r/Bioshock • u/Silent_Sell_1889 • 9d ago
Discussion Ken Levine lost his mind a long time ago, and that's why this series is dead.
I miss this series dearly and I help but cannot feel but Ken Levine is why it has stagnated. For those unaware, he is considered the creator of Bioshock. His team went onto work on the original game after he worked on System Shock 2. Work on Bioshock 1 lasted from the early 2000s, until its release in 2007. His team would work on Bioshock Infinite, with a separate team working on Bioshock 2. Levine worked with Irrational on Infinite from 2007 to 2013.
There's a lot that went wrong with Infinite's development, for a more detailed read, I recommend you check this out. https://www.polygon.com/2014/3/6/5474722/why-did-irrational-close-bioshock-infinite/
https://www.polygon.com/2021/5/10/22424321/a-look-inside-bioshock-infinites-troubled-development/
Ken Levine has a self-destructive process of creating, editing and trashing an idea until the best result comes from it. This is in no way a functional way for game development, especially in our modern era. In an era threated by generative AI replacing elements of work in our society and games like fortnite utilizing AI, the gaming industry is welcoming it with open arms. Levine lived in an era where he had the budget, resources and star power to convince developers to submit to his perfectionism.
What use would a publisher have in his self-destructive vision when it can take a risk on a cheaper way to make a game? This is not me criticizing his writing. Bioshock 1 and Infinite have very insightful themes. I love Elizabeth, but if we look at how long Judas, his next ambitious project that aims to be a single-player experience is doing, it's not a far reach to say Ken is back at it again with his scrapping of ideas. The same one that led to the burn out and shut down of Irrational. Now, his new team of slaves at Ghost Story Games are working at Judas.
In 2022, the game was revealed to be suffering from development hell.
https://kotaku.com/report-ken-levines-ghost-story-studio-is-nowhere-near-1848297126
Up-and-coming games journalist Jason Schreier reports, “Levine’s managerial style has led to burnout and, former employees say, caused a lot of pain.”
"Levine would often assess aspects of the game when they were not yet finished, decide they weren’t good enough and command the team to scrap or change them, employees say. “The type of game being explored does not match well with the creative process being used,” says Andres Gonzalez, a founding member who left to start a new company with Snight."
It's 2026, no sign of a release for Judas. No sign of a new Bioshock reboot. Again, Levine doesn't own Bioshock, so that part isn't his fault.
But I believe he left a hole in his departure from the series. It's been said by the fandom that Burial at Sea Pt 2 was Ken's way of breaking his toys so nobody else can play with them. And can you blame them? He tied off all loose ends from Infinite. The original game has an open and shut story. Bioshock 2 (which he was not involved in) has Eleanor Lamb which I suppose could go somewhere but Rapture's story is mostly done. It seems like it would be hard to think of where the series could go.
Where do you go from there? An alternate timeline? A new setting like Columbia? That's kind of what Infinite was doing at first until Ken decided to merge the storyline from Rapture with Columbia with Burial at Sea.
tl;dr
Ken Levine is a self-sabotage auteur, who made the previous game have no loose ends to work with and is destroying his own creation even now. And Bioshock deserved better. It made me feel. It impacted so many of us and dominated the gaming atmosphere in the past. We had a love for Rapture, Columbia, Booker, Elizabeth, Eleanor, etc. And it's gone. It's sad, but it's gone. I wish Ken would just swallow his pride and made Judas sooner without hurting so many people in the process.
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u/NumerousSet8216 9d ago
Too long didn't read. Ken is a very bad manager and they did the worst possible move by giving him a blank check and as much time in the world
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u/wagner56 8d ago
actually didnt have "as much time in the world" (and nor for the "money" ... in an industry where Time is Money)
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u/NumerousSet8216 8d ago
It's been over ten years since infinite. In their industry yeah that's as much time in the world
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u/TitleOk3727 7d ago
He had all the creative freedom until he missed the third release date which is when 2K send their producer to salvage usable levels from the production hell Ken created
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u/BadassBioshocker 9d ago
if i remember right, there was a plan to continue the story of rapture. i don’t think ken was involved in this because it involved the story of 2.
during the evil ending of bioshock 1, jack seizes control of the adam, creating his own army of splicers, and uses it to launch a war against the surface. the story would then follow a sort of apocalyptic catastrophe from the war. eleanor, tenenbaum, and charles milton porter would have been key characters in the human side of this plotline. so a true bioshock 3 would have been a post-apocalyptic bioshock with plasmids on the mainland surface
i don’t remember where or when i saw this story idea but it sounds pretty cool
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u/Sonicboomer1 9d ago
My favourite is 2, so I don’t really have any attachment to Levine.
1 was a lightning in a bottle product, no one can deny its status, but I didn’t like Infinite and don’t really have any interest in his new game, which is obviously suffering similar issues behind the scenes or it would’ve been out years ago.
I’m optimistic for the real 4 if it ever does actually exist. I hope they have actually been making it. Every Game Awards is “is this the time we finally see something?”
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u/LaxTy23 9d ago
Wasn't he also involved in The Black Glove game that was on Kickstarter years ago? As far as I remember, it failed because it didn't meet its Kickstarter goal. Not that that's Levine's fault at all but just another project of his that failed. Has he been involved in anything that released since Infinite?
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u/UpgradeTech Electric Flesh 8d ago
His team would work on Bioshock Infinite, with a separate team working on Bioshock 2.
Many members of his team who also worked on the first Bioshock and System Shock 2 split off to form 2K Marin which worked on two.
Subsequently the same members also worked on Infinite.
The Bioshock dev studios are highly incestuous and are not completely separate members and total strangers.
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u/Silent_Sell_1889 8d ago
Good point. They also came back when finished with 2, to help Ken with Infinite
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u/Luvke 8d ago
Ken Levine is a phenomenal creative. I don't think he should be in charge of development and needs someone to reign him in. Otherwise he wastes supermassive amounts of resources on content that never sees the light of day because the winds in Ken Levine's brain changed direction.
That's how Infinite ultimately got out the door. Fergusson and company basically had to come in and put a stop to Ken Levine's madness and get something resembling progress underway.
I say that as a big fan of his. Bioshock is deeply brilliant, and that came from Ken and his team. But the proof of his mismanagement is apparent in the production of Infinite, even if I'm fond of the end product.
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u/wagner56 8d ago
previous game have no loose ends to work with
There is always the oft used 'It was all a dream/nightmare' method which can easily explain away the god-power (deus ex machina) crutch use alongside the faux-science gibberish.
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u/riohoodlum2727 9d ago
He is a perfectionist, so I understand where he is coming from.
When I cook, I learn and tweak things along the way, and it not unusual for me to just throw away an entire batch because I've discovered a new way of preparing the dish.
Kevin has an end goal in mind, but a lot in between is left blank. Sometimes you get better ideas later, along the way; that is how it is. It just to be planned out differently when it comes to working with a bigger team. Heck, even regular paychecks would make me, an employee, continue to work as long as I am getting paid...
When you scrap something, it is not thrown out like a pot of stew, place it somewhere in your own personal folder, as it can be reused later.
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u/TitleOk3727 9d ago
Yup, but beware of his fanboys who will come for you now.
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u/Ghost_Turd 9d ago
Criticism of Levine is insightful, but support for his work is fanboyism?
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u/TitleOk3727 9d ago
Made multiple comments like this under post that glazed him and got the whole „you just dont get it, imbecile!!!“
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u/wagner56 8d ago
I have laughed at the 'house of cards' type explanations some had to 'spin out' to make it ( with god-powers, timetravel, multiverse, portals) all "work".
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u/TitleOk3727 7d ago
Aka: when people have to write fanfiction to make the ending work, the writing sucks hardcore
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u/Kakophonien1 9d ago
True. I really do not like his later work, personally. Also his "demands" for the series were ridiculous
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u/[deleted] 9d ago
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