BioShock “was basically a corridor,” says Ken Levine – it wouldn’t be Judas and the characters would have long memories.

I will come and go with the work of Ken Levine, the respected auteurman and Burn-initiator manager reportbut I’m interested in seeing more JudahHis current project at Ghost Story Games. Jude’s concept is that you are trapped in a colony ship called the Mayflower in a computer-controlled society. The titular Judas has broken free from the AI-groomed status quo, and is about to start a revolution. “Bioshock Infinite in Space.”In the year We call it 2022, but Levine says it’s more open-ended than either previous BioShock effort, with other characters remembering and reacting to your actions over time.

That’s from new. GamesIndustry.biz An interview featuring Levine’s thoughts on generative AI (ambivalent) and whether today’s triple-A budgets are healthy (not), as well as the power of choice and interaction and the importance of players telling their own stories. The last episode made me feel like it was 2003 again and I’m writing my first reader review for Eurogamer DotNet, transfixed by the thought that one day, I might get to play Citizen Kane.

I don’t doubt Levine’s sincerity, but comments such as “no media is more involved with consumers than ours” I now hold with strong resentment. Most noble choices lead me to write an editorial about how games offer boring preoccupations or empty gestures, while quieter, more graceful acts of interpretation can be experienced as those absurd works of art. Books that don’t even let you push buttons to make the characters talk.

But I won’t do that: you’re here to read about Judas. The interview contains a few more concrete details about the game’s narrative design, which Levine admits Taking a fairly long time. One of the reasons it takes a while is that basically every popular NPC wants to be able to hold a very careful grudge.

“The approach we’re taking with Jude is about recognizing player action and reacting to player action,” Levine told the site. “Hey, you saw this and you did that and then you did this and that was fun because that’s why” – we’re doing that kind of thing right now.

And it’s really just about watching the players and writing the kinds of lines that they can react to different things. It’s a huge task because you have to think of all the things the player can do and then write the character’s responses. For different characters in a way that feels organic to those actions.

Levin wants to avoid “random number generator” moments, where characters present you with quests out of the blue. As he reiterates: “Once you start following the sequence of events – watching the characters go, ‘You did this and then you did that and you did that and it makes me angry because he did that’ – that’s when it gets really interesting.”

The result, Levine promises, will be a game that supports many more ways to achieve certain results. “There are hits and how you get there will be different from one player to another,” he says. “And the places you reach are very different from one player to another.”

Mayflower itself looks like it will be a more open environment than Bioshock’s Rapture or Infinite Columbia. “BioShock And BioShock InfiniteIf you look at them from a developmental perspective — and this might be a little alienating to some readers — but they’re basically corridors,” Levine said. Elements happen. Judas is made very, very differently, and that hopefully reflects on the agency of the players, but it’s too much to do. It makes it hard.

I like the idea of ​​BioShock’s version of Rapture not being a gauntlet run by argi tape experts, but a permanent community with memories. I didn’t miss Ghost Story setting us up for failure, however – BioShock’s big mess where many of your choices weren’t choices at all. If you find that prospect exhausting, the good news is that Alice B (RPS in peace) has already jumped forward ten years. Review the game’s positive reviews and negative reviews.