Judas - narrative FPS set on a disintegrating starship from Ken Levine's Ghost Story Games

[Major_Blackhart]

It must be utterly disheartening to work for a guy like Levine. I can imagine working for him but essentially being a rat to the higher ups, constantly telling them how he shunted this or that and wasted 6 months worth of group A effort ($$$) by deciding suddenly he doesn't want it, no clear vision, etc.

This guy needs someone looming over him to overrule his decisions.

 

[gerey]

This guy needs someone looming over him to overrule his decisions.

What's truly amazing is that this clown keeps getting second chances and being given massive budgets despite his last successful game releasing all the way back in 2007.

BioShock Infinite was another massive money pit where he it was pretty obvious the main problem was Levine and his inability to lead a project. I assume Judas was the game he's been working on ever since he founded the new studio back in 2017. Seems to be this is Infinite all over again, the project also suffering from Levine's lack of managerial and leadership skills.

Guess being part of the small hat tribe matters in gamedev too.

 

[gerey]

It has become increasingly obvious that while Ken Levine is credited as the lead designer of System Shock 2, it's the lesser known Looking Glass employees who worked under him who made that game what it is.

That's true for most gamedev auteurs. The moment you remove them from the talented team they parasitised their true colors show.

This has been true for Molyneux, Warren Spector, Inafune and plenty of others.

I’m sure this game has been through absolute hell, remember all the gameplay concepts they talked about in Infinite that wasn’t in the final game because Levine kept scrapping things? Certain we’ll see a repeat of that here. It’s so funny, for all the hype around him the man is incapable of innovating in terms of gameplay systems or storytelling. Same old base he’s been doing for ages rears it’s head again here.

Don't forget that the whole game apparently changed directions very near release.

Remember the trailer where Elizabeth is going through the shop, with the strong implication that she was a romance interest instead of the MC's daughter? That got removed. Remember the trailer where the rebels were lynching that guy on the podium? Gone. The trailer where you have that fight in the arena with rails? Also gone.

Vast majority of things that had been shown in the trailers got scrapped. There were even map designers complaining about how many maps, most of which had been worked on for years and were finished, got cut because Levine kept chaning his mind on the game direction right until the game got released.

I imagine that the only reason the game got released at all is that the published stepped in and forced Levine to ship something out.

Very few people knew what a "System Shock" was when they released Bioshock in 2007. Normies will see "Hey this looks like Bioshock!" and get it.

Didn't help Arkane's latest offering sell - despite leaning heavily onto the fact they had made Dishonored and Prey beforehand.

Also, Infinite was a massive disappointment that largely sold on the reputation of BioShock 1 and 2. You also have to take into account it's been close to a decade since Infinite got released. Whatever hype there was about Levine has long since died out, as can be seen by the fact nobody is particularly excited about the game.

And you can bet it's going to be woke and marketed as such, further alienating audiences.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

If it's any consolation the gameplay probably will suck, but I doubt it sells badly, and I think it's safe to say it sells far better than Kenshi has

In order for Judas to sell as much as Bioshock games, it would have to have 'Bioshock' in its name. The average gamer has no clue who created what, or who the fuck Ken Levine is.

FROM THE CREATOR OF
BIOSHOCK

​

That's how the first trailer for this game starts, it's the first thing you see after the studio logo, and that's something I'm sure every trailer after will have too. Nobody has to know who the fuck Ken Levine is for Take-Two or 2K to sell people that the person who created BioShock is also creating this game. They'll probably put some trailer out with Ken Levine talking about this "Narrative Lego" thing, where he also talks about his past work on BioShock accompanied by BioShock footage since they own that series as well. I would be surprised if part of selling this game isn't selling people on it being made by the creator of BioShock.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It has become increasingly obvious that while Ken Levine is credited as the lead designer of System Shock 2, it's the lesser known Looking Glass employees who worked under him who made that game what it is.

That's true for most gamedev auteurs. The moment you remove them from the talented team they parasitised their true colors show.

This has been true for Molyneux, Warren Spector, Inafune and plenty of others.

I’m sure this game has been through absolute hell, remember all the gameplay concepts they talked about in Infinite that wasn’t in the final game because Levine kept scrapping things? Certain we’ll see a repeat of that here. It’s so funny, for all the hype around him the man is incapable of innovating in terms of gameplay systems or storytelling. Same old base he’s been doing for ages rears it’s head again here.

Don't forget that the whole game apparently changed directions very near release.

Remember the trailer where Elizabeth is going through the shop, with the strong implication that she was a romance interest instead of the MC's daughter? That got removed. Remember the trailer where the rebels were lynching that guy on the podium? Gone. The trailer where you have that fight in the arena with rails? Also gone.

Vast majority of things that had been shown in the trailers got scrapped. There were even map designers complaining about how many maps, most of which had been worked on for years and were finished, got cut because Levine kept chaning his mind on the game direction right until the game got released.

I imagine that the only reason the game got released at all is that the published stepped in and forced Levine to ship something out.

Very few people knew what a "System Shock" was when they released Bioshock in 2007. Normies will see "Hey this looks like Bioshock!" and get it.

Didn't help Arkane's latest offering sell - despite leaning heavily onto the fact they had made Dishonored and Prey beforehand.

Also, Infinite was a massive disappointment that largely sold on the reputation of BioShock 1 and 2. You also have to take into account it's been close to a decade since Infinite got released. Whatever hype there was about Levine has long since died out, as can be seen by the fact nobody is particularly excited about the game.

And you can bet it's going to be woke and marketed as such, further alienating audiences.

This is dumb. You can't compare the two. Dishonored sales do not compare to BioShock...which is why they stopped making Dishonored games. Infinite didn't sell on the reputation of BioShock either. When your second year sales are at five million, and you're only down one million from your first year, that would indicate it wasn't just coasting on the first game.

If anything the time between games might actually help. Because now you don't have people making funny of BioShock like they were right after Infinite, but you do have a whole fucking lot of people thinking: Hey, BioShock was a thing I liked, and this looks like a new one.

 

[sosmoflux]

BioShock, lol. People don't know how quickly the game industry has moved past those old games. BioShock isn't a selling factor. Ken who?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So do we know of any gameplay improvements? And what's with his obsession with wrist tattoos and shit? Holocaust shit?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

So do we know of any gameplay improvements? And what's with his obsession with wrist tattoos and shit? Holocaust shit?

Stop whining and wait for a proper reveal.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

No way dude. Shit is shit.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

No way dude. Shit is shit.

Very insightful.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

It is to a point. I get what you're saying but my whole thing is that we've seen him water down a LOT of stuff, and the fact that he can't stick to a singular vision is also pretty damning.

Granted this is based on Bioshock Infinite, but I think it still stands. And I think it does because based on the initial previews it simply looks too much like that game. Same gameplay at least (left hand spells, right hand guns), and graphics actually look the same. That means there's a possibility he's using the same engine.

Based on this alone I'm not enthused. And this, coupled with his history of the past few games, has me believing the worst.

Gotta remember too, there was a time when I was one of Tim Cains biggest supporters here. Now? Meh. The guy's time has passed and he doesn't want to do any more than collect a paycheck. And even then, I acknowledge that I fucked up in just supporting him. It was an entire team at Troika that created Arcanum. Same with Fallout. I've given him the benefit of the doubt over and over, and at this point its more like buyer beware syndrome (I guess if that's a thing).

I'm just affording Ken Levine the same. I've seen what he's done and I don't care for it. It's topical, the FPS combat lacks true depth, there are too many obvious choices, and the narrative is not open at all but really kind of forced I suppose.

That was his MAGNUM OPUS in Bioshock Infinite. But the others were the same way. Topical, no real depth, lacking combat, etc. They only had a newer feeling going for them really.

 

[Terenty]

According to some insider the game's gonna be highly replayable, with several different stories depending on your choices and different permutations within those stories.

So it seems to be a non linear bioshock kinda thing

 

[Roguey]

According to some insider the game's gonna be highly replayable, with several different stories depending on your choices and different permutations within those stories.

So it seems to be a non linear bioshock kinda thing

Don't need an insider for that when Ken Levine going on about his narrative legos was the only thing we knew about it for years.

 

[Wunderbar]

The last time Levine tried to make a non-linear game, he ended up releasing this

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I hated Infinite with a fiery passion when I played it a couple years ago and consider it to be one of the worst games I have ever played to completion, but I don’t recall Ken ever saying it was going to be non-linear

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

As the FAANG lays waste to the college-educated overhires, a humble certain Mr. Ken Levine has a different hiring strategy:

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

And the process of decoupling education from credentialing continues apace. Faster, please.

 

[Victor1234]

As the FAANG lays waste to the college-educated overhires, a humble certain Mr. Ken Levine has a different hiring strategy:

I was reading a book recently from 1969 when student protests were first becoming an issue in the US. In that year over 50,000 college students had graduated with a degree in international relations, expecting to become diplomats. The State Department was hiring for 150 graduate spots....they and other students were mad because they weren't getting opportunities in line with their expectations that college = awesome job so they'd torn up the Democratic convention held in Chicago in 1968.

What drove the massive post-war increase in (largely useless) college graduates? GI Bill benefits and the Higher Education Act of 1965. If there's too much supply and not enough demand for something, either the supply should decrease (cut student aid/loans/raise academic admissions standards) or demand should increase (make more jobs that actually need those skills).

 

[Maggot]

I wonder what kind of retarded justification is in the game for having guns with children's scribbles on the magazine.

 

[Wunderbar]

It's a gun with homing bullets, obviously.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.ign.com/articles/ghost-story-games-judas-is-currently-planned-for-release-by-march-2025

Ghost Story Games' Judas Is Currently Planned for Release By March 2025​

And Take-Two doesn't seem too afraid of delays.​

After years apparently in development hell, Ghost Story Games appears to finally be ready to show us more of its mysterious FPS, Judas. We got our first real look at the next game from BioShock creator Ken Levine at The Game Awards last December, and according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, we'll get to actually play it for ourselves...sometime before the end of March of 2025.

This comes from Take-Two's quarterly earnings report, which outlines that it has 87 total games planned for release between fiscal 2023 (the fiscal year we're in now, which concludes at the end of March) and fiscal 2025 (which ends at the end of March 2025). Speaking to IGN ahead of the earnings release, I asked Zelnick if Judas was included in that 87 number, and he said yes.

That said, delays happen all the time, 2025 is far away, and delays have been especially prevalent across AAA game development in recent years. I followed up by asking Zelnick if he anticipated significant delays to impact that promise of 87 games, and while he acknowledged some delays were always possible, he seemed confident in the plan Take-Two is putting out to its investors.

"We did have some slippage in the last few years," he said. "We feel really stable right now. I feel great about our upcoming schedule. Of course there's always the possibility of some slippage but the teams seem to be functioning really well and I'm optimistic about delivering great titles to the marketplace on an ongoing basis."

In the same conversation, Zelnick clarified the possibility of layoffs at the publisher in the coming months, saying that while some jobs may be lost, he expects the impact to be "modest." He also discussed the GTA 6 leaks from late last year and their emotional impact on the team.

As for Judas, we got our first true look at Ken Levine and Ghost Story's upcoming project at The Game Awards last year. We know that it's a single-player, narrative first-person shooter that's coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Game Store.

 

[KIss My Ass]

Lol they said it was coming soon. What in thee fuck.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Lol they said it was coming soon. What in thee fuck.

Between March 2023 and March 2025 can mean anything. Learn to read.

 

[Behelit]

Lol they said it was coming soon. What in thee fuck.

Between March 2023 and March 2025 can mean anything. Learn to read.

It newspeak for at earliest March 2025.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

The Meister speaks: