BioShock 2's Creative Director On The 'Balancing Act' of Making a Sequel

Next week, on February 9, 2K Games will ship the much anticipated BioShock 2. Over 2,500 GameStop and Best Buy stores will have midnight openings for the game. The original BioShock was highly lauded for its unique setting, narrative, and gameplay choices. Building a sequel that meets or even exceeds the predecessor is no easy task. The good news is that BioShock 2 looks and plays beautifully. IndustryGamers had a chance to try out the Xbox 360 build recently in New York City and we then sat down with 2K Marin's Jordan Thomas, Creative Director on the game, to discuss all facets of BioShock 2. 

IndustryGamers: When did you start thinking about BioShock 2 and some of the concepts? Did you already have things in mind while working on the first with Ken Levine? 

Jordan Thomas, pondering the fate of Little Sisters

Jordan Thomas: Some of us were [thinking about a sequel], but only very casually. The formal existence of the project began when 2K Marin was founded roughly two and a half years ago.

IG: In terms of what I've read about Ken Levine's connection to this project, not only is he not involved in the design, but he's said that he's barely even seen BioShock 2. A lot of people obviously associate this great franchise with him, so what's your message to gamers about why they should be super stoked to play the sequel not designed by Ken?

JT: Well, I worked on the original game and I learned a lot while I was at Irrational Boston, and I feel like I've worked long and hard to absorb everything that I could about the canon of Rapture and the mythos of BioShock at large, and to treat the name with high respect as we imbue the setting with new mystery. I could have come in and said, 'Oh, now it's mine! Let's do all this ridiculous stuff that doesn't fit!' But I have found that my duty to Ken and to everybody who worked on the original game is to extend this property in a way that is respectful of their hard work. And for players and fans, I think there are a lot of really potent new mysteries that build on what they know. And for the new players, I still think we do a pretty good job of speaking to two audiences simultaneously with the beginning content. You don't have to have played the first to enjoy the second. So I guess my real answer to that is really foremost among my goals was to treat the property with respect.

IG: Speaking of mysteries, in the first game, everyone loved the twist around the 'Would you kindly?' phrase. Without giving it away, is there something twisted and unique about BioShock 2 that we'll be surprised by? 

JT: It is definitely a mystery driven plot and there are a number of crazy twists and turns. However, we did not repeat the exact same formula because that would have been predictable and tired. It's its own animal, and it's kind of a more personal story – a family conflict set against the backdrop of Rapture. One of the people in that central conflict – a sort of trio – is an idealist along the lines of Andrew Ryan [from the first game], and she has her hands in kind of cosmic shifts ideologically. But her conflict with you is very personal, and that's all you need to know to enjoy the spine story. The backstory is every bit as detailed, and if you're interested in that stuff you can pick up the optional diaries and you can poke around in the hidden back-rooms to see what's really been going on in the past.

IG: With this game, you've gone forward 10 years into the future. Assuming you're making BioShock 3, would you go back in time, or where would you go with creatively? 

JT: Well, the multiplayer component actually does go back – it's the civil war period in Rapture. That's where we put our focus for sort of prequel like content. You get to see environments from the first game but still pristine and utopian, and you sort of participate in this brutal conflict in the middle of all that beauty. That was sort of our answer to that [back in time] question. As far as future titles, we're not really talking about anything else yet. It's one of those things where we felt the best thing for us to do with BioShock 2 was to push forward in the timeline because it liberates us.

IG: BioShock is obviously now a very important franchise to Take-Two as a whole. I remember on a fiscal call last year, one of the executives talked about wanting to go way beyond BioShock 2 for numerous sequels. As a creative guy, how do you feel about it?

JT: I just think that Rapture is a fertile setting, but there are aspects of BioShock that are transcendent and not really dependent on setting. So I see a bright future for the franchise, but it's all very hypothetical at this stage.

IG: Do you personally, or does your team, feel that enormous sense of pressure from Take-Two because this game is such an important release for the company considering that Take-Two is criticized for relying too much on GTA? 

JT: Only in the sense that we have a very high quality standard. We absolutely want the game to be a success with its multiple audiences now, with different levels of familiarity and different levels of interest in the familiar versus the novel. So we're absolutely mindful of those things. Everybody should take something different away from BioShock. We know we can't please everyone because then we know we'll essentially get something “safe” and spirt-free, and we wouldn't want to end up there either; so we kind of had to pick a story that we felt was compelling and hopefully built fan momentum along the way. As far as financial pressure, again, it's a major property for 2K and we definitely want to make it a success. Beyond that, though, I don't feel like anybody's breathing down our necks, at least not to the game's detriment. They chose to move the [ship] date to increase quality, and that counts for a lot in my book.