We spent six hours playing a recent build of Judas, the next game from BioShock creator Ken Levine, followed by a lengthy conversation with the renowned game designer to discuss the long wait since BioShock Infinite, bringing the "narrative LEGOs" concept to life in Judas, what the game is all about, and much more.
That narrative LEGO thing sounds like a fancy way of saying that it’s a branching story with several outcomes like Detroit: Become Human, but maybe less linear? Which still sounds like a cool approach for a shooter.
Feels like forever since I heard Ken Levine ramble on about narrative LEGOs and game design. It’s an interesting concept and hopefully the game lives up to expectations. I’m still cautious that it might all end up being pre-release hype, but he certainly seems passionate about the idea and I’m certainly curious to see what narrative LEGOs actually looks like in execution.
so Bioshock in Space without the original licence or story? I think I’ll pass on this. Bioshock 1 was lightning in a bottle and an amazing game but the rest of the series was never able to reach the same heights and Infinite was really bad in my oppinion so that even the story and the scenery couldn’t save it for me.
Most people seem to like the third one, which I never understood.
The upgrade system was inferior and didn’t even change the visuals of the guns, Columbia felt more like different setpieces then a real floating city, the AI of Elisabeth was laughable compared to games like The Last of Us and the whole combat felt dumb down, even when it was faster and still little bit of fun. But it was just inferior to the two other installments.
AI of Elisabeth was laughable compared to games like The Last of Us
Having played both, I can’t say I understand the differences here. Do you mind elaborating? I found Elisabeth a lot more helpful than Elie and to be honest, I can’t remember Elie having any impact on my gameplay off the top of my head.
Having played both, I can’t say I understand the differences here. Do you mind elaborating? I found Elisabeth a lot more helpful than Elie and to be honest, I can’t remember Elie having any impact on my gameplay off the top of my head.
Quiet the opposite for me. Keep in mind I played it on the PS3 so its been a long time ago, but I remember that the enemys blatantly ignored her, that she did not fight at all and she constantly gave you ammo or health so it made the whole game pretty easy.
Elli on the other hand was really grounded in the gameplay, the animations, she fought back and also got attacked by the enemy. I just found her much more useful and real and I remember that I was quiet shocked about Elisabeth’s basic AI in Infinite
The enemies ignored both of them. Allegedly, anyway. I know when I played The Last of Us at launch, there were times that enemies saw me when I thought I was perfectly hidden while Ellie was out in the middle of no man’s land. In both cases, the enemy AI ignored these other characters because A) escort missions have never been fun, and B) it slowly builds a reason for you, the player, to grow attached to these characters when they help you. You feel the resource deficit in Infinite when Ellie’s not there to throw them to you. Both games did basically come up with the same gimmick in the same year.
Infinite was fucking great. I remeber feeling really immersed in the game and the story. It had super weird and dark theme which had me gripped. Oh Booker and Elizabeth, I miss you.
People seem to forget that Elizabeth was one of the first companions in video game history where she wasn’t this immediate liability that you had to protect harder than protecting yourself. It was a excellent gameplay choice to make her invincible, so you could focus on Booker’s own health and the enemies, but she was also useful, tossing you items and finding rifts to open. Even her interactions made it felt like she was a proper companion and not this misogynistic damsel-in-distress stereotype.
Prey should have been called Neuroshock. Yes it’s basically bioshock in space. Even down to the wrench.
I slept on Prey for ages and eventually worked up the motivation to play past the intro and it was such an experience I immediately did a second playthrough. It’s legitimately one of my favourite games. Heartbreaking that it didn’t perform well.
How long until you get out of the section with mimic enemies? Because when that game launched, that was all I saw in footage of the opening hours, and I wasn’t interested in that.
The mimics are there throughout the entire game. However about 1-2 hours in you get a piece of equipment that lets you detect shapeshifted mimics before you get close. You start encountering non-mimics pretty early on though. Once you get out into the lobby you get some variety in enemies which is pretty early on.
I’m really excited to hear that the narrative Lego concept is working. It makes a lot of sense on paper, but there are a lot of ways it could go wrong. We won’t really know until the game is out, but this could potentially be revolutionary for the medium, both from the customer’s side and the business side of things.
Yeah, very cautiously optimistic. It’s making me a bit anxious though that it sounds similar to what We Happy Few tried to do with the whole non-linear story thing.
I’m a big fan of Levine and his games and I’m looking forward to Judas. It might not be a huge mainstream hit but I think it’s going to be fantastic for some people, or at least interesting for everyone to see what has he been cooking all these years. It definitely sounds like his dream game he wanted to make for a while now
New System Shock probably isn’t happening. Warren Spector was working on it a while back, but the project got canned and the rights are with TenCent now. Since it’s not exactly the sort of thing you can turn into a live service micro transaction generator I really don’t see it going anywhere any time soon.
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That narrative LEGO thing sounds like a fancy way of saying that it’s a branching story with several outcomes like Detroit: Become Human, but maybe less linear? Which still sounds like a cool approach for a shooter.
Feels like forever since I heard Ken Levine ramble on about narrative LEGOs and game design. It’s an interesting concept and hopefully the game lives up to expectations. I’m still cautious that it might all end up being pre-release hype, but he certainly seems passionate about the idea and I’m certainly curious to see what narrative LEGOs actually looks like in execution.
I’m excited for this game, it could really be an amazing experience.
so Bioshock in Space without the original licence or story? I think I’ll pass on this. Bioshock 1 was lightning in a bottle and an amazing game but the rest of the series was never able to reach the same heights and Infinite was really bad in my oppinion so that even the story and the scenery couldn’t save it for me.
I thought infinite was the best one
Most people seem to like the third one, which I never understood.
The upgrade system was inferior and didn’t even change the visuals of the guns, Columbia felt more like different setpieces then a real floating city, the AI of Elisabeth was laughable compared to games like The Last of Us and the whole combat felt dumb down, even when it was faster and still little bit of fun. But it was just inferior to the two other installments.
Having played both, I can’t say I understand the differences here. Do you mind elaborating? I found Elisabeth a lot more helpful than Elie and to be honest, I can’t remember Elie having any impact on my gameplay off the top of my head.
Quiet the opposite for me. Keep in mind I played it on the PS3 so its been a long time ago, but I remember that the enemys blatantly ignored her, that she did not fight at all and she constantly gave you ammo or health so it made the whole game pretty easy.
Elli on the other hand was really grounded in the gameplay, the animations, she fought back and also got attacked by the enemy. I just found her much more useful and real and I remember that I was quiet shocked about Elisabeth’s basic AI in Infinite
The enemies ignored both of them. Allegedly, anyway. I know when I played The Last of Us at launch, there were times that enemies saw me when I thought I was perfectly hidden while Ellie was out in the middle of no man’s land. In both cases, the enemy AI ignored these other characters because A) escort missions have never been fun, and B) it slowly builds a reason for you, the player, to grow attached to these characters when they help you. You feel the resource deficit in Infinite when Ellie’s not there to throw them to you. Both games did basically come up with the same gimmick in the same year.
I disagree to that. Ellie got permanently attacked by the AI, in Bioshock she is blatantly ignored.
Sure, Ellie got attacked in much the same way that professional wrestlers are in a fight. It wasn’t really material to your success or survival.
Infinite was fucking great. I remeber feeling really immersed in the game and the story. It had super weird and dark theme which had me gripped. Oh Booker and Elizabeth, I miss you.
I was very very surprised to have a companion that wasn’t obnoxious to escort.
People seem to forget that Elizabeth was one of the first companions in video game history where she wasn’t this immediate liability that you had to protect harder than protecting yourself. It was a excellent gameplay choice to make her invincible, so you could focus on Booker’s own health and the enemies, but she was also useful, tossing you items and finding rifts to open. Even her interactions made it felt like she was a proper companion and not this misogynistic damsel-in-distress stereotype.
They’re still under Take Two. If they wanted it to be BioShock proper, it would be. Personally, I loved Infinite.
Wasn’t Prey basically BioShock in space? It felt like that to me (at least the first level I bumbled through before the game crashed and I gave up).
Prey is worth playing all the way through.
Prey should have been called Neuroshock. Yes it’s basically bioshock in space. Even down to the wrench.
I slept on Prey for ages and eventually worked up the motivation to play past the intro and it was such an experience I immediately did a second playthrough. It’s legitimately one of my favourite games. Heartbreaking that it didn’t perform well.
How long until you get out of the section with mimic enemies? Because when that game launched, that was all I saw in footage of the opening hours, and I wasn’t interested in that.
The mimics are there throughout the entire game. However about 1-2 hours in you get a piece of equipment that lets you detect shapeshifted mimics before you get close. You start encountering non-mimics pretty early on though. Once you get out into the lobby you get some variety in enemies which is pretty early on.
I’m really excited to hear that the narrative Lego concept is working. It makes a lot of sense on paper, but there are a lot of ways it could go wrong. We won’t really know until the game is out, but this could potentially be revolutionary for the medium, both from the customer’s side and the business side of things.
Yeah, very cautiously optimistic. It’s making me a bit anxious though that it sounds similar to what We Happy Few tried to do with the whole non-linear story thing.
I’m a big fan of Levine and his games and I’m looking forward to Judas. It might not be a huge mainstream hit but I think it’s going to be fantastic for some people, or at least interesting for everyone to see what has he been cooking all these years. It definitely sounds like his dream game he wanted to make for a while now
Was there any info on when it might be finished?
He won’t rule out this year as a release year, but he won’t commit to it either.
This game has been in development for nearly a decade and has had a storied development cycle
Yeah, but a decade of development time can be deceiving when you’re prototyping a new way of doing things for a while.
New BioShock when? Better yet when new System Shock? My brain cannon considers them to be the same series
New System Shock probably isn’t happening. Warren Spector was working on it a while back, but the project got canned and the rights are with TenCent now. Since it’s not exactly the sort of thing you can turn into a live service micro transaction generator I really don’t see it going anywhere any time soon.
Well, Tencent has a 30% share of Larian Studios. So there is a infinitesimal chance of a (turn based?) System Shock.