We've been waiting over a decade now for Judas, the next game from BioShock mastermind Ken Levine. It's another first-person affair, but with different ambitions on the storytelling front, favoring player-choice and such, an endeavor he's found further inspiration for in Larian's Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaking IGN, he talked about having two contrasting play-throughs of the hit fantasy RPG. "Playing Baldur's Gate, I really understood the power of that," Levine says, referencing the depth of choice-driven storytelling on offer. "I played a second playthrough, and like one of the main characters got killed very early."
The thing is, he only understood that character's significance because he'd already completed the threequel once. Otherwise, he'd just think this is how things are meant to be.
"I only knew he was a major character from my previous playthrough, and then I did something different, and he was gone, and I saw his dead body there," Levine explains.
That kind of narrative possibility isn't something Levine's favored previously. BioShock and BioShock: Infinite are both mostly linear, with certain forks in the road that offer binary good or evil choices. System Shock isn't much different.
He's championed the "narrative lego" of Judas, the debut release from his new studio Ghost Story Games,a number of times before. It all sounds appealing, and savvy considering the popularity of Baldur's Gate 3, but it's something I'm eager to see in action before getting too excited.
At the very least, I'm now wary of what can happen the second I get control of someone in the project. It seems like everyone's lives will be in my hands in one way or another. At least I won't have Big Daddies to deal with.
