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What's Ken Levine up to?

ToddBonzalez

ToddBonzalez

The Pyramids? That's nothing compared to RDR2
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,530
Ken Levine was an industry darling. He helped shape the immersive sim genre with his work on Thief and System Shock 2 and directed the critically-adored Bioshock. After Bioshock, Levine and his team at Irrational Games began work on Bioshock Infinite which had a lengthy, tumultuous dev cycle. Infinite released to critical acclaim and decent sales, though it has been the subject of more critical takes in recent years. Many would argue the game hasn't aged as well the first Bioshock.

Irrational had grown quite large throughout Infinite's development. Following Infinite's release, much of Irrational's staff was laid off under unclear circumstances. Levine claimed the downsizing was due to his desire to work with a smaller team, but one could infer the layoffs were due in part to Take Two's disappointment with game's commercial reception.

I know Levine formed a new, small team from the ashes of Irrational but, with it having been over 5 years since the release of Bioshock Infinite, has there been any whisper of what his next project is? When do you think it will be properly revealed? Do you care?
 
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SlipperyMoose

SlipperyMoose

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
2,231
He's actually an Austriallian citizen now. He spent many years playing Vic Mensa in a new god of war game.
 
renegade_sylens

renegade_sylens

Member
Nov 5, 2017
3,479
ToddBonzalez said:
Ken Levine was an industry darling. He helped shape the immersive sim genre with his work on Thief and System Shock 2 and directed the critical darling Bioshock. After Bioshock, Levine and his team at Irrational Games began work on Bioshock Infinite which had a lengthy, tumultuous dev cycle. Infinite released to critical acclaim and decent sales, though it has been the subject of more critical takes in recent years; many would argue the game hasn't aged as well the first Bioshock.

Irrational had grown quite large throughout Infinite's development. Following Infinite's release, much of Irrational's staff was laid off under unclear circumstances. Levine claimed the downsizing was due to his desire to work with a smaller team, but one could infer the layoffs were due in part to Take Two's disappointment with game's commercial reception.

I know Levine formed a new, small team from the ashes of Irrational but, with it having been over 5 years since the release of Bioshock Infinite, has there been any whisper of what his next project is? When do you think it will be properly revealed? Do you care?
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I was thinking the same thing some time ago. He announced he was working on something with a smaller team and expected to at least hear something by now, I mean 5 years is a long time and usually, projects are leaked by then if a project is in serious development. Who knows?
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,181
i just assumed he was still working on that one game with the Irrational vets. the one that supposedly revolutionizes how narratives are told or whatever

does kinda raise an eyebrow as we're half a decade removed from bioshock infinite. but my guess is we'll see his next game sooner rather than later
 
gdt

gdt

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,500
Apparently its a super small team so a longer dev cycle is expected I think.....
 
mindsale

mindsale

Member
Oct 29, 2017
5,911
He helms Ghost Story Games. They're a small team of Irrational alums that are working on a title with a procedurally-generated, infinitely replayable narrative. He gave a talk some PAX Easts ago about utilizing elements of story like XCOM procedurally generated soldiers and terrain.

Edit: On a personal note, he's my favorite game director by a landslide.
 
starbuck2907

starbuck2907

Member
Jan 29, 2018
96
He's making a single player game where the story and levels change each time you play it. He's trying to solve the "one run through and done" problem that makes publishers not want to invest in single player anymore.
 
Iwao

Iwao

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,804
Seems to have gone off the radar until he's ready to reveal what he's making.

I'm waiting patiently...
 
Zukkoyaki

Zukkoyaki

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
11,286
Like others have said, some kind of single-player game designed to be replayable. It's supposedly a 2K joint as well since Ghost Story is basically a rebooted Irrational.

I'm really looking forward to seeing it. Ken's games are all stellar.
 
TheSpaceBetween

TheSpaceBetween

Member
Jan 11, 2018
9,653
Dude takes forever to make games. I'm hoping to hear something next year, but if we're realistic, we probably won't be playing whatever he's working on for a few more.
 
Huey

Huey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,211
ToddBonzalez said:
Irrational had grown quite large throughout Infinite's development. Following Infinite's release, much of Irrational's staff was laid off under unclear circumstances. Levine claimed the downsizing was due to his desire to work with a smaller team, but one could infer the layoffs were due in part to Take Two's disappointment with game's commercial reception.
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Um... what?

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-06-01-bioshock-infinite-has-sold-11-million-units
 
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Inuhanyou

Inuhanyou

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,214
New Jersey
Dont honestly care. THe guy killed Bioshock as a trilogy after how Bioshock infinite turned out an especially that DLC which retroactively ruined the points of both the original bioshock game and infinite
 

devSin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,196
ToddBonzalez said:
Irrational had grown quite large throughout Infinite's development. Following Infinite's release, much of Irrational's staff was laid off under unclear circumstances. Levine claimed the downsizing was due to his desire to work with a smaller team, but one could infer the layoffs were due in part to Take Two's disappointment with game's commercial reception.
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You could only infer that if you wanted to make excuses for a leader who threw his entire team under the bus to go make whatever vapid nonsense he thought was a better use of his creative "genius".
 
Nirolak

Nirolak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,660
The studio imploded because Ken's toxic work behavior caused much of his top staff to leave, and Ken didn't think he could successfully ship another AAA game between that and how poorly Infinite's dev cycle went. Take-Two didn't think the staff that remained between the mass departures and Ken taking hand chosen staff to a smaller scale, so they canned the studio.

This was actually one of the rare instances where it wasn't the product's sales that caused issues, but rather that it seemed unlikely the studio would ever succeed again.

As for why they've yet to ship another game, well, it's not like scaling down the studio fixes all the things that are wrong with how Ken approaches development. It simply makes it cost less when he gets endlessly lost in the woods.
 
Mr. Genuine

Mr. Genuine

Member
Mar 23, 2018
1,620
He is trying to make a single player narrative-based game that allows the player to replay the game and have the narrative be significantly different with each playthrough based on player choice. He uses the term "narrative legos" to describe it and he did a GDC talk about it a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p40p0AVUH70
 
StreamedHams

StreamedHams

Member
Nov 21, 2017
4,325
I misread this as "What's Ken Lobb up to these days?"

And I was going to respond something about hopefully making another Killer Instinct.
 

Deleted member 46641

User requested account closure
Banned
Aug 12, 2018
3,494
Procedural generation either REALLY works or it uses a lot of time and money that could've gone to other places. For example, Chasm was an OK game that I feel would've come out a lot sooner and in better form if it wasn't randomly generated.

I'm intrigued by a randomly generated narrative game as a concept but I see way more ways it could go wrong than right.
 
iliketopaint_93

iliketopaint_93

Use of alt account
Member
Sep 3, 2018
597
Nirolak said:
The studio imploded because Ken's toxic work behavior caused much of his top staff to leave, and Ken didn't think he could successfully ship another AAA game between that and how poorly Infinite's dev cycle went. Take-Two didn't think the staff that remained between the mass departures and Ken taking hand chosen staff to a smaller scale, so they canned the studio.

This was actually one of the rare instances where it wasn't the product's sales that caused issues, but rather that it seemed unlikely the studio would ever succeed again.

As for why they've yet to ship another game, well, it's not like scaling down the studio fixes all the things that are wrong with how Ken approaches development. It simply makes it cost less when he gets endlessly lost in the woods.
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Word? I heard there were issues with development and he had mental health problems but didn't know he was mistreating employees. What were the toxic behaviors if you don't mind my asking (link?)?
 
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