The new work of the producer of “Bioshock” just announced by TGA may have been difficult to produce for 8 years

“Judas” needs to be cautiously expected.

Speaking of the term “Ninth Art”, I guess that when many players heard this term for the first time, it was used to describe the game “BioShock: Infinite”.

Colorful pictures, unique art style, melodious and retro music, looping and tortuous narrative methods, these are everyone’s impressions of “BioShock”, calling these characteristics art is actually a bit closer to the previous eight art forms Regardless of the inconsistency of the crown talisman of “The Ninth Art”, it can be said that although its game system is not that brilliant, super-power shooting is actually quite interesting.

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But the development process of such a highly praised work was not easy. Producer Ken Levine (hereinafter referred to as “Ken Levine”) led the development of Irrational Games for six years. It is said that during the development period, “BioShock: Infinite” The plot and gameplay of the game have been overturned and redone many times at the request of Ken Levine, which also led to its development cost reaching a huge $200 million.

This kind of developmental stubbornness and perfectionism made BioShock Infinite possible, but it also seemed to portend its commercial failure as a triple-A game.

“BioShock: Infinite” only sold 4 million copies in one year. Although the results are already considered very good, it still cannot make ends meet for the huge development costs.

It can be said that well-known and well-known game producers like Ken Levin are often the most difficult for large companies to deal with. They are very effective signs, but they are also very effective money-burning machines.

In a difficult decision, 2K, the parent company of Irrational games, decided to let Ken Levine leave, and the IP of “BioShock” was handed over to 2K Marin Division for sequel development.

In 2014, after Ken Levine disbanded Irrational Games, he led the remaining 15 old employees to establish a new studio, Ghost Story Games, with the help of 2K parent company Take-Two.

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The company started with only 16 people, and Ken Levin also said that he hopes to work in a smaller studio, because it will be much less stressful and more conducive to flat communication.

After the establishment of the new studio, they immediately invested in the development of new projects. According to Ken Levine, their future goal is to develop smaller plot-oriented independent games.

Ken Levin also proposed a set of narrative theories specifically for the new project. He said that the design concept of his new work is a kind of “narrative Lego”, which means that as a story-based game, it has a structure that can be continuously combined, so that players can freely create their stories.

Revealed years ago, Ken Levine’s new game is a sci-fi shooter set in a space station ruled by three factions. Based on the preview on this year’s TGA, the new work that fits these descriptions is undoubtedly “Judas”.

The game was originally expected to be released in 2017, but the development of this work has not surprisingly fallen into a typical “Ken Levine” situation.

According to reporter Jason Schreier, the development of Ghost Story Games’ new game has fallen into a “development hell”.

Jason said that the new work has undergone multiple restarts and changes in development direction, and during this lengthy process, half of the studio’s original staff have left.

According to Mike Snight, one of the former studio founders, Ken Levine often had disputes with other creative staff, and even personally reprimanded developers who did not meet his development expectations. Ken Levin has an almost paranoid creative requirement. He often asks developers to change or give up months of hard work and achievements in order to complete new ideas.

Mike said: “When a project keeps looping and it doesn’t align with your original idea, you can get a little bit tired. This creative process stops me from really enjoying it.”

In a report by Bloomberg, the departing employees also said that while the studio is now small, Ken Levine wanted to create triple-A games.

Until 2016, Ghost Story expanded to about 30 people. Two employees recalled an early version of the project in 2016 and said that this version had a very complicated dialogue system that would change according to the player’s choices, which required a lot of scripting, and it was impossible for 30 people to be released in 2017 It was completed within one year, so the project was postponed again.

These employees said that although they never worked overtime, and their work tasks often had no definite deadlines, they were generally relatively relaxed, but this often caused some management confusion, and delays were almost inevitable.

Take-Two also gave them a considerable degree of development freedom on this project. Since the studio is not large in scale, Take-Two is willing to invest in them for a long time.

Moreover, Ken Levine is responsible for directly reporting the development progress to Take-Two’s top management. The top management believes that he will eventually deliver something valuable, and may become Take-Two’s next big IP.

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In these respects, Ken Levine is more of an artist who is good at creating and polishing content than a producer who manages projects.

Ken Levin talked about his creative philosophy in an interview with the game media GameIndustry.

He emphasized: “As a writer, I agree with one sentence: writing is constantly rewriting. It is a luxury in the game industry to be able to do this, but I am lucky that I can insist on this luxury.”

He also explained the outside world’s doubts about him: “I think the advantage of my creation is that I can say no and deny bad things, so that I can create good works. This may give people an impression of indecision. I Totally understand why people feel that way. But for me, I don’t know another way to create.”

Ken Levine also generously admitted his shortcomings in interpersonal communication: “When I enter the creative state, I will be in a state of high anxiety, I may be very irritable, and get angry with the people around me. Let the engine cool down for a while.”

While Ken Levine admits to his various flaws, he also believes that art is often created by people who embrace the “weird part” of themselves, “sometimes you have to get past that point and do something outrageous and ridiculous, and then Pull it back, or you won’t know where that boundary is.”

When asked how to strike a balance between creativity and efficiency in game development, Ken Levine said: “It’s a tough balance. Being given an infinite amount of time to make a game can be dangerous, and it leads to Kind of paralyzing. I understand that I’m also responsible for ensuring the financial health of the company… so I do wear a bit of a producer hat. But I also know that it’s not worth it if the production isn’t good. You think you can mitigate that by standards to save money, when in fact the opposite is true and you’re not saving any money, you’re losing a lot of money.”

In fact, from Ken Levin’s past excellent game works such as “System Shock 2”, “Thief” and “BioShock” series, we can fully see his implementation of this creative concept, which is probably why these works can last forever. The reason why it is new and still missed by players.

Although Ken Levin has high requirements for the quality of the project, it has been eight years since the new project was established in 2014. During this period, there has been no news of new works, which is still worrying. Not to mention the various twists and turns that have gone through it, people doubt whether the quality of the new work “Judas” meets the expectations of players, and can break through or at least continue the quality of “Bioshock”.

But at least one piece of good news is that the work of “Judas” should not be far away from meeting players. Because Ken Levine also said in an interview that it is a mistake to show a project too early. He does not want a long-term publicity for the new work, which will make players feel unreal, so he will release it when it is close to the release. Start promoting this title.

He also mentioned with some regret that he thought that Irrational Games made such a mistake in the promotion of “BioShock: Infinite”. The announcement was too hasty, which led to the exhaustion of people’s patience later. This may also be due to the lower than expected sales one of the reasons.

From this point of view, “Judas” should have been finished, just waiting for the release date to be announced.

epilogue

Although players are very excited about the announcement of Ken Levin and Ghost Story Games’ new work “Judas”, they are looking forward to whether this “spiritual sequel” of “Bioshock” can regain the crown of the ninth art and continue the “Bioshock” belt. It moved the players, but judging from its production process, I can’t help but say a word of cautious expectation. I just hope that “Judas” will not fall into the dilemma of “BioShock” because of the long delay in the early stage and the rush to work in the later stage, resulting in Meiyu ultimately has many flaws.

Then again, even if “Judas” inevitably has many flaws because of this, but if Ken Levine can also implement his core creative concept of “questioning perfection by creating perfection” this time, then I think this work will be worse. It won’t be too bad either.

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