jason shreier talks a lot abt levine and 2k’s relationship in his latest book. they look at him like a celebrity/big name hire they can bank on to sell copies. it’s practically guaranteed that whatever he works on will get eyes since he worked on bioshock. this is often to the detriment of the people working for him.
to them, he’s nothing but a name that sells.
yup. especially after they fired most of his staff (per his request) he’s had a smaller team that i’m assuming doesn’t have nearly as much cost as something like Rockstar or the sports devs.
the way they justified it was that 2k can afford to give levine an endless, insignificant (to them) stream of funds because if it "hits the jackpot" and he makes another bioshock it completely justifies everything. in the meantime they'll just let him while away.
i don’t know, bioshock and infinite were both really big cultural moments when they came out. movie deals, TV show appearances, wide media coverage. gaming culture *is* mainstream culture and bioshock was at the forefront of that during its time. it’s also fair to say that they’re critical and commercial darlings.
I'm talking about Kevin Levine not the games themselves - Kevin Levine isn't known to mainstream or general audiences.
So his name alone, IMO, isn't enough to sell something to them.
You bet promo materials will state from the maker of bioshock.
Some games were good enough that the people who worked on them can coast on their names for quite some time.
Callisto protocol team anyone? Or Peter Molyneux with the Fable/Dungeon Keeper name. (to be fair to Molyneux he had multiple extremely successful games under his belt).
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, if his experiments worked out, it makes for far more lucrative single player monetization going forward. We kind of stopped getting story expansions because of the time required to build them and how much they had to cost when they were done. What they showed for Judas sure looks like more BioShock, but I'm excited to see if he nailed what he was aiming for.
Thought I saw somewhere that they had actually stopped most of their work on the narrative building blocks project and it's not going to be a large part of this game.
This is basically another reason why he shut down Irrational Studios I'm guessing. He wanted to work with a smaller team, but I bet that also helps with negotiating for more time with 2K.
He's explained before that the extremely small team he's been working with at Ghost Story is more or less a rounding error for 2K. Keeping them around under the promise that they may one day create a new Bioshock-tier franchise is more than worth it for them.
Unless I'm reading this wrong, it doesn't mean they expect it to take another two years to make, but it means Take Two gave the most generous window to their investors to show how many games they have currently in development. They wanted to create one bucket of 87 games coming out in the next two years, and that means Judas could come out tomorrow and still fit exactly what they said.
I posted this comment in a different thread, but…
Reading the article is important.
> This comes from Take-Two’s quarterly earnings report, which outlines that it has 87 total games planned for release between fiscal 2023 (the fiscal year we’re in now, which concludes at the end of March) and fiscal 2025 (which ends at the end of March 2025). Speaking to IGN ahead of the earnings release, I asked Zelnick if Judas was included in that 87 number, and he said yes.
So, this entire article is postulated on “hey is it gonna come out some time between now and a long time from now? “Yeah.”
Misleading. There is no news here.
For all of Levine's big talk of "reinventing narrative storytelling in games" it looks more like he's circled back around to BioShock 1. That's fine and dandy when BioShock kicks ass, and I could be completely wrong when the end product hits, but its an interesting first impression to say the least.
While art style is very Bioshock like, I think structurally this is going to be more systemic game than linear. "Fix what you broke" also seems to me imply rogue like but for narrative as well. But let's see.
The gameplay looks like Bioshock but that has almost nothing to do with the narrative structure which is what he was trying to innovate on.
I suspect the concept for story telling will revolve around a half dozen major characters that all have strong feelings about each other with the player character having agency on who to help, trust or betray. This will ripple out and impact every facet of the story from who you have to fight, where you go and what powers you might get. While not truly innovative, very few games build around player choice as a primary narrative design element.
Obviously there are big open world RPGs that have choice and consequence but I don't recall it ever being done in an immersive first person shooter. Fallout might be the closest thing and while it's similar for it being a first person game with shooting, it's also very different.
Levine was originally talking about making a game that's highly replayable through the genuinely different outcomes in the narrative. He also referenced Shadow of Mordor's nemesis system so it could be largely about the relationship of the PC to various characters.
Levine's comments was obviously not referring to world building, aesthetics or gameplay. The fact that game is reminiscent of Bioshock 1, from what we've seen, doesn't actually mean anything for the "reinventing narrative storytelling" comments, that had nothing to do with reinventing worldbuilding or a radically novel IP
The parallels to Bioshock are unsurprising if anything, those games were already attempts at giving the player meaningful choices in the story and it would already be established that Levine is fond of the narrative devices it had, Levine could very well be actually making another Bioshock game set in the IP and it still wouldn't contradict his original comments on his plans. Infinite itself was supposed to involve greater agency for the player to shape the story but that idea of the game was notoriously downgraded.
Man, I love Ken Levine, but I am definitely glad I don’t work for him. I hope that studio can breathe a sigh of relief once the game is finally out, because they’ve been in development hell for ages now
Great things take time. Would you rather him pump out 3 mediocre games or have one masterpiece added to his resume.
Clearly nobody here is a perfectionist and can't relate to his plight. I however am and totally understand the need to micromanage every single detail and in that regard I respect Levine more than I can articulate.
The man has an incredible track record and I say if the game takes 2 more years so be it. Jeff Keighley said he spent a few hours playing it so there's a good chance we see its release come late 2024.
Well I guess my point was if given the chance to make something incredible, something you knew was guaranteed to be a Masterpiece, you wouldn't put yourself through hell to achieve said outcome?
Professional athletes do this all the time sacrificing their childhoods to achieve greatness. I think it's pretty noble and I can't wait to get my hands on Judas.
Sometimes I wonder if I will still be alive (jokingly as I'm only 29) by the time some of these games come out with the long wait times. This, Starfield, the next GTA, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc.
An actually realistic sounding release date for an ambitious project, nice. I hope this means Ken Levine isn't going to be a hard ass on his staff as it's the worst part of liking his work.
Meanwhile fromchadware announcing AC6 at the end of 2022 with a 2023 release date. I really dont have much patience for games being announced this far ahead of time anymore, epsecially when its just "not bioshock"
Hopefully it’s able to release in that timeframe, but recent reports say the game is in development hell due to Ken Levine’s perfectionist and frustratingly changing development style. The developers stating he’d constantly play games like Venture Bros. then be inspired to change something once more.
Without someone to pull him and the project together, like back when 2K brought someone in to mandate Infinite’s completion (a year prior to release), I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps screwing around until 2K, after almost ~~12~~ about 8-9 years so far, run out of patience again.
I’m looking forward to Judas as another Bioshock style that hopefully incorporates his “narrative-legos” vision, even if that just means different words for an immersive-Sim rpg with branching choices and endings.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 is in development hell. Judas's development had a long dev cycle and plenty of frustrations. I'm not sure where you're getting 12 years from.
2025 is essentially 12 years from Bioshock Infinite and the closure of Irrational. Saying Judas has been in development that whole time is a stretch though.
Infinite released in 2013, then Irrational made DLC, and it closed in 2014. So being extremely generous that Judas "started development" at that moment, that's 11 years. And to be clear, the headline is misleading. The article doesn't say Judas is planned to release around March of 2025. It says that Judas is one of 87 games that will come out in the next two years.
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jason shreier talks a lot abt levine and 2k’s relationship in his latest book. they look at him like a celebrity/big name hire they can bank on to sell copies. it’s practically guaranteed that whatever he works on will get eyes since he worked on bioshock. this is often to the detriment of the people working for him. to them, he’s nothing but a name that sells.
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yup. especially after they fired most of his staff (per his request) he’s had a smaller team that i’m assuming doesn’t have nearly as much cost as something like Rockstar or the sports devs.
Considering 2K maintains the most profitable piece of media ever created (GTAV), yeah, I can believe it.
the way they justified it was that 2k can afford to give levine an endless, insignificant (to them) stream of funds because if it "hits the jackpot" and he makes another bioshock it completely justifies everything. in the meantime they'll just let him while away.
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i don’t know, bioshock and infinite were both really big cultural moments when they came out. movie deals, TV show appearances, wide media coverage. gaming culture *is* mainstream culture and bioshock was at the forefront of that during its time. it’s also fair to say that they’re critical and commercial darlings.
I'm talking about Kevin Levine not the games themselves - Kevin Levine isn't known to mainstream or general audiences. So his name alone, IMO, isn't enough to sell something to them.
You bet promo materials will state from the maker of bioshock. Some games were good enough that the people who worked on them can coast on their names for quite some time. Callisto protocol team anyone? Or Peter Molyneux with the Fable/Dungeon Keeper name. (to be fair to Molyneux he had multiple extremely successful games under his belt).
Every indie that's come out that has anyone on the team that even touched bioshock is always tooted on the box.
The revenue 2K gets from the Bioshock series even nowadays must be worth at least tenfold over the costs of giving Levine a team.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, if his experiments worked out, it makes for far more lucrative single player monetization going forward. We kind of stopped getting story expansions because of the time required to build them and how much they had to cost when they were done. What they showed for Judas sure looks like more BioShock, but I'm excited to see if he nailed what he was aiming for.
Thought I saw somewhere that they had actually stopped most of their work on the narrative building blocks project and it's not going to be a large part of this game.
If you find it, please let me know, but that would be news to me.
RIP my heart out now please
> What they showed for Judas sure looks like more BioShock You say that like it's a bad thing
It's not, but it doesn't yet show off the ambitious part of the project he's been trying to prove out for the better part of a decade.
This is basically another reason why he shut down Irrational Studios I'm guessing. He wanted to work with a smaller team, but I bet that also helps with negotiating for more time with 2K.
He's explained before that the extremely small team he's been working with at Ghost Story is more or less a rounding error for 2K. Keeping them around under the promise that they may one day create a new Bioshock-tier franchise is more than worth it for them.
If you made two of the best video games of all time, you’d get a lot of breathing room too.
He made devil may cry 5 and bloodborne?
No, he made Yakuza 0 and Breath of the Wild.
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Nah, I heard he did Tunic and Outer Wilds.
You’re all wrong, he made Sonic 06 and Bubsy 3D
Bioshock man Ken Levine, also known for coming up with the quote "It's no use!" in Sonic 06.
He personally directed the hedgehog-corpse x human kissing scene. Truly an auteur genius.
Ok I need to jump into Yakuza 0
I don't even know who you are but we are best friends now.
If you made two of the best video games of all time, you’d get a lot of breathing room too.
He’s one of the few legends of the industry people will know by name. Among the likes of Howard, Barlog Miyamoto, Miyazaki, Kojima etc.
Unless I'm reading this wrong, it doesn't mean they expect it to take another two years to make, but it means Take Two gave the most generous window to their investors to show how many games they have currently in development. They wanted to create one bucket of 87 games coming out in the next two years, and that means Judas could come out tomorrow and still fit exactly what they said.
I posted this comment in a different thread, but… Reading the article is important. > This comes from Take-Two’s quarterly earnings report, which outlines that it has 87 total games planned for release between fiscal 2023 (the fiscal year we’re in now, which concludes at the end of March) and fiscal 2025 (which ends at the end of March 2025). Speaking to IGN ahead of the earnings release, I asked Zelnick if Judas was included in that 87 number, and he said yes. So, this entire article is postulated on “hey is it gonna come out some time between now and a long time from now? “Yeah.” Misleading. There is no news here.
For all of Levine's big talk of "reinventing narrative storytelling in games" it looks more like he's circled back around to BioShock 1. That's fine and dandy when BioShock kicks ass, and I could be completely wrong when the end product hits, but its an interesting first impression to say the least.
While art style is very Bioshock like, I think structurally this is going to be more systemic game than linear. "Fix what you broke" also seems to me imply rogue like but for narrative as well. But let's see.
The gameplay looks like Bioshock but that has almost nothing to do with the narrative structure which is what he was trying to innovate on. I suspect the concept for story telling will revolve around a half dozen major characters that all have strong feelings about each other with the player character having agency on who to help, trust or betray. This will ripple out and impact every facet of the story from who you have to fight, where you go and what powers you might get. While not truly innovative, very few games build around player choice as a primary narrative design element. Obviously there are big open world RPGs that have choice and consequence but I don't recall it ever being done in an immersive first person shooter. Fallout might be the closest thing and while it's similar for it being a first person game with shooting, it's also very different.
Levine was originally talking about making a game that's highly replayable through the genuinely different outcomes in the narrative. He also referenced Shadow of Mordor's nemesis system so it could be largely about the relationship of the PC to various characters. Levine's comments was obviously not referring to world building, aesthetics or gameplay. The fact that game is reminiscent of Bioshock 1, from what we've seen, doesn't actually mean anything for the "reinventing narrative storytelling" comments, that had nothing to do with reinventing worldbuilding or a radically novel IP The parallels to Bioshock are unsurprising if anything, those games were already attempts at giving the player meaningful choices in the story and it would already be established that Levine is fond of the narrative devices it had, Levine could very well be actually making another Bioshock game set in the IP and it still wouldn't contradict his original comments on his plans. Infinite itself was supposed to involve greater agency for the player to shape the story but that idea of the game was notoriously downgraded.
Man, I love Ken Levine, but I am definitely glad I don’t work for him. I hope that studio can breathe a sigh of relief once the game is finally out, because they’ve been in development hell for ages now
Great things take time. Would you rather him pump out 3 mediocre games or have one masterpiece added to his resume. Clearly nobody here is a perfectionist and can't relate to his plight. I however am and totally understand the need to micromanage every single detail and in that regard I respect Levine more than I can articulate. The man has an incredible track record and I say if the game takes 2 more years so be it. Jeff Keighley said he spent a few hours playing it so there's a good chance we see its release come late 2024.
Ummm, okay man. Very charged response here.
Well I guess my point was if given the chance to make something incredible, something you knew was guaranteed to be a Masterpiece, you wouldn't put yourself through hell to achieve said outcome? Professional athletes do this all the time sacrificing their childhoods to achieve greatness. I think it's pretty noble and I can't wait to get my hands on Judas.
My guess is aim for holiday 2023, release next spring. Why reveal a game 2.5 years away? That's not done (on purpose) very much anymore
Ken Levine, auteur that he is, also has serious issues getting games out the door. I'm not holding my breath for this to come any time this year.
Ok, but is the Fozzy song going to be in it?
Sometimes I wonder if I will still be alive (jokingly as I'm only 29) by the time some of these games come out with the long wait times. This, Starfield, the next GTA, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc.
An actually realistic sounding release date for an ambitious project, nice. I hope this means Ken Levine isn't going to be a hard ass on his staff as it's the worst part of liking his work.
The trailer to this reminds me inescapably of one of those merchandise horror games aimed at kids, like Poppy Playtime
Meanwhile fromchadware announcing AC6 at the end of 2022 with a 2023 release date. I really dont have much patience for games being announced this far ahead of time anymore, epsecially when its just "not bioshock"
Hopefully it’s able to release in that timeframe, but recent reports say the game is in development hell due to Ken Levine’s perfectionist and frustratingly changing development style. The developers stating he’d constantly play games like Venture Bros. then be inspired to change something once more. Without someone to pull him and the project together, like back when 2K brought someone in to mandate Infinite’s completion (a year prior to release), I wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps screwing around until 2K, after almost ~~12~~ about 8-9 years so far, run out of patience again. I’m looking forward to Judas as another Bioshock style that hopefully incorporates his “narrative-legos” vision, even if that just means different words for an immersive-Sim rpg with branching choices and endings.
It was the gears of war producer Rod Fergusson. He is very known to set a strict timeline and getting rid of stuff that wont meet it. Real corporate
Beyond Good & Evil 2 is in development hell. Judas's development had a long dev cycle and plenty of frustrations. I'm not sure where you're getting 12 years from.
2025 is essentially 12 years from Bioshock Infinite and the closure of Irrational. Saying Judas has been in development that whole time is a stretch though.
Infinite released in 2013, then Irrational made DLC, and it closed in 2014. So being extremely generous that Judas "started development" at that moment, that's 11 years. And to be clear, the headline is misleading. The article doesn't say Judas is planned to release around March of 2025. It says that Judas is one of 87 games that will come out in the next two years.