Cyberspace Guide - How to Navigate Cyberspace - System Shock [2023] Guide - IGN (2025)

One of the key parts of System Shock's world is Cyberspace. This digital realm can be visited multiple times throughout your adventure, helping you unlock new paths, uncover hidden secrets and pursue main objectives.

However, it can be tricky fully understanding how the Cyberspace sections work, what they unlock and how best to complete them. Below, we'll offer a full Cyberspace guide, giving you some pointers to help navigate this digital matrix.

Cyberspace Guide

If you're looking for a specific part of this walkthrough, browse through each main section using the links below:

Entering Cyberspace

To enter Cyberspace, you'll first need to find a Cyberspace Terminal. You'll often find them in offices or labs. They're attached to walls and look like green hexagons with a giant visor protruding from the centre. A Cyberspace Terminal is shown below.

When you find one, interact with them and The Hacker will look into the visor, cueing a short animation where the player soars through digital space.

The Goal of Cyberspace Exploration

Cyberspace exploration focuses entirely on unlocking doors in the real world. These can lead to objectives, loot or new weapons, so they're worth pursuing. To unlock them, you'll have to fly through Cyberspace and look for brightly coloured crystals that can be detonated when shot.

One of these crystals is shown in the image above. After detonating the crystal, you'll see what it opens, with a small pop-up revealing which door is now unlocked. However, getting to a crystal is much easier said than done. You'll have to battle enemies and stay away from hazards. Once all the crystals in a map are destroyed, you'll have to escape through the green exit portal.

Cyberspace Combat

While exploring Cyberspace, you'll come across a range of enemies that have to be vanquished to progress. Luckily, you'll have a turret that can be used to destroy enemies. To use it, aim at a foe and hold the left mouse button.

Later, enemies will appear covered in ice which makes them invulnerable to cannon fire. To counter this, you'll find a new tool: The Ice Drill. This is a powerful launchable projectile that locks onto and tracks enemies. It'll be able to knock ice off a foe, allowing you to follow up with cannons and destroy them.

Along the route, you'll also find items that can be used from your inventory. These are Decoys, which drop a copy of you that enemies will shoot at and Recall Escapes, which give you the option to leave Cyberspace and return to the real world at any time. You'll also eventually access the Turbo Dash feature, which allows you to move faster while holding SHIFT.

Cyberspace Enemies

While your early adventures into the digital matrix will see you counter weaker enemies, the later terminals will pit you against some of Cyberspace's nastier viruses. Let's quickly run through each of the enemies you'll run into while exploring.

Cyber-Dog - A small blue grunt enemy. It goes down in a few hits and shoots you with basic projectiles. In a pack, they can be intimidating, but alone they're easy pickings.

Cyber-Guard - The standard enemy you'll face in Cyberspace, this pink menace will fire projectiles across the map. It's not too hard to kill and goes down quickly.

Cyber-Stinger - A small green wasp-like enemy that's tricky to hit and can inflict tons of damage from far away. Be sure to close the distance so they're easy to destroy.

Cyber-Dog V2 - A more powerful version of the Cyber-Dog. It gets in close and lunges at you, doing huge damage if it connects. Use the Turbo Dash to stay away from these digital monsters.

Cyber-Bully - A purple launcher bot that stays immobile and fires saw blades from afar. The blades can be shot out of the air, although this enemy is tough, so you'll have to keep firing to take it down.

Cortex Reaver - An orange octopus hologram that fires a beam at you. Stay behind cover when it appears and take it down with your lasers.

Landmines - A blue and red mine that causes damage when it's hit. These are easy to avoid when navigating normal cyberspace but become much more tricky when you're travelling through a slipstream.