Ken Levine has delivered his last game, Bioshock infinite, for a seven-year period. Because he found the time long, the journalist Jason Schreier went to investigate.
As you are now used to, it is in the columns of Bloomberg that the journalist publishes a summary of the testimonies of fifteen employees of Ghost Story Games, the new name of Irrational Games which has been working since 2014 on “Ken Levine’s Next Game”. It is an understatement to say that the screenwriter doubled as an artistic director will have more than once spoken to speak about his future game which could “exceed the limits”. But behind the statements, everything seems very complicated.
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The testimonies collected by Schreier confirm the state of relative chaos that is imposed on the teams of Ghost Story Games.
The publisher gives Levine a level of autonomy that few creators enjoy. Some of his former employees say the lack of supervision seemed idyllic at first, but has become detrimental to their work and their mental well-being.
Take-Two probably tolerates all of this for the same reason that has driven many people to come to work at Irrational and Ghost Story over the past two decades: because an author is capable of producing something magnificent. But Levine’s management led to burnout and, according to former employees, caused them a lot of pain.
After seven years of fumbling around, former developer estimates Ken Levine’s new game won’t release for at least two years, since those who chose to stay now know in which direction to go. A job offer published in 2020 suggested so.
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Reportedly, the ambitious project which would take the form of an FPS in space in which each player would discover new things based on their actions was originally scheduled for fall 2017. Problem, the team Restricted has nothing to do with those who delivered BioShock or its prequel Infinite.
The scope of the game has grown without worrying about the team’s ability to meet this fall 2017 deadline. Levine wanted to do a triple A with an “economic” team. It couldn’t be done.
Hardest to take are Levine’s sudden turnovers, as our beloved colleague Raphaël Lucas had already had the opportunity to talk about during the portrait of Levine made in 2017 for Gamekult. The development of his new game is unfortunately no exception.
Ghost Story employees sometimes spend weeks or months creating content for the new game, only to make Levine ultimately decide to give it all up. His tastes sometimes change after playing a new indie game like Dead Cells or Void Bastards, and he insisted that some features be redesigned to mimic these games. Former developers say these constant changes are demoralizing and seem to be a barrier to their careers.
You will understand: if the first game of Ghost Story Games seems finally on the right track, we should not expect to see it released before … 2024? It was without counting on the Covid-19, of course.
What do you expect from Ken Levine? Can his next game still surprise? Let us know your disappointed or (bio) shocked reviews in the comments below.