IGNPC: Right after hearing about BioShock, some avid fans of Shock history started to worry that it may be the Invisible War to the System Shock series. Exactly how faithfully complex will BioShock be when compared to SS2? Will it be "mass market friendly" (that's a nice way of saying dumb and simple)?

Ken Levine: The primary reason we nurtured BioShock for so long prior to bringing it to the publishing community title was that so we could firmly establish the game's identity and design.

If we wanted to make a BioShock-lite, we could have done that; an action shooter set in the BioShock universe. I think we've all heard that tune before. And if the publisher is paying the bills from day one, and they have a substantial financial investment, it's only natural to assume they'd want to drive the product in a direction they view will be most profitable. And to make that determination, the marketing department generally becomes heavily involved early on in the design process. While that works great for an existing franchise, such as Tribes and SWAT (where Sierra brought tremendous knowledge of those brands to the table), the design goals of BioShock aren't necessarily something your average marketing person will jump at. Until Grand Theft Auto came along and proved such games could be financially successful, you couldn't even discuss terms like "emergence" and "open-ended." You had to sneak them in between making AVIs featuring hot chicks and bullet-time.

That's changing now. Gamers clearly get these design principles, and that's why the reaction to the announcement of BioShock was so broad. People want to play that type of game. They crave innovation. And that's what Irrational is committed to delivering.​