The long-troubled BioShock movie, which Gore Verbinski was once set to direct, is officially dead in the water. Creator Ken Levine has confirmed that he personally offed it when given the opportunity, as the movie adaptation risked compromising too much just so it could get made.
Read more: "How many times in life do you not need to compromise?" »
BioShock Infinite is going through some "tweaks and improvements," according to Irrational's Ken Levine, forcing the company's upcoming shooter into a Q1 2013 release. Oh, and don't plan on reading about it from E3 or GamesCom, either.
Two video game movers and shakers are getting high-profile attention from outside the video game sphere, as part of Time's Top 100 Influential People. Irrational head and gaming luminary Ken Levine and Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus share the honor with political figures, entertainers, and thought leaders across a broad spectrum.
The Canberra, Australia-based division of 2K Marin, which was previously named 2K Australia, has once again been given that moniker and is working with Irrational Games on BioShock Infinite, MCV Pacific has reported.
Later, Irrational boss Ken Levine confirmed the story, telling Joystiq: "We had a number of open positions on BioShock Infinite. When we found out our former sister studio 2K Australia was becoming available, we thought they would perfectly fill those roles."
Read more: 2K Australia's long history with Irrational and BioShock »
BioShock owes some of its fame to the iconic Big Daddies, who stomped around the Rapture seascape and attacked when provoked. For BioShock Infinite, series creator Ken Levine went back to the drawing board on creating a new monster, and came up with the Songbird.
"Basically he's a bit of a boogeyman in Columbia," Levine said. "It's what parents tell their kids to scare them and make sure they eat their vegetables at night."
When the original BioShock gained critical and commercial success in 2007, it immediately caught the attention of Hollywood. Since then, a planned movie adaptation has languished with budget concerns and changing directors. Now, series creator Ken Levine says the movie is still being discussed, in spite of the studio's focus on BioShock Infinite.
Today, Irrational Games launched a new podcast series that focuses on interviewing members of the entertainment industry and having a "frank and open discussion" on a multitude of topics. In its pilot episode, Irrational's Ken Levine interviews friend and fellow game designer Todd Howard of Bethesda Softworks.The pair, alongside host and producer Shawn Elliott, cover a wide range of topic from "slot machine design" to "in-game flashbacks" in the 45-minute episode.Those interested can listen to the program on the Irrational Games Website.
Read more »Irrational Games co-founder and BioShock creator Ken Levine today began teasing details of his next project, which is separate from the 2K Marin-developed BioShock 2.
"It's going to be pretty crazy ambitious," he told videogaming247, adding that project is "not in the blue-sky period any more" and that the studio is "actually building design elements and building it out." Read more »
A report in the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine furthers the long-running rumor that BioShock creator and 2K Boston studio head Ken Levine is working on a new entry in the long-dormant extraterrestrial tactical series X-COM, though it offers no new details.
The rumor has been circulating ever since a document attributing an X-COM title to then-Irrational Games, now-2K Boston and 2K Australia was found last year. The current projects of the studios behind BioShock (PC, X360) are unknown, though Read more »
"The bad news is, for storytellers, nobody cares about your stupid story," began BioShock designer Ken Levine, a divisive introduction to a talk on story in games.
"I know that's hard to hear, because you care about it a lot.. But the audience has no reason to be predisposed positively."
Despite the harsh words, the 2K Boston creative director and former Hollywood screenwriter was jovial throughout his lecture, taking the audience packed with gaming press and developers through an interesting dissection of storytelling in the video game medium. Read more »
The latest Gamers With Jobs podcast has an interview with Ken Levine, asking the 2K Boston boss about The Orange Box and Valve, the Spike TV awards, emergent story telling and more.
Read more »There's a Ken Levine Q&A on GamePro, asking BioShock's creative director about development of that game.
Read more »The next game from Guitar Hero and Rock Band creator Harmonix will be free of the peripherals that have defined so many of its recent efforts, according to a listing of the initial Game Developers Conference 2008 sessions. The title will, unsurprisingly, be centered around music. Similar to NanaOn-Sha's import-only cult classic Vib Ribbon (PSX), it is said to create custom levels based on a player's own music. "While the majority of Harmonix built the juggernaut that is 'Rock Band,' a second, smaller team set to work on a game that turns a player's own music collection in an infinite variety of gameplay 'levels,'" reads the description for the session led by senior designer Chris Foster. "Their new title faced unique challenges: beats would not be authored by tech-savvy musicians, but would instead be algorithmically generated, and the game would lack the dedicated peripherals that were critical to the success of the Guitar Hero series." Other notable talks include a discussion of in-game storytelling by BioShock creative designer Ken Levine, titled "Empowering Players To Care About Your Stupid Story," and a presentation from EA's Richard Evans on the new AI techniques used in the upcoming The Sims 3. Game Developers Conference 2008 runs February 18-22 at San Francisco's Moscone Center.
Read more »In case our own spoiler-laden interview with Ken Levine wasn't enough, GameSpot now also has an interview about specific elements in BioShock. Don't read unless you have finished the game!
Read more »The 50th Gamers With Jobs podcast is up, co-hosted by 2K Games Boston's Ken Levine. As you'd expect, BioShock is among the topics discussed.
Read more »
"Rather than just killing it, if the storyline was good why not try to crowdfund the project ..."
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