Amid ‘development hell’ claims, BioShock’s creator says ditching work should be viewed as ‘a luxury’
Amid claims that his latest project is stuck in development hell, BioShock creator Ken Levine has discussed his approach to game creation, including what he called the “luxury” of being able to discard work and start over.
Levine closed BioShock studio Irrational Games in 2014 to form a smaller outfit, initially made up of 15 staff, called Ghost Story Games.
In the years since very little has been revealed about the studio’s debut project. However, early this month, Bloomberg reported that the game was meant to be a BioShock-style shooter set on a space station, where three inhabiting factions would react to the player’s choices.
It’s claimed the game was originally targeting a 2017 release, but that it has suffered from a series of reboots and staff departures, including half of the studio’s original team.
Bloomberg said it spoke to 15 current and former Ghost Story employees, many of whom described Levine as difficult to work for, with some claiming he would alienate or intimidate those he didn’t see eye to eye with.
Levine was criticised for what some viewed as an inability to clearly communicate his vision and accused of regularly making changes of direction which meant the project failed to progress.
While Levine declined to comment on the accusations when approached for an interview with Bloomberg, he’s now discussed his approach to game development—and what he called the “luxury” of being in a position to be able to throw away work that doesn’t achieve his goals—in a wide-ranging Arcade Attack interview published on Wednesday.
It’s unclear when the interview was conducted, but it sounded as though Levine may have been addressing some of the criticism levelled at him in Bloomberg’s report.
Discussing his early career at
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