14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent interview, Ken Levine, the creator of the BioShock franchise, revealed why he chose not to be involved in the creation of BioShock 2. Apparently, he and his team wanted to avoid repetition and focus on innovation in the horror genre.
Speaking to Eurogamer at the event dedicated to the announcement of BioShock Infinite, Levine said that, “For me and the team it was about not repeating ourselves.”
He added that, “If you look at, whether it's a Final Fantasy where one game in the series is very different to another, or even Alien and Aliens is a great example: two very different stories, one's a haunted house movie and one's an action movie.
“For us I think the guiding principle is: if they never stopped making horror movies where everything was a house on a haunted hill with lightning going in the sky, you'd never have The Shining, that antiseptic bright look. How do you create horror in that?
“That's what we're doing. We're always trying to challenge ourselves. We've done that, we've done the dark rooms, but that's a crutch, eventually, for a team.”
It seems that 2K wanted a shorter development cycle for the title that followed the original BioShock, as well as to keep the same setting, something that did not bode well with Irrational.
Furthermore, Levine said that his outfit felt that it had expressed what it wanted with Rapture and that there was no need to return to the underwater cityscape.
2K Games must have decided to let another team do another title revolving around Rapture, leaving Irrational to do what they do best and take their time in creating another disruptive product like the original was when it launched.
Levin was also happy with the way 2K Marin managed to complete BioShock 2, saying that, “I think it's a very talented team and I think it fulfilled the mission of completing the story of Rapture.”