We’ve known since 2019: the future of licensing BioShock will be done thanks to the studio Cloud chamber, but we do not know in what form. The creator of the franchise, Ken Levine, for his part, leads the new team of Ghost story games under the bosom of Take-Two Interactive since 2014, although its existence was not confirmed until 2017.
After 8 years of work, no information has filtered out on his first project. And according to the often very well informed Jason Schreier, journalist of Bloomberg, he wouldn’t be going out. He has just published a file in which he reports the words of fifteen current and past employees of the Westwood studio in Massachusetts, many anonymous, according to which the game developed by Ghost story games would have suffered many reboots and changes of direction.
The management of Ken Levine, 55 years old now, is directly questioned, some pointing to the difficulty he has in communicating his vision, receiving creative proposals and delegating his creative vision. Several employees, for example, mentioned the Kenception, a neologism that they use to evoke the “inception” of an idea that they must use to try to get their proposals to Ken Levine so that he thinks that the idea comes from him and validates it. Take-Two Interactive is also accused of having left too much freedom to the director, which he oversees directly and not through the editors 2K Games, Rockstar Where Private Division, which put it on a pedestal to the detriment of the well-being of its teams. Mike Snight, Lead Level Builder, for example told Jason Schreier that he had to leave the studio after more than 5 years, because he was no longer happy and no longer in tune with the work of Ken Levine. Others followed his path around the same time, such as the Lead Game Designer Andres Gonzalez with whom he set up another studio.
The journalist’s sources indicate that the initial project of Ghost story games was to deliver games that would be a narrative equivalent to Lego, allowing players to experience an experience that would be unique to everyone, with different scenarios each time. He first wanted to prove the qualities of this concept via a shooter in a sci-fi world like BioShock, in a mysterious space station inhabited by 3 factions can become more or less allies or enemies. This title should have seen the light of day in the fall of 2017, but the smallness of the team and the means did not allow it to materialize.
Ambitions AAA with in particular a complicated dialogue system which evolved according to our choices and actions, were too important for the ten employees and the tight budget, and the rigor of Ken Levine ready to rewrite everything if he did not like it would not have aid. He did not hesitate to throw away entire components of the project after playing recent hits like Dead cells Where Void Bastards, in order to include mechanics inspired by them, even if it means demoralizing its teams and slowing them down in their careers, even come into conflict with some and fire them or have them quit.
This shooter would thus have gradually been pushed back to 2017, 2018, 2019 and so on, the absence of a fixed release date not helping to frame the ambitions. Developers worried about how long Take-two would fund this endless experimentation, which didn’t bother Ken Levine, whose project was only the equivalent of a “rounding error” for the editor which brews billions with Grand Theft Auto. An employee still believes that the development would now be on the right track and could be finalized in 2 years, or in 2024. But you will understand, if it is as complicated as Jason Schreier suggests, nothing is wrong. is assured…
For latecomers, BioShock: The Collection is available from € 21.90 on Amazon.com.
| Auxance Editor | ||
| Favorite writer of your favorite editor since 2009, passionate about booming music, fan of comic series of all kinds. I have played Pokémon a little too much in my life. | ||
| Follow me : |  | |
