Judas - narrative FPS set on a disintegrating starship from Ken Levine's Ghost Story Games

[Somberlain]

Ken Levine's next game will be "more challenging" than BioShock

That's probably not a good idea. Bioshit: Shitfinite was enough to melt the brain of an average game journo. Imagine if he made a game that's actually intelligent or challenging.

 

[Morgoth]

Ken is no longer required to make a game pandering to tiny journo brains. He has been set free by his benign Take 2 overlords (Jews).

 

[Excommunicator]

The amount of light in that office seems unbearable not to mention how loud it must be with those hard surfaces

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Poor use of space too. Too much room between desks. That's a shit load of rent ($$$ per square foot vs how much square footage being put to use).

In addition, I have no faith whatsoever that Ken 'Hook Nose' Levine will actually put something together worth playing.
System Shock was a fluke. Bioshock was the truth.

 

[pippin]

perfect office space for Finland

 

[HoboForEternity]

I still give ken the benefit of doubt. I always think bioshock and especially infinite crippled system are the result of suit intervention. The fact that the e3 footage exist, they have 2 different covers for infinite, and he quit after infinite strengthen my assumption.

Let him work in a a less restricting environment that let him experiment and not compromising depth. We will see.

 

[Infinitron]

https://media.zencast.fm/literate-gamer/episodes/40

Ken Levine, director of Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Sytem Shock 2, and both Freedom Force games sits down to talk about writing in video games, directing, and his roll as creative director.

Yeah, we have no idea why he came on the show either. No one's more surprised than we are, but it was a great time and a genuinely interesting conversation.

Ken Levine is the Creative Director as Ghost Story Games and you can find him on Twitter @Levine.

I went the whole episdoe without calling him Kevin 'Lah Vine'.

 

[vortex]

If someone did listen, which games did he mention? I only understand the Prey.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://chp.tbe.taleo.net/chp04/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=GAMES2K&cws=49&rid=2115

The opportunity to work on a creatively ambitious project in the immersive sim genre.

I think this is the first time they call their game "immersive sim" outright.

 

[Ivan]

"immersive sim" in b4 this just turns out to be Gone Home

 

[Shinji]

• Producing credit on at least one highly rated (85+) game title, or a title that we love anyway.

So the folks that worked on Fallout New Vegas don't stand a chance, huh?

 

[Fedora Master]

Ken "I don't understand quantum physics, that's why I wrote a story about it" Levine

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.pcgamer.com/ghost-story-games-formerly-irrational-games-is-making-an-immersive-sim/

Ghost Story Games, formerly Irrational Games, is making an immersive sim
By Samuel Horti 2 hours ago

Former Bioshock developer hiring for its art team.

In February, 12 former developers from Irrational Games—of System Shock 2 and Bioshock—announced their new studio, Ghost Story. It later emerged that the they were working on a "small-scale open world" game that drew inspiration from Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system, and now we know that the title will be a first-person immersive sim.

The news comes via a job listing from the studio, which is looking for someone to join its art team for the game, described as an "ambitious project in the immersive sim genre".

The game will be built in Unreal Engine 4, and will feature heavy environmental story-telling, judging by the listing. Ghost Story is looking for someone that likes "narrative first-person shooters" and is experienced "in FPSs and semi-open (eg Borderlands/Shadows of Mordor) or open-world games", which ties in with what the studio said it wanted to do earlier this year.

The studio wants someone with experience in a variety of genres, including RPGs and strategy games, which might just mean they're looking for an all-rounder or could indicate that there will be some strategy elements in the game.

There's no indication as to what stage the game is at, but it could be a while off. I can't wait to hear more.

 

[Ash]

The game will be built in Unreal Engine 4, and will feature heavy environmental story-telling, judging by the listing. Ghost Story is looking for someone that likes "narrative first-person shooters" and is experienced "in FPSs and semi-open (eg Borderlands/Shadows of Mordor) or open-world games", which ties in with what the studio said it wanted to do earlier this year.

>we're building an immersive sim.
>we want people with interest in borderlands and shadow of mordor style games.

Huh? Dishonored/Prey or NuDX are popular and mainstream enough. While they're not the most ideal games to be inspired by they're more relevant to reference when seeking out talent and passion for the FP immersive sim vision they allegedly have. Hmm, I suppose those references are there to draw in a wider pool of candidates, perhaps.

 

[LESS T_T]

This news ("Take-Two plans to only release games with 'recurrent consumer spending' hooks", "It may not always be an online model, it probably won't always be a virtual currency model, but there will be some ability to engage in an ongoing basis with our titles after release across the board. That's a sea change in our business.") makes me wonder about Ken Levine's next game.

Incidentally(?), from what I can gather from Levine's past talks and interviews, his new game fits well in the Take Two's "games as a service", "recurrent consumer spending" strategy. Ken has been talked about his new game will be something like Civilization in terms of content structure. He said he wants to make a modular narrative game that can be replayed many times and is played different every time like Civ, and he thinks about releasing new modules/expansions after the release to add new narrative elements that will makes the game more replayable.

If that ambition is still there and somehow realized, I guess that's one way of survival in the new world for immersive sim. (In a way it's going back to one of its roots: D&D.) Let's see if he will open a Pandora's box I guess?

edit: Oh yeah there's also Hitman's episodic and live service model.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

The game will be built in Unreal Engine 4, and will feature heavy environmental story-telling, judging by the listing. Ghost Story is looking for someone that likes "narrative first-person shooters" and is experienced "in FPSs and semi-open (eg Borderlands/Shadows of Mordor) or open-world games", which ties in with what the studio said it wanted to do earlier this year.

>we're building an immersive sim.
>we want people with interest in borderlands and shadow of mordor style games.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
Experience in first-person shooters and semi-open (e.g., Borderlands/Shadows of Mordor) or open-world game.

Nothing in there about inspiration, it's about work experience. Building environment for an open-world game is different enough from building levels for more linear games like Dishonored, and they are obviously building something open-world or semi-open world, the ad basically admits as much, especially with requirements like

• Experience in modular level construction and lighting/atmosphere.
• Unreal Engine 4 experience, including terrain/landscape editing

Also, speaking of inspiration, you missed this line:
>Deep knowledge of and experience with development of FPS/action/RPG/strategy/immersive sim titles.

 

[LESS T_T]

Job posting for Senior AI Programmer: https://chp.tbe.taleo.net/chp04/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=GAMES2K&cws=49&rid=2216

• Design and develop AI behaviors and systems and other gameplay systems.
• Coordinate consistently with all discipline heads to ensure that the code being developed addresses their needs and the needs of the game.
• Design and implement algorithms for determining moves made by computer-based opponents, incorporating all game mechanics, to facilitate player faced intelligent behavior.

• Extensive experience crafting AI for a shooter. Including knowledge of classical AI techniques, game theory, and combinatorial optimization.
• Has shipped at least one highly rated FPS or 3PS game (Metacritic rating of 85+)
• Have architected (or significantly extended) an AI decision framework.

I wonder why they keep adding that Metacritic bullshit requirement.

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...t-game-will-be-more-challenging-than-bioshock

God bless Ken. He may have veered a bit towards popamole, but I still laud his experimental spirit that harkens back to the LGS era.

He didn't just veer a bit towards popamole, he made it his guiding principle for well over a decade now. Here, have a look at this gem of an article detailing the development of the original Bioshock. Not only does it portray ol' Ken as a borderline-psychotic diva, it also shows that he was in fact the very driving force behind taking what should have been the next logical step in the evolution of the System Shock series (have a look at the early design document for some really mind-blowing stuff) and turing it into dumbed-down popamole dreck. Long story short: They showcased a highly scripted, action-laden demo at E3 which was very well-received among the attending imbeciles, so Levine decided on a whim to turn the whole game into that. And unfortunately, this decision ultimately paid off for them financially.

Rather than coming up with something that lives up to the legacy of Shock 2 or, hell, even Swat 4, he spent the last decade creating their mentally handicapped stepchildren. Given his track record, I take anything he says about not churning out dumbed down products with a grain of salt. It's lip service, nothing more. I'll believe he's still capable of making a good game when I play it.

 

[Morgoth]

You can't make something living up to the legacy of Shock 2 on a shitty Xbox 360 and gamepad controls. Besides, Ken saw which way the wind was blowing and opted for a mass market product. Smart business decision, even if it makes die-hard fans butthurt.

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

shitty Xbox 360 and gamepad controls
mass market product

Muh experimental spirit that harkens back to the LGS era!
Muh old school ethos!

 

[Cross]

You can't make something living up to the legacy of Shock 2 on a shitty Xbox 360 and gamepad controls.

Any number of console action-adventure games have more immersive sim DNA in them than BioShock.

He didn't just veer a bit towards popamole, he made it his guiding principle for well over a decade now. Here, have a look at this gem of an article detailing the development of the original Bioshock. Not only does it portray ol' Ken as a borderline-psychotic diva, it also shows that he was in fact the very driving force behind taking what should have been the next logical step in the evolution of the System Shock series (have a look at the early design document for some really mind-blowing stuff) and turing it into dumbed-down popamole dreck. Long story short: They showcased a highly scripted, action-laden demo at E3 which was very well-received among the attending imbeciles, so Levine decided on a whim to turn the whole game into that. And unfortunately, this decision ultimately paid off for them financially.

Rather than coming up with something that lives up to the legacy of Shock 2 or, hell, even Swat 4, he spent the last decade creating their mentally handicapped stepchildren. Given his track record, I take anything he says about not churning out dumbed down products with a grain of salt. It's lip service, nothing more. I'll believe he's still capable of making a good game when I play it.

Levine had no involvement with SWAT 4. He was the lead for System Shock 2. That game was also a collaboration with Looking Glass which, in hindsight, was probably an important factor in its quality. The article you posted even mentions Levine talking smack about Looking Glass, implying that they pushed back against some of his questionable ideas back then:

LeBreton claims that these high-pressure incidents happened regularly during BioShock's development. "There was always some thematic connection," says LeBreton. "Someone was always being 'sand in the gears', a phrase Levine used a few times to describe his time at Looking Glass, when he battled designer and programmer egos.

Another highlight from that article:

After an hour or so, the men put down the controllers and gathered for a Q&A session to answer questions about what they'd seen and played. The players spoke candidly, not knowing that the developers could see and hear everything. The feedback was brutal. The game was too dark. They didn't know where they were supposed to go. They had grown weary of collecting all that loot. Nobody trusted Atlas, the disembodied voice who acted as both welcoming party and guide to Rapture. One attendee described Atlas, who at the time spoke in a Morgan Freeman-esque Southern drawl, as a "lecherous Colonel Sanders". Another player somehow missed the fact that Rapture was an underwater city. Most of the group found the story entirely confusing.

The feedback was direct. It hurt. With only a few months to go before the game's release, the temptation for the designers was to criticise the players, rather than listen. Someone pointed out that one of the players didn't seem to know how to hold the controller properly. Someone else cast aspersions on the players' literacy: perhaps these people lacked the education to catch the game's highbrow references?

Someone else cast aspersions on the players' literacy: perhaps these people lacked the education to catch the game's highbrow references?

Their response:

The play-test behind the one-way glass in January 2007 only seemed to confirm these fears. But, after the initial sting of the criticism, the team went away and redoubled their effort. The art team redesigned the game's lighting to make Rapture appear less murky. A great deal of work went into reworking the control, UI and feedback. The team implemented a 'quest arrow' to direct the player on where to go next (much to the chagrin of some designers). Atlas was recast as an Irishman. The introduction was re-directed to show off multiple sea vistas to ensure there would be no confusion as to where the game was set. As the final submission date approached, confidence grew.

Though the article makes it seem as if the game was dumbed down heavily in response to QA feedback, when it was always the main goal, if documents like these, from the game's pitch, are any indication:

 

[Zenith]

Ooh, is this finally turning into a general "let's trash Levine" thread? I'll join in, sure.

Postmortem: Bioshock @ Gamasutra

Once we recalibrated the game to be more like a shooter, we simplified many of the deeper systems tremendously so that the user would be able to understand them.
...
BioShock had initially been positioned as a hybrid RPG FPS. The decision to reposition the game as a focused FPS came later, after our initial production phase in summer of 2006.
...
Our goal when we set out to make BioShock was very clear. We wanted to get to the next level, moving beyond our suite of critically acclaimed games to make a blockbuster.

Note that they switched the focus towards a linear corridor shooter in 2006 (after E3 2006). Meaning that the January 2007 demo from the other article was already a dumbed-down version compared to their own original vision (vision, which itself involved getting that precious cowadooty audience from the get go), and they had to go in and streamline it even further.
Also, reminder that Levine kept saying it was the deepest game they ever made etc etc way into 2007 regardless of any changes in priorities.

Bioshock: A Defence @ Eurogamer

And it's here the game actually gets too easy. Or rather, can get too easy. I was going to start this piece with a line that this is this year's Oblivion - i.e. a relatively thoughtful game that was hailed by critics (and gamers, frankly) on release but a backlash grew... especially when they realised how its balancing was so easy to knock out of whack.

Here's an article that suggests you quit your whining and appreciate Bioshock for the masterpiece it is. You're just playing it wrong, duh. Do you want video games to remain a ghetto? What are you, some sort of elitist? Sure it's severely flawed in every single way, but it's better than nothing, right? - so surely it deserved to be the highest rated PC game of all time.
I bet there are now several generations that think "gamer entitlement"/"gamer elitism" are relatively new gamejourno cliches that started with Cuphead Dragon Age 2 / Mass Effect 3. Well here's a reminder from '07 that it was always shit.

 

[Infinitron]

Besides, Ken saw which way the wind was blowing and opted for a mass market product. Smart business decision, even if it makes die-hard fans butthurt.

Was it? Let's look at two companies, Irrational Games and Arkane Studios. Both developed games with mass appeal, but Arkane clearly tried harder to cleave to oldschool immersive sim design principles. Did one really do markedly better than the other? I guess Bioshock: Infinite was a more commercially successful product than Dishonored 2 and certainly Prey, but it also killed the company. So it seems like a wash.

 

[Morgoth]

Irrational faltered because Ken was tired of the strains of AAA development and wanted to move on, not because Take 2 thought the studio was doomed due to sub-par (?) sales. Back in the Xbox 360 era, you didn't have many options in terms of funding and distribution. But then came around Steam, Kickstarter, the resurgence of smaller hardcore games, and Ken jumped at the opportunity.

Ironically, he's still under the patronage of Take 2, but he got what he wanted anyway.

 

[Latro]

"Someone was always being 'sand in the gears', a phrase Levine used a few times to describe his time at Looking Glass, when he battled designer and programmer egos.

what exactly are programmer egos? wouldn't that be a good thing for a videogame? it payed off in Thief didn't it? Thief also had pretty good design...