Bioshock Creator Ken Levine Reveals Why Judas Took a Decade: 'We Kissed Many Frogs'

In a recent interview with IGN, Ken Levine explained why his upcoming game Judas has been in development for ten years. He clarified that the delay isn't due to technology but rather the team's focus on creating stories that dynamically respond to player actions.

"The reason it took so long is not really related to rendering technology or anything like that," he said. "It was figuring out how we crafted the system, this narrative Lego system that is combining modular elements together dynamically at runtime to make stories happen that are very reactive to the player."

"So we had a technology, and then we had to figure out how to write a story for that. Like how do we write stories at maximum leverage? As much as you love the stories from BioShock and BioShock Infinite, they are pretty linear experiences; outside of the combat, they're not that highly reactive to player action in the same way. And I really wanted to do a game that was, you know, sort of the opposite end of the spectrum from that."

Judas is a first-person shooter with a science fiction soul. Set aboard the Mayflower, an interstellar ark carrying humans to a new home on Proxima Centauri, it features a Big Brother-style oppressive society controlled by machines. The main character, Judas, is ready to burn it all down, whether the population of the Mayflower wants her to or not. It's the work of Levine and his studio, Ghost Story Games.

"So first we're just doing the raw technology, you know, something we build on top of Unreal Engine. And then there was, okay, how do we write for this? How do we build encounters for this? And we kissed many, many, many frogs along the way. And time just was passing. I get it that it's a long time and it seems like a hugely long time. I'm not sure how we would have kissed those frogs any faster."

Levine said he could only speak for his experience working on Judas but offered insight into why games take longer to create in 2026 than in previous generations.

"Some of it I'm sure is the scope of the games increasing; they just get bigger and bigger," he offered. "When you increase the scope of the game, there are exponential effects on everything. Like you have more people… and more people means more communication problems."

He pointed to situations where teams on games had changed, like Metroid, and the difficulties of taking over a new codebase or a new staff wanting to make the game their own.

As for his next game, he's hopeful it won't take another ten years after Judas. "My hope is with the next game we've built all the rudiments of the functions for Judas, and now, more importantly, we know how to use it. What works well and what doesn't," he said. "Because it's a very different model than we've done before. It's a first-person shooter in a deeply immersive environment with great characters and all that stuff, but the underpinnings of how it works are radically different because of the stuff we wanted to do differently in the game and just getting our heads around that."

Judas does not currently have a release date, but when it's ready, it will be published on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X and S.

Levine spoke to IGN as part of their IGN Icons series, celebrating the last 30 years of the video game industry and the people responsible for pushing it forward.