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BioShock creator and writer Ken Levine has commented further on the next BioShock, which is in development at Cloud Chamber Studios. Levine is not involved with the game whatsoever, which was confirmed already, and Levine said he wishes the studio all the best.
“I’m not involved with it at all. I don’t want to do half measures. I never want to be half in half out. I wish them the best. I know as much about the game as anybody else, essentially. And I’ll play it as a player when it comes out,” Levine said in an interview with Arcade Attack.
This isn’t the first BioShock game that Levine isn’t involved with, as he also had no involvement in 2010’s BioShock 2, which was developed by 2K Marin.
The new BioShock might be an open-world title. The BioShock series has been dormant for some years now, with the latest mainline release, BioShock Infinite, coming in 2013. Before this, job listings at Cloud Chamber suggested that the new BioShock would feature a “new and fantastical world,” suggesting it won’t return to Rapture or Columbia.
Also in the interview, Levine spoke about the BioShock movie that never got off the ground, despite attention from big-name studios and even Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski. Levine said he never saw the script for the BioShock movie, and he speculated that film studios don’t always want to involve the key creatives for the source material because the goals of the filmmakers might not always match up with what the game developers want.
Levine said the BioShock movie had a pitch that “wasn’t necessarily the story of BioShock.” The movie studios involved liked the visuals and aesthetic of BioShock, but not necessarily the story and characters, Levine said. One famous filmmaker, who Levine did not name, met with Levine and asked if BioShock had to be underwater, for example.
Levine ultimately had the power to veto the proposed BioShock movie, and it never went anywhere. If BioShock does ever get turned into a movie someday, Levine said he hopes it makes the people who played the game “feel like the things they loved in it are intact.”
Levine’s latest project is a new title at his Take-Two studio Ghost Story Games. This project has undergone a challenging development period, according to a report, and the title remains unannounced. Levine recently said the studio is intentionally waiting until the game is closer to being ready to show it.
