BioShock maestro Ken Levine says Judas will double down on reacting to player choices because it's the future of games: 'I've never been a big fan of cutscenes because they're not interactive'
The idea that games should center «player choice» and react meaningfully to our decisions is repeated so often it's become a cliche, and BioShock creator Ken Levine has been a leading figure in that department—his games are all about moral decisions and meta-commentary on free will and game design. In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz about the state of the industry and his upcoming game, Judas, the director revived the topic, but he hasn't given us the stock 'your choices matter' marketing promise here, admitting that choice continues to be a «hard problem» to solve even after 50 years of videogames.
«It's very easy to show a player a story. The harder part is to get them to participate in it and react to how they participate,» Levine said. «I don't think there's one way to make games, but personally, as a narrative games maker, I've never been a big fan of cutscenes because they're not interactive. One of the reasons Judas is taking so long is trying to figure out how we get the game to be substantially more responsive to player decisions. That's a really hard problem, and that's why you don't see a ton of it.»
It's an interesting point Levine raises: In some ways, we're only now starting to catch up to the granular reactivity of classic '90s RPGs and immersive sims. Exponential increases in production values, development time, and costs made it hard to justify alternate story paths and other content players might be able or likely to miss. Baldur's Gate 3, to me, is the new high water mark of combining player choice with lavish, modern production values, while we've also seen exciting things from the indie space like Disco Elysium.
Judas will have this focus on player choice because Levine sees it as where games should go next: «In the future, it [will be] player-driven—that's where we want to go. Because that's what makes our medium unique.» Levine pointed out that movies just can't manage the same illusion of consequence and participation, though I do
Read more on pcgamer.com
