this seems like par for the course for ken levine games. not sure whether publishers will be as patient, however, these days as each year spent in development is much more expensive than what used to be the case when development teams were smaller
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oh yeah, he's working on a new ip right?
seems like both his new game and the game he used to work on are in development hell then
On one hand it's a BioShock game, so of course it's going through development struggles.
On the other hand this Twitter account is nonsense and has been posting nonsense for years: https://twitter.com/oopsleaks/status/1460898270327279617
On the other hand this Twitter account is nonsense and has been posting nonsense for years: https://twitter.com/oopsleaks/status/1460898270327279617
It's kinda weird that people are framing the Bioshock Franchise in the immersive sim genre. I know that defining what exactly constitutes a particular genre is not 100% clear.. but to me the Bioshock games are 1st person shooters with cool powers in cool settings. There's nothing wrong with that, but they're not close to being able to let you play with systems in the way Deus Ex , System Shock 2 or even Prey 2017 do.
His new game has had a trailer, I don't think it's in dev hell.
Judas announced by Ghost Story Games (Ken Levine) - Bioshock in space
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoLJ4HgWqw4
www.resetera.com
Agreed. It has immersive sim roots, but the actual gameplay is more a shooter. I think it sits on the borderline of barely being an immersive sim, because there are some elements still in there.
The big daddy/little sister mechanic is unconventional, and you can build your character with a wide variety of tonics and powers that can interact with one another. The security system is straight immersive sim, and there's a reasonable amount of environmental interaction in terms of powers/shooting.
So overall I'd call it a shooter with some imm sim elements, but it's not a true immersive sim.
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Why wouldn't it? The series has always sold extremely well. Probably one of the strongest IP's 2K has right now.
Either way, I'm more looking forward to Judas. That's truly the next Bioshock to me.
Levine's game, Judas had a gameplay trailer at The Game Awards back in December. So that one seems to be coming along at least.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmefiirV0JM
Oooh I knew it existed, but I didn't know that fact! Wonder how that'd work... Like city buried under ice?
Yes. They tried having the city be constantly on fire, but consumer tests were, um...slightly mortified by the excessive crispiness of the protagonist and other characters.
Back to ye olde draw-ring board!
while i doubt there's any direct connection between Judas and this game's development troubles, it did strike me as funny that Ken Levine is doing what appears to be a new Bioshock in all but name at the same time as an official new Bioshock is in development, both from the same publisher
That sounds pretty par for the course given the IP tbh.
Bioshock is absolutely an immersive sim game. Ken Levine is even on record talking about how even though it's an immersive sim game he doesn't feel compelled to hamstring it or include a bunch of features inherent to the genre for the sake of it because of what he focuses on as a game designer. Granted this isn't even a game by Kev, so who knows how the new team is approaching it and what elements they feel worth going after.
Are...are you kidding? Because that sounds horrifying and insane.
It's an FPS. There's literally nothing from imm sim subgenre in any of BioShock games.
I so didn't know about this project and I'm surprised.
I felt that after Infinite the series got a nice ending to it. Always a city, always a lighthouse blabla. It was a great ending tbh, so I'm surprised they're bringing it back. Nothing will ever beat the original Bioshock's ambience, though.
Also, wtf it's been 10 years since Infinite already?! Holy heck.
I felt that after Infinite the series got a nice ending to it. Always a city, always a lighthouse blabla. It was a great ending tbh, so I'm surprised they're bringing it back. Nothing will ever beat the original Bioshock's ambience, though.
Also, wtf it's been 10 years since Infinite already?! Holy heck.
My brother in christ the game's design is literally as direct result of it being made by people who previously worked on immersive sim games and asking using that work experience to deliver a more narratively focused immersive sim game. You can't even search immersive sim on wiki without a mention of Bioshock. Or even "best immersive sim" games without of it. It's one of the most well known games in the genre and arguably the most successful.
People who argue otherwise have an incredibly stringent definition of what makes an immersive sim game and shouldn't be taken very seriously. Part of what caused the backlash to Infinite was BECAUSE it went away from the immersive sim genre after years of the marketing team advertising it as hypothetically the most dynamic game in the genre.
Bioshock has never been an imsim. Enemies pop up in front of you, you shoot them. It's a FPS. There's nothing remotely imsim about Bioshock.
An imsim this does not make.
"An immersive sim (simulation) is a video game genre that emphasizes player choice. Its core, defining trait is the use of simulated systems that respond to a variety of player actions which, combined with a comparatively broad array of player abilities, allow the game to support varied and creative solutions to problems, as well as emergent gameplay beyond what has been explicitly designed by the developer.[1] This definition is not to be confused with game systems which allow player choice in a confined sense or systems which allow players to easily escape consequences of their choices."
Bioshock is the latter.
I am completely serious. They even prototyped a vigor that would give you roasted turkey legs instead of your crispy human ones so you could move around faster.
:p
I agree it's a shooter but it does have some imsim elements, however watered down. Put it another way: Prey clearly has more imsim elements but it's not a world away from Bioshock.
Agreed. I would put it low on the immersive sim scale, if there is such a thing, but it clearly has immersive sim elements.
Besides all the things that make it an immersive sim like the systemic elements and consistent rules several of which can be directly interacted with the player. I guess all hose game designers were completely unaware about the kind of game they were making and what was influencing their design decisions. And apparently every website that mentions Bioshock when talking about immersive sims just, are wrong, because forum posters who have a tendency to have hyper specific descriptors when it comes to genres said so.
Why should I believe this twitter account?
Given the how long it has been and how old the rumors are without anything concrete showing up still, yeah I'd probably believe they're having trouble with the development but still.
Given the how long it has been and how old the rumors are without anything concrete showing up still, yeah I'd probably believe they're having trouble with the development but still.
My brother in christ scroll down further into the Wikipedia article you copy and pasted this paragraph from. Bioshock is mentioned eight times.
It's a crucial part of the genre's history despite not being identical to the games that came before it just like immersive sims made TODAY aren't identical to the origins of the genre. Because genres evolve and change overtime as a result of the factors that lead to a game being made in the first place and how that leads to unique titles. That's why the only place you'd find people arguing wise are places like comment sections or forums wherein the people saying such things are being pedantic and hyper specific about what "counts" as part of the genre. Thinking that doing so overrides the decade+ of acknowledgement from everyone else including the people who worked on it. Genres a spectrum for reason. Bioshock is on the IMSIM spectrum as a pared down hyper focused narrative take on it after negative playtests. Meanwhile they really wanted to bring all that back for Infinite and take the genre itself to the next level, seemingly forgetting the limitations of the console generation they were working with and so we got an extremely paired down experience followed by the studio itself experiencing a large amount of layoffs.
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Don't worry he doesn't actually know what an immersive sim is apparently.
Okay, I'm going to need the creative team to explain themselves because I just have...so many questions. So, so, so many questions.
OmG, is this like the same argument that guy who kept calling Bioshock an RPG because it gave you three choices in the whole game?! Just cause it has a few traits that it shares (that are very sparse) does not make it that. It just means it has some (honestly not even much) influence of it.
Bioshock has all the classic traits of an FPS. You go along a storyline, linear story, and you shoot things and you have levels of waves of enemies. Is Wolfenstein and Killzone an immsim too? Cause those games are very similar in gameplay... because they are all FPS's... and have all the traits of an FPS. Bioshock just added a few choices. And I do mean a few (like not much).
I've said it once and I'll say it again, make a VR BioShock set it in a Matrix-like virtual city and let the meta commentary on subjective experience vs reality write itself.
Pssh, you're just upset that you weren't smart enough to understand or appreciate the adept and biting commentary on racism.
Like it or not, this is subtle writing done right and you just weren't on the wave.
/s, obviously. Shouldn't need the disclaimer but ya never know around here.
It literally started out as a game using all of the concepts they wanted in System Shock 3. It's not sparse influences it's literally a game made by immersive sim devs. You can't find "history of bioshock" without system shock, the game it's named after getting mentioned and the leadup/reasons they had to build a new IP while retaining/iterating on the core ideas of the genre. Honestly, given it's success, the most accurate description of Bioshock you could come up with is probably "Baby's first immersive sim game" because for many it was their exposure to the genre, and a big enough success to let other studios greenlight titles in the genre. Read the post above about how it's a crucial piece of the genre's history.
No they aren't. Again, look at the throughline from how we got Bioshock in the first place. And how that affected the perception of the genre.
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Why would that be boring? I believe it is set in an underground city in Antarctica. That is like saying the Atlantic Ocean is a boring location in Bioshock. It's just the surrounding location. It's the city that is interesting. You could do anything! Play around with the cold or light or dark in that area.
Perhaps in this timeline Lovecraft's writings were true and they built a city/society around the Elder Things/Shoggoths ala "At The Mountains of Madness"...fuck! You could do anything!
Just cause they made immersive sims before doesn't make it one. Hell, plenty of games that are set int hes same world that aren't the same type game (Fallout 76 is not an RPG for example, nor is Fallout Brotherhood of Steel). Horizon ZD's developer made FPS's before... is Horizon now an FPS?!
I mean I think Fallout 4 is an RPG (a really weak one but I still think it fits) but I gotta say the people arguing it's an FPS and closer to Borderlands than an RPG have a lot more reason/logic to their arguments than Bioshock is am immsersive Sim and not an FPS with a few choices. What is so simulation about it? That you can make three choices? You can choose how to shoot people? You still are just shooting enemies in a level that come in at waves at you. Yeah, the level isn't directly linear.. but you know what, neither is Wolfenstein's (least teh more modern ones I've played).
I mean maybe they intended to make an immsim, btu they failed miserably then. It walks like an FPS, it talks like an FPS, it's an FPS (and btw, so is Borderlands which I'd say has more "choices" then Bioshock... just rather more choices in what powers you get and what skills you have).
🤔
There are many elements of the game that play out in an emergent way. Which boils down to the consistent rules they developed and supported. Which leads to player s solving issues outside of simply shooting whatever moves. Hence, Baby's first immersive sim. Because it distills the experiences of the games that came before into a very consumable format after playtesting revealed that some elements simply weren't working. And that feedback resulted in an experience that, while not as deep, was still undeniable an immersive sim made by immersive sim devs led by a guy who wanted a deeper narrative focus within the fleshed out setting.
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Feels like a lot of games the last few years have had serious issues with writing/story, namely
Saints Row
Gotham Knights
Midnight Suns
Forspoken
Redfall
Its not a new issue or anything but its a bit weird its happening so much so often in western studios recently (yeah I know Forspoken devs are in Japan but I think many of the writers were from here including Gary Whitta and Amy Henning from Uncharted). Hope some of these studios do some post mortems that come out at a GDC in the future so the industry can figure out whats going wrong. I also thought HFW and GOW:R were weaker than their predecessors but thats more a personal take I think than general consensus.
Saints Row
Gotham Knights
Midnight Suns
Forspoken
Redfall
Its not a new issue or anything but its a bit weird its happening so much so often in western studios recently (yeah I know Forspoken devs are in Japan but I think many of the writers were from here including Gary Whitta and Amy Henning from Uncharted). Hope some of these studios do some post mortems that come out at a GDC in the future so the industry can figure out whats going wrong. I also thought HFW and GOW:R were weaker than their predecessors but thats more a personal take I think than general consensus.
The arguments that Forspoken had major writing issues were fueled by misogynoir cause it most definitely doesn't.
You named five games out of a metric fuckton of games released within the past few years that have received praise for their writing. This is confirmation bias.
Not really interested anyway. No Ken Levine means no BioShock for me. I know 2 has its following, butI thought it was ok at best.
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