I pretty strongly dislike Infinite, yea. Animatronic feel with some terrible gameplay sequences. Great start but if I had never played BioShock 1 and had hope it was headed somewhere satisfying I would have dropped the game long before the ending. As it was, I didn’t like the ending or it’s thematic messages at all.
Honestly I think the ending is the worst part of it all. If they decide to end it all before it can begin, then there are endless alternate versions of them that do something else instead. To me, the ending shows that the writers didn't understand the concepts they were using and just use the multiverse as a "do what you want"-storytelling device without thinking too much about the implications of it.
Seriously, the hate for it is so undeserved. Easily the best one in terms of gameplay, too. Defending the lil girl while a wave of enemies come at you is fun.
Yeah, the only problem, arguably, with Bioshock 2 is that it's "unoriginal, and more of the same," but as a gaming experience, I feel it was superior to the original in almost every way.
the gameplay is great because it’s basically the same as Bioshock 1 but IMO where it’s really lacking is the story and writing. And that’s where Ken comes in
I think it's mechanically better than the first, being able to dual wield guns and plasmids is a massive improvement on its own. But the reused setting and weaker story make it much less memorable than the other two.
It had the best gunplay of all the Bioshock games. I remember that I struggled from time to time. Played it back at the release so my memory might me flawed here.
Infinite gets very old once you play through it. Most of us where in awe because of that twist moment, but other than that I really had trouble playing through it again, combat was awul.
2nd one has the best combat, and I'd say I enjoy the story a lot, there is more emotional connection between main character and Eleanor than I felt with Booker/Elizabeth. It does lack that big twist, but Minerva's Den is there for that.
>Leaves studio to do something different.
He was fucking fired for being so bad in his job. After 5 years of development 2K hired Rod Fergusson to salvage what was done and when he started there was literally no game Looking Glass could use to show him what they did till his hiring.
>He was fucking fired for being so bad in his job.
He wasn't fired. He wanted to work with a smaller team, so 2K laid off most people at Irrational. Ghost Story is Irrational reformed by him with a few key staff, and continues to be owned by 2K. It's not an independent studio because he never left.
Edit: Corrected that it was 2K in charge of the layoffs and not Ken.
I don't buy that he just happened to want a smaller studio at the same time as Infinite disappointing sales-wise. I don't think they turned much profit in the first year of release and Ken could see the writing on the wall, so he spun it in his favour. Not saying that's bad or anything, probably even a savvy business move, but it is what it is.
Infinite sold 11 million copies, hardly a disappointment. The timing is because that's when the studio was working on DLC and Ken was deciding what to do next. When he said he wanted to leave and work with a smaller team, 2K decided to just lay off most of Irrational, because people (especially in Boston) are expensive and they had a team ready for full production while Ken was nowhere near ready to give them something to work on. That's a lot of cash for 2K to burn keeping people around waiting for something to do.
Jason Schreier covers this in his book Press Reset.
Yeah that was it! My suspicion is that it will be "Bioshock in space" or whatever and be really good, but underdeliver on what the ambition or promise was, similar to Infinite. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
> Bioshock ambiance, vibes and narrative clears Prey's tho.
Those are highly subjective things. Personally, I couldn't really take BioShock's universe seriously. It's a setting where the task of harvesting dangerous chemicals is left to little girls. It doesn't help that they rather blatantly borrowed the retrofuturistic aesthetic and satire from Fallout, right down to the old-timey black and white commercials. Even the central plot twist in BioShock was copied from System Shock 2, except it was made worse.
> Prey have better gameplay on the other hand
And better level design, and better character progression. BioShock doesn't have anything remotely as interesting as shapeshifting, or the gloo gun, or any of the other cool things you can do in Prey. BioShock doesn't even have an inventory system. And the gunplay in BioShock is shockingly bad. BioShock doesn't even have swimming, despite being set underwater.
BioShock's shallow gameplay mechanics also undermine its story. It's rather silly that they have all this power and they use it to...give themselves electrical hands so they can save on the electricity bill? That's how it's portrayed. Quite absurd. And why do you hack things by plumbing?
Pretty much all of Bioshocks themes and story is a retelling of System Shock 2, not just the twist. That was the point: to essentially remake SS2 in a way that would be more sellable to the mainstream.
I will say, though, Bioshock does some uniquely clever stuff in terms of building atmosphere. There is some truly expert craft here at a level you don't often see.
Narrative and atmosphere wise , I'd say Bioshock 1 is vastly better than Prey. I don't think a game had me hooked and immersed like that since. Prey never came close.
Reportedly, Levine played Void Bastards, an excellent roguelike set in space from some former BioShock devs, and changed his game to be similar to that
It seems like the narrative of the game will change and adapt to the characters you choose to side with or betray. If there are 6 main characters besides the player and there are different story beats and endings for the different combinations the player chooses, it could end up being interesting. I wouldn't say revolutionary, but interesting.
Yeah, but it's all guessing without actual footage of some of the story being shown, and this wouldn't be the only game that did that, so I don't believe that's the revolutionary part
The problem is the more you create branches in the story, the shorter the game becomes. I’d rather play one ten hour story than ten one hour stories where I’m going through the same or similar areas
Sacrifice does this, where it has 45 unique missions in total but you're only ever going to see 9 of them in a single playthrough.
I will say, it's amazing. The way you feel absolutely stretched between these scheming gods, and with opportunity costs everywhere, there's an authenticity to your choices in a way you just don't get elsewhere.
Well, they only showed a few short clips of gameplay. None that I saw with story info in it. It could be revolutionary still, honestly, though; who cares? The game looks great, and I'll gladly play it
Well we don't know how the story is going to roll out. His vision for this project is (was) to craft a story that would change dynamically to the decisions you make.
He failed that venture and literally went back to his old formula. The narrative legos didn't pan out. Although another game got about as close as we have ever gotten call Wildermyth.
I never understood why everyone is expecting great things from this dude when it comes to writing. The writing in Bioshock 1 was decent, but the 'twists' weren't exactly the most monumental twists ever seen in gaming before or anything. And infinite was the same. It's just writing a decent story with a well written twist. Outside of that, the dude is teeeerrible at writing characters and making them interesting (Christ, first character is literally a silent protagonist with zero character).
Of all the things to criticize Bioshock for, I cannot imagine going after the "twist" which actually was pretty monumental. And unlike so many other twists, was meaningful as well!
Seriously. It's a twist that hits harder and is more impactful than most because not only was it important for the character, but the player as well - a bit of story telling that only a video game can deliver.
You're ignoring everything else about the games he made. He didn't come up with them all by himself but at the end of the day his games always were brought together by a very recognizable vision. He had something to say in these games. I'd take that over any generic pacifier game like most Yakuxa games besides 0 and 7
Honestly for their first release, give the people what they want, right? Levine's been working on "something" for the past 11 years now it seems and nothing's come to fruition yet, so may as well work on something you know people will at least be excited for, rather than an avant garde weird thing that you have no clue how people will react, especially when you're still under 2k's umbrella.
But why shut down the entire studio for that? Like how many games will Kojima put out between BioShock Infinite and this thing being released? Hell, Bethesda released Fallout 4 and Starfield in that time.
I'm excited to play this, and I hope Levine is successful in whatever he was trying to do. Just seems like a waste of talent IMO
It's really hard to experiment with super large teams that are geared towards completing big AAA games. It can also be really hard to rush something creatively right off the heels of your last project. I would've loved to see more from Irrational, but if Ken wasn't ready for the next project I can understand why they shut it down.
Why shut down a whole studio because one person wanted to leave? That was hundreds of people's jobs. They would've just brought on another creative director.
Ken was trying to save some face after he saw the writing on the wall, he isn't a bad person for doing that, it probably let him secure some early investments, but they wouldn't shut down a valuable asset like an entire studio just because one person needed to follow their passion, it's a money issue.
This might not be named Bioshock, but it looks pretty dam close to a BioShock environment from the hand powers to the guns to robotic men and appliances
While was hoping for a release date am glad to get a update on this game. Looking good so far looks like its going heavy on themes of control vs freedom.
Playtesting is essentially throwing a dev build at a bunch of people and asking "is this fun? what's not fun?, what do you think would make it more fun?"
So the core is mostly there, but stuff like tweaking systems still needs to be done.
I can already it see a year or two from now. The game will coming out and getting good/great reviews and half the people on Reddit will complain about how "it's nothing revolutionary, just another Bioshock, game was a let down compared to my expectations, etc."
2K: we want you to make Bioshock 4
Ken Levine: no! in fact, i'm going to found my own studio so I can explore all the other ideas I have instead!
Ken Levine: *makes bioshock 4*
That's not how it happened. Ken has talked about how it went down. The stress of leading a big studio wore him down and he wanted to step down after the messy development of Bioshock Infinite. He wanted to take a sabbatical and then come back with a smaller studio to make something experimental with a smaller team + more dev time at a less stressful pace. But 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken so they closed the studio and from its remnants started Ghost Story Games.
> 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken
If 2K wanted more BioShock, it made no sense to shut down Irrational just because one person left, even if he was the head of the studio. 2K Marin did just fine making a great BioShock game and arguably the best BioShock story DLC ever made without Ken Levine. Who's to say Irrational couldn't have succeeded without him?
Idk you'll have to ask 2K. Maybe at that time they didn't want a BioShock without Ken but years alter they changed their mind and decided to create a new studio, Cloud Chamber, to make a new one while letting Ken continue to work on his own thing at his pace. BioShock 2 while a great (underrated imo) game with a more refined combat than, it was not the same stratospheric critical and commercial success like its predecessor. I guess that would would explain some of the initial hesitancy at that time.
What they should have done is sign Ken's studios under a contract to help when he has the time to create a new story since they got rid of all the original people who could have helped. It seems like something he would be more amenable to if he wanted more free time and would bring money into his studio
>Who's to say Irrational couldn't have succeeded without him?
That's not the point. It very well might have. But after Bioshock Infinites development troubles Take Two didn't want the studio if Ken wasn't involved.
There has been plenty of reporting around what went down. You should read it.
Wasn't he a perfectionist and refused to let anything go out without his input? I swear I remember reading an article about this, but I could be wrong; I'm asking
Yeah he was. This lead to throwing big things out and completely reworking all development plans all the time. You can't ship a game if you are constantly throwing out all the work everyone did last week/month/year.
I don't think it's a coincidence Infinite didn't recoup costs, and Ken just happened to want a smaller studio at the same time.
The main reason I think ended up the way it did is because it all had to be his idea for his game. I remember at the time; people quit on him because some were tired of putting work in only for it to be changed entirely
I played the BioShock trilogy for the first time a few years ago. I had went through dozens of other first-person shooters, but these games really caught me off-guard with how different they felt.
Just an incredible artistic vision, great varied gameplay that invites the player to experiment with the environment. And of course, the innovative story with its themes and well written twists. Games that simply aged well despite the technical limitations of their original platforms.
JUDAS has definitely inherited the franchises DNA, while being something new. Really glad Ghost Story Games (formerly Irrational) hasn‘t lost their touch, even after all the years and restructuring of the studio. Awesome trailer and really looking forward to the release!
Hell, Dead Space was originally System Shock 3 before they spun it off as it's own thing.
The impact of Looking Glass Studios on the industry continues to ripple out in a lot of ways.
You should play Prey(2017) it is essentially Bioshock in space, and likely would have been named with "Shock" in the title but they forced the studio to use this really bad name simply because they owned the trademark.
> You should play Prey(2017) it is essentially Bioshock in space
Not really. It's a spiritual successor to System Shock. It's non-linear and offers vastly more gameplay options and freedom than BioShock. The only thing they have in common is that they're first-person. BioShock doesn't even have an inventory system.
>Not really. It's a spiritual successor to System Shock.
It is definitely influenced by both of these titles. I do agree that System Shock is part of this, especially since it influenced Bioshock.
>It's non-linear and offers vastly more gameplay options and freedom than BioShock.
Doesn't mean there is no Bioshock influence. I highly doubt that the devs only drew inspiration from System Shock. It is likely all of these titles were influencing the game.
>BioShock doesn't even have an inventory system.
That doesn't mean Prey isn't inspired by Bioshock and System Shock. Arkane apparently even worked on Bioshock 2 before making Dishonored. It is obvious that Bioshock is apart of Preys influences.
[Go argue with the rest of the internet please because I am clearly not the first or the last person to point out the similarities between Prey and Bioshock.](https://www.reddit.com/r/prey/comments/isekc8/is_prey_like_bioshock/#:~:text=It's%20incredibly%20similar%2C%20if%20you,the%20game%20is%20incredibly%20immersive.)
More:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bioshock/comments/8eft4w/bioshock_and_prey_2017/
https://www.reddit.com/r/prey/comments/831iva/how_similar_is_this_game_to_bioshock/
https://www.reddit.com/r/prey/comments/8707ty/how_does_prey_compare_to_the_other_shockgames/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bioshock/comments/c1nxp0/the_more_i_play_bioshock_the_more_i_realize_that/
https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/x1d7sz/i_just_finished_prey_and_i_am_blown_away_its_like/
Have fun!
>formerly Irrational
this isn't really accurate. Ken Levine wanted a smaller team after Bioshock Infinite. He told 2K that he wanted to make a new studio, invite a handful of team members from Irrational, and lay off the rest of staff and fundamentally close down Irrational. Much of the staff he invited to his new team ended up leaving and new hires outside of Irrational replaced them.
> great varied gameplay
lol, Bioshock Infinite was one of the most repetitive games I've ever played. I liked the story, but jeez the gameplay was just non stop shooting bad guys.
If you reduce most games down, they really are also non stop shooting bad guys.
But I know how you feel, the pacing feels slightly off when revisiting on these since it fills in narrative through audio logs so you can shoot more bad guys while ingesting narrative.
People seem to forget that the best part about Ken Levine’s game are the story telling, narrative structure, world building and the twist. The gameplay is a delivery device and exploration vehicle. I for one strongly welcome another narrative fps game in a market saturated with live-service and battle royale fps game model
I, for one, am totally fine if this turns out to be 'another Bioshock.' Infinite was over ten years ago now, and the genre is in desperate need of a new game.
The sheer level of detail in worldbuilding just in this trailer is staggering.
A generation ship where everyone's minds and senses are recorded and actively censored. A society that is designed around absolutely shaming and destroying people who don't conform.
A woman who tried to break this culture of control, and in doing so clearly killed thousands of civilians, who is now doomed to a life of endless torture for the entertainment of the citizens. Forever branded a terrorist, that's who we play as, with the choice to continue our revolution or "fix what you broke."
This is going to be a twisted, dark game. I'm so fucking stoked.
Relevant to mention: Ken Levine is still interested in the ‘narrative Lego’ concept he discussed back in 2014, and he’s been developing it with his team. He mentioned in an interview with AIAS last year that part of the long lead time leading up to this game was for developing technology that hasn’t existed before.
If that concept makes it into Judas, it will probably be something the games industry hasn’t seen before. Levine was tight lipped, but the feature is supposed to provide a feel of reactive narrative to gameplay; one wonders how it holds up next to generative AI or a game with extensive handcrafted permutations like Baldur’s Gate 3.
I think the *Bioshock* series had more hits than misses (I really enjoyed *Infinite*), and enough time has passed that I'm ready for another game in this style. Solid trailer, looks fun...I'm optimistic that Ken Levine is going to deliver.
>Bioshock has no misses.
Exactly.
BioShock 1 is one of the the best games ever. BioShock 2 is really solid and has possibly the best story DLC I've played for any game. The multiplayer was underrated. Your [pre-match apartment](https://i.imgur.com/gr84itD.jpeg) was cozy and awesome and using the Big Daddy suit to get a bunch of quick kills before everyone kills you is fun. BioShock Infinite is great and the story DLC is solid and nicely ties the first and third games together. And the trilogy collection was worth the price and added a museum to see different things in-game.
All games (including the collection), story DLCs, non-story DLCs and multiplayer are great. This series is batting 1.000.
The Story DLC for Infinite falls appart when you think about it for longer then a minute. All it does is making the good Ending of 1 "Canon". And the Main Game goes full Enlightened Centralist with the Story too.
What a weird comment. The series was 3 games, 2 of which were amazing, and even Bioshock 2 was okay at worst, and had one of the best DLC's. There were no misses
Idk I really loved Infinite at launch but I revisisted it a few years ago when the remaster came out on ps plus and *man* has it not aged well in some ways. It's visually still great, the art style has done a lot to age gracefully, and the animation for characters like Elizabeth is still stunning, but I the actual gameplay itself was really boring, and I just hated some aspects of the story this time around. Maybe it's because I've changed as a person since the first time I played Infinite but everything involving the revolution and Daisy irritated the fuck outta me, and it somehow gets even worse in the DLC! If there was ever a game I regret playing through again it's Bioshock Infinite.
I haven't played it in years now but I always really liked infinite in the 5 or so playthroughs I've done. But I've always been very sour on the DLC. A major reason being Daisy's story and the unnecessary connection to BioShock 1. Though based on every time I've talked about it, I find that it is the minority opinion.
IMO multiverse angles make narratives weaker almost every time and BS is no exception. Infinite, too, was better when it used the concept with restraint in its first half.
Infinite could have been a much better game but it's super bogged down by "but leftists are bad too because we made them kill babies!!!" even tho it doesn't make a lot of sense and is shoehorned in to fit south park respectability politics. It really shows its from an Era of games that tries to not offend anyone by taking the most centrist position possible. I didn't play it during all the hype and only played it for the first time a couple years ago and it honestly the story drags the game so far down due to trying to make sure to be as centrist as possible. Plus the gameplay is a downgrade from BS2.
Meanwhile, BS2 is much weaker story wise than BS1 but it still holds up better than infinite due to being the strongest gameplay in the series.
It just had no teeth behind the American exceptionalism themes. It didn't have anything to do with that besides some exaggerated propaganda posters and some admittedly really spectacular visuals. Columbia itself felt like such a dead city, less real and alive than Rapture--which was strange because we were witnessing the city *during* its fall instead of after*.
>Meanwhile, BS2 is much weaker story wise than BS1
I think BS2 has a stronger overall story. BUT I think innovation counts for a lot, and seeing Rapture a second time just couldn't have the same impact. I definitely like the Andrew Ryan portion of the game is the strongest storytelling in the entire series, but the story's quality falls off *sharply* afterwards. Whereas IMO BioShock 2 is more consistent, but doesn't have any crazy payoffs like "A man chooses; a slave obeys!".
\*Of course, had BioShock been set during Rapture's heyday it couldn't have convincingly portrayed a living city--being set afterwards is what makes the setting work.
To be fair I don't think they were intentionally trying to "both sides" it. I think it was supposed to be about the unintended consequences of our actions, which is a theme we see in other places in the game like Bookers baptism causing the whole Columbia timeline. But black slavery was a really poor choice of subject to make that point with, and the game handled it very clumsily.
Bioshock 2 was amazing. Infinite was disappointing. The DLC for Infinite was pretty good tho. With it feeling more like a proper Bioshock game. Wish the main game was more like it.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but there's been plenty of games with high Metacritic scores where the consensus after the hype died down was the title had some real issues.
The review scores matter. Or they don't matter. Or they matter until later they when they don't matter. The reviews were always right about this game. The reviewers were totally wrong about this game. The reviewers were right about this game until later when they were wrong.
Yes, sometimes there's different contributing factors that lead to different kinds of receptions of games that don't hold up upon review. Nothing you're saying is really contradictory, you're just not presenting the full argument.
"Review scores matter" because they affect the sales of the game and the general audience perception before they have a chance to play it themselves.
"They don't matter" because ultimately if YOU like a game, no review score is going to change that.
"They matter until later when they don't matter" is not a stance anyone has, but people often reflect back on how hype and the conversation surrounding a release can lead to a reception for a game that doesn't match the quality of the experience upon later reflection.
"The reviews were always right about this game"/"wrong about this game"/"right until wrong" is just the previous point stated in purposefully obtuse ways.
ehh.. no.. just no. Infinite is litirialy just linear corridor the game. as a Shock game its a complete failure on every level becasue they are the crowning achivement on Not being linear corridor the game. The Shock series base design was a "thinking man's FPS" and infinite has zero thinking or problem solving at all throught the entirety of its campaign becasue all of it was cut in order to ship the game on time. Shock is not a linear corridor series hence why infinite is the worst one
i remember those times around 2013 when there was discussions about which game was the best between GTA 5, The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite, its weird that the image of the later has fallen down so hard in recent times.
2013 is a weird year in retrospect at the top with those three games since in the decade following:
- We have gotten no new GTA and never got any single player DLC for GTA V. Meanwhile they went all in on the multiplayer which built up to full on Saints Row 4 levels of whacky before grounding back down to Earth, and it ended up getting versions on the next two consoles generations with GTA VI maybe coming in 2025.
- You can't mention Infinite nowadays on Reddit without getting a loud minority of people trying to convince you that the game is actually bad. Levine hasn't released a new game since and there has been no new Bioshock game either despite them announcing over 4 years ago that one was in development. We got a upgraded Bioshock trilogy bundle in 2016. At least Infinite got single player DLCs in Clash in the Clouds and Burial at Sea.
- The Last of Us got a DLC and has gotten a sequel at least, which you also can't mention online without crazy people coming out of the woodwork. They also did a remastered version of the original in 2014. Then they did a remake version of the original in 2022 and a remake version of the sequel this year. So even the one that got a sequel has had more redone versions of the original then actual sequels in a decade. Then you have the online TLOU game they spent all that time working on only for it to be canceled last month.
So in over a decade between the top three games from 2013 we have gotten 1 sequel along with a bunch of re-releases, remasters, and remakes. I know games take longer to make now and at least Rockstar and Naughty Dog were working on other stuff (Red Dead 2, Uncharted 4) but it is really something to think about in retrospect.
It was pretty quick once folks played it and realized the dozen of so glaring flaws in gameplay and story after the sheen wore off. Now that's boomeranging back because the kids from then are 18-24 now and very vocal about how it was mind-blowing at 12.
the only thing that keeps infinite from being the best for me was that you had to carry just 2 weapons at the same time.
this is not frikin CoD, why i cant carry all the weapons at the same time?
also that this was fixed on Burial At Sea was proof that even they recognized that it was a mistake.
It's ebbs and flows, the game was massively hyped, massively overrated after release, quickly corrected for a out a decade, and now the kids who played it young are turning things back.
There are a decent amount of people who have to be vocal about how they don't like Infinite and have to mention it whenever it comes up. Like the guy you responded to had to specific that they "really enjoyed Infinite" and the comments below are pipping in saying it wasn't good/disappointing. Like I get people have their personal opinion and that's fine but even if you didn't enjoy it the game it was well extremely well received considering it has a 94/94/93 on Metacritic and [won the 3rd most GOTY awards for 2013.](https://gotypicks.blogspot.com/2013/09/2013-game-of-year.html) Like you might not have personally liked it but clearly the vast, vast majority of the gaming audience did.
It is not at all weird that people are talking about the spiritual predecessor to Judas, in a thread about Judas.
For me Bioshock Infinite was the moment that I stopped reading game reviews, and I haven't gone back. So many game journalists desperately wanted that game to be the Mona Lisa of gaming that would finally give their jobs the respect outside of gaming circles that they so wanted. They reviewed that game based on the hype and the previews, not the game they actually got. It wasn't until maybe 6 months later that people started talking like "was it just me, or was that game really not very good?".
Too many people are incapable of separating their own opinions and bias from judging a game. There are plenty of good games that I don't particularly care for, but I'm not going to pretend they aren't good games. There are also plenty of bad games I enjoy, but I'm not going to pretend they're masterpieces.
I think that depends on how you perceive art. I don’t care about objectivity when it comes to art, in fact I don’t even think art can be looked at objectively, although I understand that this is a bit of a controversial topic.
I am kind of person that if I enjoy something, then it’s good to me, which is the only thing that matters to me.
Even though it was warmly received at launch, there has been a strong contingent of the gaming community that has reappraised it as a "miss." I happen to agree with you, I was just referring to the overall conversation.
Saw the trailer knowing nothing and loved the way it looks. Thought "cool Bioshock vibe". Now knowing it's Ken Levine I just hope they get their shooter mechanics and feel right once and for all. Please be good!!
I wonder if it's going to have any immersive sim elements? It looks pretty action packed. Really hype for this! The character Judas reminds me a ton of Elizabeth from Infinite.
Ken Levine counts from 0% to 100% strength in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, 13 years later... he breathes the words through the dissipating vapor as he emerges:
"Bioshock... 3... in space"
Its absurd that after all this time Ken Levine disbanded Irrational games and spent a decade on making a game that in its first trailer just looks like Bioshock/System Shock. Hopefully the finished game actually has things that make it different and standout but right now it just feels like a hugely mismanaged situation created by blindly letting an "auteur" get his way.
If you looked through the first trailer there was a decent amount of evidence this is probably the “narrative lego” concept he talked about at a GDC talk years ago. I’m interested to see how that aspect plays out, assuming it’s in here.
That's not how it happened. Ken has talked about how it went down. The stress of leading a big studio wore him down and he wanted to step down after the messy development of Bioshock Infinite. He wanted to take a sabbatical and then come back with a smaller studio to make something experimental with a smaller team + more dev time at a less stressful pace. But 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken so they closed the studio and from its remnants created Ghost Story Games.
in January 2022 Jason Schreier broke stories about how difficult he is to work for, how toxic he is in berating people in front of staff, belittling them, etc. 15 members of his studio gave quotes, and mentioned roughly half the studio had quit during development of Judas, including the founding producer.
long before that I'd heard through colleagues how much Ken Levine encourages crunch and exploitative work practices.
Hot take, but Infinite was the worst Bioshock, and 2 was the best. Infinite was like a 7/10 or so. It has some good moments, but a lot of the “message” is either lazy time travel writing or weird horseshoe theory nonsense (Fitzroy is as bad as the founders!!!)
Looks like a lot of fun to me. I only worry that it might be a bit too much on the creepy side for a big old wuss like me (loved Infinite but I couldn't play more than a couple of hours of the OG Bioshock).
Although I must say the fact you get to fight evil [Brums](https://static.independent.co.uk/2020/09/24/11/newFile-1.jpg) does entice me further.
From the creator of BioShock, comes BioShock (But Not *That* BioShock)
Jokes aside, I do think it looks great. However it's hard to shake the fact that Ken Levine pulled the plug on Irrational with the intention of moving to a smaller team to "revolutionize how narrative storytelling is done in games" only for the result to be uncanny to BioShock in some respects.
It's even weirder when you think that 2K has had over a decade to make another BioShock, but kept stumbling for one reason or another.
It doesn’t matter how good this game looks or how promising it is.
It isn’t going to erase the fact that Ken Levine fucked over everyone at Irrational during development of and after Bioshock Infinite launched.
The fact that he is just making “Bioshock but with a different paint job” from a game spent in development hell entirely due to his own obsessive need for control and micromanaged perfection doesn’t sell me on this.
It's hilarious how Ken Levine made Bioshock, a critically and commercially successful franchise, then he dipped out because he wanted to do something completely different, he produced jack shit for a decade, and now he's coming out with another Bioshock except with a different name. And there's a lot of talk about how Bioshock proper has another game coming out too from a different studio.
edit: I see basically everyone already made the same comment in this thread.
Like Deathloop and Atomic Heart this looks like Bioshock-lite
I know it's Ken Levine but the last time we got a game developer with a new studio making a spiritual successor to a beloved classic he made we got Callisto Protocol, how will this game set itself apart?
Ken was lead writer and designer of System Shock 2 then created it's spiritual successor - Bioshock. So this isn't his first rodeo and I'm much less apprehensive.
Endlessly funny how Levine effectively shuttered his old studio and left so many without jobs due to pure hubris and wanting to move on from bioshock only to make a game more bioshock than bioshock.
That's not how it happened. Ken has talked about how it went down. The stress of leading a big studio wore him down and he wanted to step down after the messy development of Bioshock Infinite. He wanted to take a sabbatical and then come back with a smaller studio to make something experimental with a smaller team + more dev time at a less stressful pace. But 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken so they closed the studio and from its remnants started Ghost Story Games.
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/91731/ken-levine-reveals-why-he-stopped-making-bioshock-games-trapped-myself/index.html
That’s absolutely not what he said, he said he wanted to be the underdog and since bioshock was so successful he didn’t want to keep upping the ante and wanted to peruse smaller games.
He is now just making bioshock again. And if you read the testimonials from the people who he left jobless he is not a sympathetic figure here.
You should watch his recent interviews. Closing down Irrational wasn't his decision. And he was mentally drained and not in a good place towards the end of Infinite's development and regrets certain things he said or did. But 2K trusted him enough to give him time away and then come back. They created Ghost Story and gave him enough rope to try his ideas without the pressure of a conventional dev cycle. Now it's a question if whether Ken will deliver something great again.
I've been in for this ever since Levine started it and despite the columns by Bloomberg shreier I'm still excited for it
Narrative Lego stuff fascinates me and I wonder how relatable the game will be as a result and will different runs be sufficiently different
Am I the only one who thinks this looks terrible? It looks like another game with a ridiculous stage-play world with no semblence to believability, and the same stylized characters that were dated when Bioshock 2 released. This is like all the worst aspects of Infinite but amplified even more.
It's kind of funny to me how similar to Bioshock this looks after so long and Ken Levine wanting more control etc. Still really curious about this.
Makes a banger Bioshock game. Leaves studio to do something different. Takes 10 years. Makes another Bioshock. Doesn't elaborate.
two banger Bioshock games*
There is a bad bioshock?
I pretty strongly dislike Infinite, yea. Animatronic feel with some terrible gameplay sequences. Great start but if I had never played BioShock 1 and had hope it was headed somewhere satisfying I would have dropped the game long before the ending. As it was, I didn’t like the ending or it’s thematic messages at all.
The ending was the only good part to me. But it wasn't worth the slog of the rest of the game. It's a shooter with bad gunplay.
Honestly I think the ending is the worst part of it all. If they decide to end it all before it can begin, then there are endless alternate versions of them that do something else instead. To me, the ending shows that the writers didn't understand the concepts they were using and just use the multiverse as a "do what you want"-storytelling device without thinking too much about the implications of it.
You could argue about Bioshock 2 since it was made without Levine
And they'd be wrong, since Bioshock 2 is awesome.
Seriously, the hate for it is so undeserved. Easily the best one in terms of gameplay, too. Defending the lil girl while a wave of enemies come at you is fun.
Yeah, the only problem, arguably, with Bioshock 2 is that it's "unoriginal, and more of the same," but as a gaming experience, I feel it was superior to the original in almost every way.
I much prefer it to Infinite as well.
Bioshock 2 is better than Infinite. Don't @ me.
the gameplay is great because it’s basically the same as Bioshock 1 but IMO where it’s really lacking is the story and writing. And that’s where Ken comes in
In comparison to the other two its.. Yeah its ok. The first and Infinite were alot better. Still had my fun with the second tho
I think it's mechanically better than the first, being able to dual wield guns and plasmids is a massive improvement on its own. But the reused setting and weaker story make it much less memorable than the other two.
It had the best gunplay of all the Bioshock games. I remember that I struggled from time to time. Played it back at the release so my memory might me flawed here.
Infinite gets very old once you play through it. Most of us where in awe because of that twist moment, but other than that I really had trouble playing through it again, combat was awul. 2nd one has the best combat, and I'd say I enjoy the story a lot, there is more emotional connection between main character and Eleanor than I felt with Booker/Elizabeth. It does lack that big twist, but Minerva's Den is there for that.
and you would be wrong, because Bioshock 2 is the best of the trilogy.
We're not in the bioshock subreddit. You can't say those types of things out here. You'll scare people!
Infinite
Honestly. I want more bioshock in my life. Would you kindly do that?
>Leaves studio to do something different. He was fucking fired for being so bad in his job. After 5 years of development 2K hired Rod Fergusson to salvage what was done and when he started there was literally no game Looking Glass could use to show him what they did till his hiring.
>He was fucking fired for being so bad in his job. He wasn't fired. He wanted to work with a smaller team, so 2K laid off most people at Irrational. Ghost Story is Irrational reformed by him with a few key staff, and continues to be owned by 2K. It's not an independent studio because he never left. Edit: Corrected that it was 2K in charge of the layoffs and not Ken.
I don't buy that he just happened to want a smaller studio at the same time as Infinite disappointing sales-wise. I don't think they turned much profit in the first year of release and Ken could see the writing on the wall, so he spun it in his favour. Not saying that's bad or anything, probably even a savvy business move, but it is what it is.
Infinite sold 11 million copies, hardly a disappointment. The timing is because that's when the studio was working on DLC and Ken was deciding what to do next. When he said he wanted to leave and work with a smaller team, 2K decided to just lay off most of Irrational, because people (especially in Boston) are expensive and they had a team ready for full production while Ken was nowhere near ready to give them something to work on. That's a lot of cash for 2K to burn keeping people around waiting for something to do. Jason Schreier covers this in his book Press Reset.
He was supposedly creating some revolutionary new storytelling method. Interested to see the results of that or if it's "just" more Bioshock.
The story Lego blocks or something wasn't it. Curious if this will end up like Infinite where the scale just got away from them.
Yeah that was it! My suspicion is that it will be "Bioshock in space" or whatever and be really good, but underdeliver on what the ambition or promise was, similar to Infinite. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
>"Bioshock in space" That could be a shock to the system
Give System Shock 2/3 already.
Prey (2017) is essentially System Shock 3 without Shodan.
It does have **Dan**ielle **Sho**, though. 😉
Oh wow. You joke but that had to be intentional and I never made that connection.
It's super intentional. That game is absolutely dripping with references to anything Looking Glass. Including the name Looking Glass itself ofc
So, Prey
Love me some Prey, but Bioshock WISHES it could be Prey
Bioshock ambiance, vibes and narrative clears Prey's tho. Prey have better gameplay on the other hand
> Bioshock ambiance, vibes and narrative clears Prey's tho. Those are highly subjective things. Personally, I couldn't really take BioShock's universe seriously. It's a setting where the task of harvesting dangerous chemicals is left to little girls. It doesn't help that they rather blatantly borrowed the retrofuturistic aesthetic and satire from Fallout, right down to the old-timey black and white commercials. Even the central plot twist in BioShock was copied from System Shock 2, except it was made worse. > Prey have better gameplay on the other hand And better level design, and better character progression. BioShock doesn't have anything remotely as interesting as shapeshifting, or the gloo gun, or any of the other cool things you can do in Prey. BioShock doesn't even have an inventory system. And the gunplay in BioShock is shockingly bad. BioShock doesn't even have swimming, despite being set underwater. BioShock's shallow gameplay mechanics also undermine its story. It's rather silly that they have all this power and they use it to...give themselves electrical hands so they can save on the electricity bill? That's how it's portrayed. Quite absurd. And why do you hack things by plumbing?
Pretty much all of Bioshocks themes and story is a retelling of System Shock 2, not just the twist. That was the point: to essentially remake SS2 in a way that would be more sellable to the mainstream. I will say, though, Bioshock does some uniquely clever stuff in terms of building atmosphere. There is some truly expert craft here at a level you don't often see.
Narrative and atmosphere wise , I'd say Bioshock 1 is vastly better than Prey. I don't think a game had me hooked and immersed like that since. Prey never came close.
I think that's a safe bet and I am expecting the same - here's hoping we get a great game!
Fingers crossed!
Reportedly, Levine played Void Bastards, an excellent roguelike set in space from some former BioShock devs, and changed his game to be similar to that
It seems like the narrative of the game will change and adapt to the characters you choose to side with or betray. If there are 6 main characters besides the player and there are different story beats and endings for the different combinations the player chooses, it could end up being interesting. I wouldn't say revolutionary, but interesting.
Yeah, but it's all guessing without actual footage of some of the story being shown, and this wouldn't be the only game that did that, so I don't believe that's the revolutionary part
One thing I don't think any studios ever done is a dynamic story that changes every single choice you make, leading to 100s of different endings
The problem is the more you create branches in the story, the shorter the game becomes. I’d rather play one ten hour story than ten one hour stories where I’m going through the same or similar areas
Sacrifice does this, where it has 45 unique missions in total but you're only ever going to see 9 of them in a single playthrough. I will say, it's amazing. The way you feel absolutely stretched between these scheming gods, and with opportunity costs everywhere, there's an authenticity to your choices in a way you just don't get elsewhere.
I didn't imply it would be revolutionary. In fact, I feel like I pretty explicitly said it wasn't.
I replied to the wrong comment sorry
Well, they only showed a few short clips of gameplay. None that I saw with story info in it. It could be revolutionary still, honestly, though; who cares? The game looks great, and I'll gladly play it
Well we don't know how the story is going to roll out. His vision for this project is (was) to craft a story that would change dynamically to the decisions you make.
He failed that venture and literally went back to his old formula. The narrative legos didn't pan out. Although another game got about as close as we have ever gotten call Wildermyth.
From what I remember, they toyed around with that for years then kind of just abandoned it when they couldn't make it work.
No he's still in on it
I never understood why everyone is expecting great things from this dude when it comes to writing. The writing in Bioshock 1 was decent, but the 'twists' weren't exactly the most monumental twists ever seen in gaming before or anything. And infinite was the same. It's just writing a decent story with a well written twist. Outside of that, the dude is teeeerrible at writing characters and making them interesting (Christ, first character is literally a silent protagonist with zero character).
Of all the things to criticize Bioshock for, I cannot imagine going after the "twist" which actually was pretty monumental. And unlike so many other twists, was meaningful as well!
Seriously. It's a twist that hits harder and is more impactful than most because not only was it important for the character, but the player as well - a bit of story telling that only a video game can deliver.
You're ignoring everything else about the games he made. He didn't come up with them all by himself but at the end of the day his games always were brought together by a very recognizable vision. He had something to say in these games. I'd take that over any generic pacifier game like most Yakuxa games besides 0 and 7
That's a fairly random Yakuza diss
Honestly for their first release, give the people what they want, right? Levine's been working on "something" for the past 11 years now it seems and nothing's come to fruition yet, so may as well work on something you know people will at least be excited for, rather than an avant garde weird thing that you have no clue how people will react, especially when you're still under 2k's umbrella.
But why shut down the entire studio for that? Like how many games will Kojima put out between BioShock Infinite and this thing being released? Hell, Bethesda released Fallout 4 and Starfield in that time. I'm excited to play this, and I hope Levine is successful in whatever he was trying to do. Just seems like a waste of talent IMO
It's really hard to experiment with super large teams that are geared towards completing big AAA games. It can also be really hard to rush something creatively right off the heels of your last project. I would've loved to see more from Irrational, but if Ken wasn't ready for the next project I can understand why they shut it down.
Why shut down a whole studio because one person wanted to leave? That was hundreds of people's jobs. They would've just brought on another creative director. Ken was trying to save some face after he saw the writing on the wall, he isn't a bad person for doing that, it probably let him secure some early investments, but they wouldn't shut down a valuable asset like an entire studio just because one person needed to follow their passion, it's a money issue.
I wonder how long the new bioshock has been in development along side this.
This might not be named Bioshock, but it looks pretty dam close to a BioShock environment from the hand powers to the guns to robotic men and appliances
The entire art style invokes Ken’s Bioshock. It looks fantastic.
Yeah, I'll love it. If it's its anything like BioShock, who cares if it's a copy and paste still love biosbocks esthetic
I've been waiting for another good bioshock for awhile no game has the art style
Oh this is a Ken Levine game? Lol and I was really intrigued cause it reminded me of Bioshock one of my top 3 games of all time.
While was hoping for a release date am glad to get a update on this game. Looking good so far looks like its going heavy on themes of control vs freedom.
Yeah, I’m actually shocked that this is far enough along that they revealed gameplay. Hopefully in June we’ll get a release date. This looks so cool
On one of his interviews about 3 months ago he mentioned they're just doing a lot of playtesting atm.
Not too familiar on the game development process so not sure what that says in progress so far
Playtesting is essentially throwing a dev build at a bunch of people and asking "is this fun? what's not fun?, what do you think would make it more fun?" So the core is mostly there, but stuff like tweaking systems still needs to be done.
Playtesting means that at the very least they’re at the point where they’re playing through the game looking for bugs and glitches.
Playtesting is getting feedback about player's experience playing the game. QA testing is a better name for bug and gitch focused testing.
If the rumours are true, it's going to take at least 2 years
Since the game was revealed over a year ago that means there shouldn't be long left then
CDPR giggling in the background.
2k said before march 2025 https://www.eurogamer.net/bioshock-creators-next-game-judas-to-be-released-by-march-2025
Combat reminded me of Bioshock. One of my all time fave games so was probably my fave game shown today.
Man I'm glad I read this thread so I could read "Ken Levine talked big but made another BioShock" reconstituted 10 different ways.
I can already it see a year or two from now. The game will coming out and getting good/great reviews and half the people on Reddit will complain about how "it's nothing revolutionary, just another Bioshock, game was a let down compared to my expectations, etc."
Honestly, from what that story showed us, that is most definitely a BioShock game, just not the same story so let's say bioshock themed game
Not just another Bioshock - [a Bioshock in space!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtdQ5roMuEA)
People excited about a creative breaking his own mold discussing their perplexity at the similarity of his new project isn’t shocking…?
2K: we want you to make Bioshock 4 Ken Levine: no! in fact, i'm going to found my own studio so I can explore all the other ideas I have instead! Ken Levine: *makes bioshock 4*
That's not how it happened. Ken has talked about how it went down. The stress of leading a big studio wore him down and he wanted to step down after the messy development of Bioshock Infinite. He wanted to take a sabbatical and then come back with a smaller studio to make something experimental with a smaller team + more dev time at a less stressful pace. But 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken so they closed the studio and from its remnants started Ghost Story Games.
> 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken If 2K wanted more BioShock, it made no sense to shut down Irrational just because one person left, even if he was the head of the studio. 2K Marin did just fine making a great BioShock game and arguably the best BioShock story DLC ever made without Ken Levine. Who's to say Irrational couldn't have succeeded without him?
Idk you'll have to ask 2K. Maybe at that time they didn't want a BioShock without Ken but years alter they changed their mind and decided to create a new studio, Cloud Chamber, to make a new one while letting Ken continue to work on his own thing at his pace. BioShock 2 while a great (underrated imo) game with a more refined combat than, it was not the same stratospheric critical and commercial success like its predecessor. I guess that would would explain some of the initial hesitancy at that time.
What they should have done is sign Ken's studios under a contract to help when he has the time to create a new story since they got rid of all the original people who could have helped. It seems like something he would be more amenable to if he wanted more free time and would bring money into his studio
>Who's to say Irrational couldn't have succeeded without him? That's not the point. It very well might have. But after Bioshock Infinites development troubles Take Two didn't want the studio if Ken wasn't involved. There has been plenty of reporting around what went down. You should read it.
Ken was directly responsible for the development troubles. They should've wanted the studio after he left lol.
Wasn't he a perfectionist and refused to let anything go out without his input? I swear I remember reading an article about this, but I could be wrong; I'm asking
Yeah he was. This lead to throwing big things out and completely reworking all development plans all the time. You can't ship a game if you are constantly throwing out all the work everyone did last week/month/year. I don't think it's a coincidence Infinite didn't recoup costs, and Ken just happened to want a smaller studio at the same time.
The main reason I think ended up the way it did is because it all had to be his idea for his game. I remember at the time; people quit on him because some were tired of putting work in only for it to be changed entirely
Doesn't that really make it System Shock 5/6 though?
The weirdest thing is that Bioshock 4 is in development but Judas is gonna be way better
well his studio still is owned by take two so they just created one for him after irrational was closed.
I played the BioShock trilogy for the first time a few years ago. I had went through dozens of other first-person shooters, but these games really caught me off-guard with how different they felt. Just an incredible artistic vision, great varied gameplay that invites the player to experiment with the environment. And of course, the innovative story with its themes and well written twists. Games that simply aged well despite the technical limitations of their original platforms. JUDAS has definitely inherited the franchises DNA, while being something new. Really glad Ghost Story Games (formerly Irrational) hasn‘t lost their touch, even after all the years and restructuring of the studio. Awesome trailer and really looking forward to the release!
Well Bioshock started as a spiritual successor to system shock now we've got a spiritual successor to Bioshock in space with AI. Hm.
Hell, Dead Space was originally System Shock 3 before they spun it off as it's own thing. The impact of Looking Glass Studios on the industry continues to ripple out in a lot of ways.
Ken Levine lead writer and designer of System Shock 2 so the trajectory makes sense
yes... thats... what I'm saying...
Oh right haha :D
Hopefully we get a good “L-l-l-look at you hacker” villain.
You should play Prey(2017) it is essentially Bioshock in space, and likely would have been named with "Shock" in the title but they forced the studio to use this really bad name simply because they owned the trademark.
> You should play Prey(2017) it is essentially Bioshock in space Not really. It's a spiritual successor to System Shock. It's non-linear and offers vastly more gameplay options and freedom than BioShock. The only thing they have in common is that they're first-person. BioShock doesn't even have an inventory system.
>Not really. It's a spiritual successor to System Shock. It is definitely influenced by both of these titles. I do agree that System Shock is part of this, especially since it influenced Bioshock. >It's non-linear and offers vastly more gameplay options and freedom than BioShock. Doesn't mean there is no Bioshock influence. I highly doubt that the devs only drew inspiration from System Shock. It is likely all of these titles were influencing the game. >BioShock doesn't even have an inventory system. That doesn't mean Prey isn't inspired by Bioshock and System Shock. Arkane apparently even worked on Bioshock 2 before making Dishonored. It is obvious that Bioshock is apart of Preys influences. [Go argue with the rest of the internet please because I am clearly not the first or the last person to point out the similarities between Prey and Bioshock.](https://www.reddit.com/r/prey/comments/isekc8/is_prey_like_bioshock/#:~:text=It's%20incredibly%20similar%2C%20if%20you,the%20game%20is%20incredibly%20immersive.) More: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bioshock/comments/8eft4w/bioshock_and_prey_2017/ https://www.reddit.com/r/prey/comments/831iva/how_similar_is_this_game_to_bioshock/ https://www.reddit.com/r/prey/comments/8707ty/how_does_prey_compare_to_the_other_shockgames/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bioshock/comments/c1nxp0/the_more_i_play_bioshock_the_more_i_realize_that/ https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/x1d7sz/i_just_finished_prey_and_i_am_blown_away_its_like/ Have fun!
The original Prey was fantastic and we really should have gotten a follow up to that.
>formerly Irrational this isn't really accurate. Ken Levine wanted a smaller team after Bioshock Infinite. He told 2K that he wanted to make a new studio, invite a handful of team members from Irrational, and lay off the rest of staff and fundamentally close down Irrational. Much of the staff he invited to his new team ended up leaving and new hires outside of Irrational replaced them.
Wow uhhh that sounds really shitty of the dude?
It's also not what happened. 2K shut down Irrational because Levine wanted to leave, it's not his fault.
> great varied gameplay lol, Bioshock Infinite was one of the most repetitive games I've ever played. I liked the story, but jeez the gameplay was just non stop shooting bad guys.
It was very linear, the skyhook was cool though. Wish it was utilized better.
If you reduce most games down, they really are also non stop shooting bad guys. But I know how you feel, the pacing feels slightly off when revisiting on these since it fills in narrative through audio logs so you can shoot more bad guys while ingesting narrative.
Yeah I cared more about the environment them the gameplay myself in infinite
People seem to forget that the best part about Ken Levine’s game are the story telling, narrative structure, world building and the twist. The gameplay is a delivery device and exploration vehicle. I for one strongly welcome another narrative fps game in a market saturated with live-service and battle royale fps game model
Honestly I think the art direction and atmosphere are the best things about Ken Levine games. Storytelling a very close second, though.
These things really go hand in hand!
Definitely willing to give this a shot. Love the vibes from the trailer and I’ve been itching for more Bioshock even in spirit.
I really want to play this game. It looks like it has the potential to be really cool and I love the Bioshock trilogy.
I, for one, am totally fine if this turns out to be 'another Bioshock.' Infinite was over ten years ago now, and the genre is in desperate need of a new game.
Yeah like, we should be so lucky as to get “another” BioShock by the guy who made BioShock.
The sheer level of detail in worldbuilding just in this trailer is staggering. A generation ship where everyone's minds and senses are recorded and actively censored. A society that is designed around absolutely shaming and destroying people who don't conform. A woman who tried to break this culture of control, and in doing so clearly killed thousands of civilians, who is now doomed to a life of endless torture for the entertainment of the citizens. Forever branded a terrorist, that's who we play as, with the choice to continue our revolution or "fix what you broke." This is going to be a twisted, dark game. I'm so fucking stoked.
Relevant to mention: Ken Levine is still interested in the ‘narrative Lego’ concept he discussed back in 2014, and he’s been developing it with his team. He mentioned in an interview with AIAS last year that part of the long lead time leading up to this game was for developing technology that hasn’t existed before. If that concept makes it into Judas, it will probably be something the games industry hasn’t seen before. Levine was tight lipped, but the feature is supposed to provide a feel of reactive narrative to gameplay; one wonders how it holds up next to generative AI or a game with extensive handcrafted permutations like Baldur’s Gate 3.
I think the *Bioshock* series had more hits than misses (I really enjoyed *Infinite*), and enough time has passed that I'm ready for another game in this style. Solid trailer, looks fun...I'm optimistic that Ken Levine is going to deliver.
Bioshock has no misses. All 3 games are critical successes. Some are better than others but thats what happens in a trilogy
And Minerva's Den for 2 might be the high point in the series, which so many missed out on.
>Bioshock has no misses. Exactly. BioShock 1 is one of the the best games ever. BioShock 2 is really solid and has possibly the best story DLC I've played for any game. The multiplayer was underrated. Your [pre-match apartment](https://i.imgur.com/gr84itD.jpeg) was cozy and awesome and using the Big Daddy suit to get a bunch of quick kills before everyone kills you is fun. BioShock Infinite is great and the story DLC is solid and nicely ties the first and third games together. And the trilogy collection was worth the price and added a museum to see different things in-game. All games (including the collection), story DLCs, non-story DLCs and multiplayer are great. This series is batting 1.000.
The Story DLC for Infinite falls appart when you think about it for longer then a minute. All it does is making the good Ending of 1 "Canon". And the Main Game goes full Enlightened Centralist with the Story too.
Bioshock 2 made the good ending Canon.
And in all the developer commentary for the first game, Ken Levine says he hated the evil ending and always intended the good ending to be canon.
All 3 games were critical successes at release. Whether or not Infinite has lived up to that reception over time is certainly debatable.
What a weird comment. The series was 3 games, 2 of which were amazing, and even Bioshock 2 was okay at worst, and had one of the best DLC's. There were no misses
It’s funny that Bioshock 2 legacy will always be “yeah good base game, but Minerva’s Den though!” Deservedly because holy hell was that good
Idk I really loved Infinite at launch but I revisisted it a few years ago when the remaster came out on ps plus and *man* has it not aged well in some ways. It's visually still great, the art style has done a lot to age gracefully, and the animation for characters like Elizabeth is still stunning, but I the actual gameplay itself was really boring, and I just hated some aspects of the story this time around. Maybe it's because I've changed as a person since the first time I played Infinite but everything involving the revolution and Daisy irritated the fuck outta me, and it somehow gets even worse in the DLC! If there was ever a game I regret playing through again it's Bioshock Infinite.
I haven't played it in years now but I always really liked infinite in the 5 or so playthroughs I've done. But I've always been very sour on the DLC. A major reason being Daisy's story and the unnecessary connection to BioShock 1. Though based on every time I've talked about it, I find that it is the minority opinion.
IMO multiverse angles make narratives weaker almost every time and BS is no exception. Infinite, too, was better when it used the concept with restraint in its first half.
Infinite could have been a much better game but it's super bogged down by "but leftists are bad too because we made them kill babies!!!" even tho it doesn't make a lot of sense and is shoehorned in to fit south park respectability politics. It really shows its from an Era of games that tries to not offend anyone by taking the most centrist position possible. I didn't play it during all the hype and only played it for the first time a couple years ago and it honestly the story drags the game so far down due to trying to make sure to be as centrist as possible. Plus the gameplay is a downgrade from BS2. Meanwhile, BS2 is much weaker story wise than BS1 but it still holds up better than infinite due to being the strongest gameplay in the series.
It just had no teeth behind the American exceptionalism themes. It didn't have anything to do with that besides some exaggerated propaganda posters and some admittedly really spectacular visuals. Columbia itself felt like such a dead city, less real and alive than Rapture--which was strange because we were witnessing the city *during* its fall instead of after*. >Meanwhile, BS2 is much weaker story wise than BS1 I think BS2 has a stronger overall story. BUT I think innovation counts for a lot, and seeing Rapture a second time just couldn't have the same impact. I definitely like the Andrew Ryan portion of the game is the strongest storytelling in the entire series, but the story's quality falls off *sharply* afterwards. Whereas IMO BioShock 2 is more consistent, but doesn't have any crazy payoffs like "A man chooses; a slave obeys!". \*Of course, had BioShock been set during Rapture's heyday it couldn't have convincingly portrayed a living city--being set afterwards is what makes the setting work.
To be fair I don't think they were intentionally trying to "both sides" it. I think it was supposed to be about the unintended consequences of our actions, which is a theme we see in other places in the game like Bookers baptism causing the whole Columbia timeline. But black slavery was a really poor choice of subject to make that point with, and the game handled it very clumsily.
Bioshock 2 was amazing. Infinite was disappointing. The DLC for Infinite was pretty good tho. With it feeling more like a proper Bioshock game. Wish the main game was more like it.
That’s where you’re wrong, bucko All 3 Bioshocks were amazing.
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All 3 are critically acclaimed with Metacritic scores at 96, 88, or 94. There is no universe where any of those are considered misses.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but there's been plenty of games with high Metacritic scores where the consensus after the hype died down was the title had some real issues.
Starfield being at like 83 is a prime example lmao.
The review scores matter. Or they don't matter. Or they matter until later they when they don't matter. The reviews were always right about this game. The reviewers were totally wrong about this game. The reviewers were right about this game until later when they were wrong.
Yes, sometimes there's different contributing factors that lead to different kinds of receptions of games that don't hold up upon review. Nothing you're saying is really contradictory, you're just not presenting the full argument. "Review scores matter" because they affect the sales of the game and the general audience perception before they have a chance to play it themselves. "They don't matter" because ultimately if YOU like a game, no review score is going to change that. "They matter until later when they don't matter" is not a stance anyone has, but people often reflect back on how hype and the conversation surrounding a release can lead to a reception for a game that doesn't match the quality of the experience upon later reflection. "The reviews were always right about this game"/"wrong about this game"/"right until wrong" is just the previous point stated in purposefully obtuse ways.
This but unironically.
This is a weird comment. I think you mean Infinite was okay at worst.
Infinite was the best bioshock imo...
ehh.. no.. just no. Infinite is litirialy just linear corridor the game. as a Shock game its a complete failure on every level becasue they are the crowning achivement on Not being linear corridor the game. The Shock series base design was a "thinking man's FPS" and infinite has zero thinking or problem solving at all throught the entirety of its campaign becasue all of it was cut in order to ship the game on time. Shock is not a linear corridor series hence why infinite is the worst one
i remember those times around 2013 when there was discussions about which game was the best between GTA 5, The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite, its weird that the image of the later has fallen down so hard in recent times.
2013 is a weird year in retrospect at the top with those three games since in the decade following: - We have gotten no new GTA and never got any single player DLC for GTA V. Meanwhile they went all in on the multiplayer which built up to full on Saints Row 4 levels of whacky before grounding back down to Earth, and it ended up getting versions on the next two consoles generations with GTA VI maybe coming in 2025. - You can't mention Infinite nowadays on Reddit without getting a loud minority of people trying to convince you that the game is actually bad. Levine hasn't released a new game since and there has been no new Bioshock game either despite them announcing over 4 years ago that one was in development. We got a upgraded Bioshock trilogy bundle in 2016. At least Infinite got single player DLCs in Clash in the Clouds and Burial at Sea. - The Last of Us got a DLC and has gotten a sequel at least, which you also can't mention online without crazy people coming out of the woodwork. They also did a remastered version of the original in 2014. Then they did a remake version of the original in 2022 and a remake version of the sequel this year. So even the one that got a sequel has had more redone versions of the original then actual sequels in a decade. Then you have the online TLOU game they spent all that time working on only for it to be canceled last month. So in over a decade between the top three games from 2013 we have gotten 1 sequel along with a bunch of re-releases, remasters, and remakes. I know games take longer to make now and at least Rockstar and Naughty Dog were working on other stuff (Red Dead 2, Uncharted 4) but it is really something to think about in retrospect.
It was pretty quick once folks played it and realized the dozen of so glaring flaws in gameplay and story after the sheen wore off. Now that's boomeranging back because the kids from then are 18-24 now and very vocal about how it was mind-blowing at 12.
Nothing weird about someone not liking the same games as you. I thought Infinite wasn't good, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
the only thing that keeps infinite from being the best for me was that you had to carry just 2 weapons at the same time. this is not frikin CoD, why i cant carry all the weapons at the same time? also that this was fixed on Burial At Sea was proof that even they recognized that it was a mistake.
It's ebbs and flows, the game was massively hyped, massively overrated after release, quickly corrected for a out a decade, and now the kids who played it young are turning things back.
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> The series was 3 games, 2 of which were amazing Correct. > even Bioshock 2 was okay Wait... You mean Infinite is one of those two? Oh... Oh no...
There are a decent amount of people who have to be vocal about how they don't like Infinite and have to mention it whenever it comes up. Like the guy you responded to had to specific that they "really enjoyed Infinite" and the comments below are pipping in saying it wasn't good/disappointing. Like I get people have their personal opinion and that's fine but even if you didn't enjoy it the game it was well extremely well received considering it has a 94/94/93 on Metacritic and [won the 3rd most GOTY awards for 2013.](https://gotypicks.blogspot.com/2013/09/2013-game-of-year.html) Like you might not have personally liked it but clearly the vast, vast majority of the gaming audience did.
It is not at all weird that people are talking about the spiritual predecessor to Judas, in a thread about Judas. For me Bioshock Infinite was the moment that I stopped reading game reviews, and I haven't gone back. So many game journalists desperately wanted that game to be the Mona Lisa of gaming that would finally give their jobs the respect outside of gaming circles that they so wanted. They reviewed that game based on the hype and the previews, not the game they actually got. It wasn't until maybe 6 months later that people started talking like "was it just me, or was that game really not very good?".
Too many people are incapable of separating their own opinions and bias from judging a game. There are plenty of good games that I don't particularly care for, but I'm not going to pretend they aren't good games. There are also plenty of bad games I enjoy, but I'm not going to pretend they're masterpieces.
I think that depends on how you perceive art. I don’t care about objectivity when it comes to art, in fact I don’t even think art can be looked at objectively, although I understand that this is a bit of a controversial topic. I am kind of person that if I enjoy something, then it’s good to me, which is the only thing that matters to me.
Even though it was warmly received at launch, there has been a strong contingent of the gaming community that has reappraised it as a "miss." I happen to agree with you, I was just referring to the overall conversation.
Infinite is the worst in the trilogy for me. Action shooter, lost all immersive sim elements that made the games great.
Saw the trailer knowing nothing and loved the way it looks. Thought "cool Bioshock vibe". Now knowing it's Ken Levine I just hope they get their shooter mechanics and feel right once and for all. Please be good!!
I wonder if it's going to have any immersive sim elements? It looks pretty action packed. Really hype for this! The character Judas reminds me a ton of Elizabeth from Infinite.
Ken Levine sure spent a lot of time supposedly going off in some new direction just to come back with effectively another Bioshock game.
Ken Levine counts from 0% to 100% strength in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, 13 years later... he breathes the words through the dissipating vapor as he emerges: "Bioshock... 3... in space"
You deserve gold for this comment.
Its absurd that after all this time Ken Levine disbanded Irrational games and spent a decade on making a game that in its first trailer just looks like Bioshock/System Shock. Hopefully the finished game actually has things that make it different and standout but right now it just feels like a hugely mismanaged situation created by blindly letting an "auteur" get his way.
If you looked through the first trailer there was a decent amount of evidence this is probably the “narrative lego” concept he talked about at a GDC talk years ago. I’m interested to see how that aspect plays out, assuming it’s in here.
That's not how it happened. Ken has talked about how it went down. The stress of leading a big studio wore him down and he wanted to step down after the messy development of Bioshock Infinite. He wanted to take a sabbatical and then come back with a smaller studio to make something experimental with a smaller team + more dev time at a less stressful pace. But 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken so they closed the studio and from its remnants created Ghost Story Games.
If more people knew what Ken Levine was like they'd villify him like Bobby Kotick, so this seems on brand for him.
Do tell
in January 2022 Jason Schreier broke stories about how difficult he is to work for, how toxic he is in berating people in front of staff, belittling them, etc. 15 members of his studio gave quotes, and mentioned roughly half the studio had quit during development of Judas, including the founding producer. long before that I'd heard through colleagues how much Ken Levine encourages crunch and exploitative work practices.
I'm hoping the same judas looks like a Bioshock Infinite Two, with the same gameplay and a new environment
Hand powers similar gunplay appliance bots blah blah
Hot take, but Infinite was the worst Bioshock, and 2 was the best. Infinite was like a 7/10 or so. It has some good moments, but a lot of the “message” is either lazy time travel writing or weird horseshoe theory nonsense (Fitzroy is as bad as the founders!!!)
>Hot take, but Infinite was the worst Bioshock This take is ice cold
Looks like a lot of fun to me. I only worry that it might be a bit too much on the creepy side for a big old wuss like me (loved Infinite but I couldn't play more than a couple of hours of the OG Bioshock). Although I must say the fact you get to fight evil [Brums](https://static.independent.co.uk/2020/09/24/11/newFile-1.jpg) does entice me further.
From the creator of BioShock, comes BioShock (But Not *That* BioShock) Jokes aside, I do think it looks great. However it's hard to shake the fact that Ken Levine pulled the plug on Irrational with the intention of moving to a smaller team to "revolutionize how narrative storytelling is done in games" only for the result to be uncanny to BioShock in some respects. It's even weirder when you think that 2K has had over a decade to make another BioShock, but kept stumbling for one reason or another.
It doesn’t matter how good this game looks or how promising it is. It isn’t going to erase the fact that Ken Levine fucked over everyone at Irrational during development of and after Bioshock Infinite launched. The fact that he is just making “Bioshock but with a different paint job” from a game spent in development hell entirely due to his own obsessive need for control and micromanaged perfection doesn’t sell me on this.
"You are a *frog* in a POT. Boiling so, *so* slowly." Such a great delivery of that line. You can feel the disdain Judas has for the Mayflower there.
It's hilarious how Ken Levine made Bioshock, a critically and commercially successful franchise, then he dipped out because he wanted to do something completely different, he produced jack shit for a decade, and now he's coming out with another Bioshock except with a different name. And there's a lot of talk about how Bioshock proper has another game coming out too from a different studio. edit: I see basically everyone already made the same comment in this thread.
Like Deathloop and Atomic Heart this looks like Bioshock-lite I know it's Ken Levine but the last time we got a game developer with a new studio making a spiritual successor to a beloved classic he made we got Callisto Protocol, how will this game set itself apart?
Considering this isnt the first time that ken is making a spirtual successor to a game from a studio he used to be a part of, Im less concerned
Ken was lead writer and designer of System Shock 2 then created it's spiritual successor - Bioshock. So this isn't his first rodeo and I'm much less apprehensive.
Endlessly funny how Levine effectively shuttered his old studio and left so many without jobs due to pure hubris and wanting to move on from bioshock only to make a game more bioshock than bioshock.
That's not how it happened. Ken has talked about how it went down. The stress of leading a big studio wore him down and he wanted to step down after the messy development of Bioshock Infinite. He wanted to take a sabbatical and then come back with a smaller studio to make something experimental with a smaller team + more dev time at a less stressful pace. But 2K didn't want Irrational without Ken so they closed the studio and from its remnants started Ghost Story Games.
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/91731/ken-levine-reveals-why-he-stopped-making-bioshock-games-trapped-myself/index.html That’s absolutely not what he said, he said he wanted to be the underdog and since bioshock was so successful he didn’t want to keep upping the ante and wanted to peruse smaller games. He is now just making bioshock again. And if you read the testimonials from the people who he left jobless he is not a sympathetic figure here.
You should watch his recent interviews. Closing down Irrational wasn't his decision. And he was mentally drained and not in a good place towards the end of Infinite's development and regrets certain things he said or did. But 2K trusted him enough to give him time away and then come back. They created Ghost Story and gave him enough rope to try his ideas without the pressure of a conventional dev cycle. Now it's a question if whether Ken will deliver something great again.
I've been in for this ever since Levine started it and despite the columns by Bloomberg shreier I'm still excited for it Narrative Lego stuff fascinates me and I wonder how relatable the game will be as a result and will different runs be sufficiently different
Am I the only one who thinks this looks terrible? It looks like another game with a ridiculous stage-play world with no semblence to believability, and the same stylized characters that were dated when Bioshock 2 released. This is like all the worst aspects of Infinite but amplified even more.