Tag Archives: irrational games

“Elizabeth is the catalyst for what sets this revolution that’s going in slow motion into one that’s going at hyperspeed. The fact that you bust her out of this tower where you find her at the beginning of the game… the Queen comes into play on the board. And each side – the Founders on one side, and the Vox Populi on the other side – feels that Elizabeth is essential to them accomplishing their goals. The Founders want to keep her locked up in the tower, and the Vox Populi want to destroy her. This is because she is part of a prophecy: it is believed that if Elizabeth dies, the city falls with her. That’s all the Vox Populi want, to take the symbol of their oppressor and make it tumble from the heavens.” – Irrational’s Ken Levine, speaking to PC Gamer on Elizabeth’s importance to Columbia’s ongoing civil war.

The shooter launches this year on PS3, 360 and PC.

Irrational’s announced and detailed something called 1999 mode for BioShock Infinite.

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BioShock creator Ken Levine famously avoids cutscenes wherever possible, and believes if you need one to tell your story – well, maybe it’s time to get a new story.

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Irrational head Ken Levine has said it’s “disappointing” the online community has focused on BioShock Infinite heroine Elizabeth’s “chest” instead of her character, saying any sex symbol status was never his “intent”.

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2K aired a brand new trailer of BioShock Infinite tonight at the VGAs tonight, showing another side to Columbia not shown before. The video showed a mix of old clips from the previous two gameplay demos airing over the past year, as well as new content. We’re stoked for this, quite simply. Get the video below the break.

The Irrational epic launches in 2012 for PS3, 360 and PC.

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The bottom of the ocean isn’t what makes BioShock what it is, according to creator Ken Levine.

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Here’s a sneak peek at the new BioShock: Infinite trailer ahead of this Saturday’s VGAs: A single, uninformative screenshot, teasingly tweeted by host Geoff Keighley.

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“When we started making a game, we don’t tear anything from the headlines. Just like with the first BioShock, I’m not surprised to see that the headlines came back to align more closely with the game. There are certain themes just repeat over and over and over throughout history: it was common in the 30s, in the 50s with the Red Scare. You see these things over and over again, especially during tough financial times. It’s not something that we planned on, it’s just that we’re touching themes that are very core to America and to every country.”

– Ken Levine, speaking to the US PS Blog, on BioShock: Infinite’s highly topical political themes, reiterating their timeless resonance rather than specific parallels. BioShock: Infinite is expected on major platforms in 2012.

Although BioShock: Infinite abandons the silent protagonist schtick, Irrational Games boss Ken Levine is still a champion of quiet.

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“We had a number of open positions on BioShock Infinite. When we found out our former sister studio 2K Australia was becoming available, we thought they would perfectly fill those roles. If every decision was this easy…”

– Irrational Games boss Ken Levine, speaking to Joystiq about the freshly renamed 2K Australia’s involvement with BioShock: Infinite. The multiplatform title is expected in 2012.

2K Australia is once more collaborating with Irrational Games.

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The Lost, a game which has never seen release in English-speaking territories, laid the foundations for Irrational Games’ masterpiece.

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“I think that if anyone is ever going to tell you where they think [the industry's] going to be 10 years from now, and if they exude confidence, that means they’re trying to sell you something. I think that the industry is changing so fast, the best we can hope for as a developer, is to try to keep your ear to the ground. And I think the most important thing you can do – I told a friend this recently – I said, ‘Don’t mistake the present for the future.’ I think that happens a lot with trends. Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, social games. This is what the future is.’ By the time there’s a gold rush, the gold is already gone, generally.”

“So I’d be thrilled if I could figure out what’s going to happen six months, a year from now and try to stay on top of those trends and be flexible to be wrong, but I think that the biggest mistake people make is not in predicting the future, it’s thinking the present’s going to be the future. And I really try to avoid that.” – Irrational’s Ken Levine to IndustryGamers.

“I had a couple of false starts with screenwriting and computer consulting and graphic design, all these different things. And then it occurred to me – I was reading NextGen magazine, which they don’t publish any more – and I saw their ads in the back for jobs at game companies and one ad that really stood out to me was an ad for a company called Looking Glass, which also doesn’t exist anymore unfortunately. And there was a game designer job and I was like, ‘Game designer. Well, that sounds good. Let me try to do that.’ And I applied for a job and they called me up and they gave it to me. I got in fairly quickly.

“It occurred to me first that there was such a job, and then I was like, ‘Oh. OK. That’s what I want to do.’ The moment it occurred to me such a job existed, it was very clear I wanted to do that.”

– Irrational Games boss Ken Levine tells IndustryGamers how he discovered his dream career.

“When we first determined that we were going to not go back to Rapture, we, as a studio, said what we wanted to say about Rapture. We kicked around the idea of, ‘What if we were to keep the core principles of BioShock, but everything else really was really up for grabs at that point?’ The first thing we said was what if we went to a very different time period. The turn of the century was very attractive to us and if you looked at the sort of art for that period, especially the sci-fi art, there’s always these images of cities in the sky. And that just really inspired us, and that was really the starting point.” – BioShock creator Ken Levine, reiterating to CVG on why Irrational left behind Rapture for Columbia with Infinite.

Game’s out next year.

“In the original BioShock, the entire game lived in one corner of [a] graph – few enemies, all at close range — so the Electro Bolt and shotgun were perfect. BioShock Infinite is going to have much greater ranges and, potentially, far more enemies, so we’re greatly increasing the spectrum of encounters that are possible, and that requires the player use a broader set of tools. That being said, it may be a given player will try to find a way to close down those distances and stick with Electro Bolt and shotgun, but I don’t think that’s going to be anywhere near as effective a strategy this time around. They were too devastating in BioShock, we admit that, but we’re not going to solve it by simply nerfing those weapons; we’re doing it by changing the types of encounter you’re going to face.” – Irrational’s Ken Levine to the PS Blog (via Joystiq).

“We’ve got the Move controls working now back at the studio, certainly more so than we had when we announced it at E3, and really we’re just waiting for the opportunity to show that with a new piece of content. It’s working well but we still have a lot of polishing to do. Of all the motion controllers in the world, the Move is the one best suited to a first-person shooter, and a lot of PlayStation games have done a great job incorporating it. I will say that we’re discovering some great opportunities with the Skyline gameplay, but rather than show it to people with an old demo, I’d prefer to show it with a new piece of content.” – Irrational’s Ken Levine to the PS Blog on how the Move controls in Infinite are coming along.

Following an overnight slipup on the PlayStation UK website that indicated something of the sorts was in the works, Sony has denied there’s a new Move peripheral in the works for BioShock Infinite.

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Both Videogamer and Pushsquare reportedly caught a slip on the UK PlayStation site earlier today. the hastily-deleted message apparently read:

“A special PS Move peripheral is being produced that will draw you even deeper into this stunning vision of a parallel future.”

BioShock: Infinite’s support of the Move controller was announced at E3 2011, just months after creator Ken Levine publicly dissed motion control.

Thanks, Gematsu.

Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper, the voice actors behind BioShock: Infinite’s Booker and Elizabeth, do a lot more than just read their lines.

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