IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

BioShock Creator Has Only 'Seen a Few Minutes' of BioShock 2

Posted January 15, 2010 by James Brightman

Take-Two is preparing to release the much anticipated BioShock 2 on February 9, but franchise creator Ken Levine actually has barely seen the game, believe it or not. In an interview with Joystiq, in which he explains the name change for 2K Boston back to Irrational Games, Levine was asked about his official relationship with BioShock 2.

"I don't have ... except for being the studio that created the world and the franchise. You know: Andrew Ryan, Big Daddies and Little Sisters and all those things. We don't have a connection with BioShock 2. I haven't really seen it," he said. 

The interviewer, somewhat in shock apparently, followed up asking, "You haven't seen it?" Levine continued, "I've seen a few minutes of it. I haven't really played it."

It is somewhat surprising that the creator of the franchise would be so removed from the sequel, which is clearly a very important release for publisher 2K Games in 2010. Nevertheless, Levine explained that he can't be partially involved in something; he needs to be all in. "I'm waiting for it to be done. I want to play it as a fan. If I'm going to work on something ... either I work on something or I don't work on something," he said. "I'm in for a penny, I'm in for a pound. If I'm not going to work on it, I just want to play what's there as a fan. I don't play betas. Except for stuff I'm actually working on, I hate playing betas because I just want to play it when it's done. We started with them, we were working on BioShock 2, then I just said well, 'I'll play it as a fan when it comes out.'"

Even without Levine's involvement, this looks to be shaping up nicely

As for the decision to switch his studio's name back to Irrational, Levine commented, "I think the name change is about community. I think the change in name, I think a lot of people here wanted to go back to the original name. I think the press, I'm not trying to be presumptuous here, but a lot of people would write about us as Irrational Games or 'formerly known as Irrational Games,' and we definitely got that from the fans as well. So, we kinda looked at ourselves and said, 'Maybe we should go back to the old name?' To Take-Two's credit, they said 'OK.' So we wanted to make sure we had a forum to connect with everybody and given this is the year we're going to start talking about our next product. It's very important we have that connection."

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.