BioShock's Levine: New Game Is 'Substantially More Ambitious'

Author: by Staff, Christian Nutt

Talking to Gamasutra in a major new interview, BioShock creator Ken Levine has suggested that 2K Boston's unannounced current project is "substantially more ambitious" than that seminal title. Speaking as part of an in-depth discussion on studio culture, correctly staffing up for major projects, and his game design philosophy, Looking Glass Studios and Irrational veteran Levine explained of the philosophy behind the current 2K Boston game: "When we thought about this project, we accounted for the fact that hiring the staff that we needed to hire would take some time. And when we thought about the shipping date of the project... We needed a certain kind of length for the title, because we had a scope and ambition in mind which is more ambitious than anything we've ever done. Even more, substantially more ambitious than BioShock. And we knew that was not going to happen overnight." Continuing on his discussion of 2K Boston's studio culture and the importance of gradually staffing up with the correct employees, Levine noted: "You see that as a catastrophe that happens to a lot of companies. You do one of two things now. Either you have companies that hire a bunch of people, and you hire the wrong people, and you try to do it quickly, or you say, "Well, we're just going to do a ton of outsourcing." And you can do some outsourcing, but it's not an organic process, really, to just find studios in China that you've never worked with before, and you don't have a corporate connection to. You can do something, let's say certain art -- art resources that you can do stuff like that with, in terms of, if you have a good piece of concept art. But really, the best way to make great games is have a large group of people, many of whom have worked together for many years, who can then incorporate new people at a reasonable pace, so they can come into the company and be properly [integrated]." Levine's comments came as part of an in-depth new Gamasutra interview in which the BioShock co-creator discussed the studio's philosophy to game development, his thoughts on 2K Marin's split to make BioShock 2, and more.