive Studios recently acquired the publishing rights to the original SiN game and wow did they make great use of the acquisition. The studio just re-released this old-school sci-fi shooter on both Steam and GOG with a wide array of improvements and fixes. It's listed as SiN: Gold and everything you're about to see is a prelude to a potential full remastering of the game from Nightdive. This release should be a free upgrade for those who owned the original release of SiN.
SiN has you playing as one Colonel John R. Blade, the head of a private protection agency in the city of Freeport. You're going up against Elexis Sinclaire, the CEO of SinTEK Industries. She hates you, she hates the security industry, and she's trying to take over the world with genetically-engineered mutants. This game came out way back in late 1998, but thanks to Nightdive's efforts, there are some nice improvements that allow it to shine on modern technology.
The new update, detailed below, seems to be just the beginning. Nightdive is apparently working on a full remaster of SiN that will run on its Kex Engine. That same engine was also used for Forsaken Remastered and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. Full details on the scope of the remaster have not yet been revealed. Hopefully today's update to the game will be enough to hold fans over until the remaster is ready.
Do note that SiN and this release of SiN: Gold are not the same as SiN Episodes from Ritual Entertainment. SiN Episodes was set to be an episodic game release, but only the first episode, Emergence, was released. In 2007, shortly after the release of Emergence, Ritual was bought out by casual developer MumboJumbo and all development on SiN Episodes was canceled. Ritual Entertainment was also responsible for making the original SiN, which is what Nightdive re-released today.
It's still incredibly upsetting that we never got another episode for SiN Episodes. The first one was actually a ton of fun to play. I'm not sure if Nightdive also owns the rights to SiN Episodes, but maybe there's still a bit of hope left that we'll see more some day.
Anyway, here is today's changelog for SiN Gold.
Features
- Added 2015's "Wages of SiN" expansion
- Added modernized Steam master server support
- Added and restored editing SDK
- Added support for additional 16:9 video resolutions
- Restored/uncensored various original game assets
- Optimizations to math, container types, and search algorithms
- Restored support for *.sin pack files, re-packed assets
- Removed obsolete IPX networking support
- Restored original sound and music engine
- Changed video format to open-source/patent-free OGV/Theora
- Fixed crash in Docks cinematic
- Fixed incorrect behavior in Thug AI
- Fixed undefined camera position and occasional crash in Wages of SiN ending cinematic
- r_palettemode cvar for software mode now reads and writes correct configuration variable
- Fixed memory corruption issue during multiplayer initialization
- cl_maxfps default changed to 200 to avoid issues with game running too fast
- Repaired issue with extremely loud sounds on menu screens when FPS is too high
- Fixed possible soft lock when using menu hotkeys while inside an in-game computer console
- Restored missing assets for Beecadrone enemy
I've always considered trying to play it, but its reputation for being buggy and kinda comic book-ish aesthetic put me off, but now's the perfect time to pick it up.
My first time with the franchise was with Emergence and I really liked it.
I should finish my playthrough of SiN Gold (GoG version). I love how this game has branching pathways, or effects from your actions in previous levels, so it's taking me a while to explore and find the best outcome.