{"id":77881,"date":"2026-05-12T14:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=77881"},"modified":"2026-05-12T15:48:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:48:39","slug":"ken-levine-on-why-he-quit-making-bioshock-games-scary-and-risky-and-crazy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=77881","title":{"rendered":"Ken Levine On Why He Quit Making BioShock Games&#8211;&#8220;Scary And Risky And Crazy&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran game developer Ken Levine stepped away from the BioShock series after 2013&#8217;s BioShock Infinite, and while the series is going ahead with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/bioshock-4-release-date-trailer-story\/1100-6530162\/?ftag=CAD-01-10abi2f\/\">BioShock 4<\/a>, it&#8217;s doing so without him. Why did Levine step away to work on a different game, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/judas-release-date-trailer-news\/1100-6531958\/\">Judas<\/a>, instead of sticking with the series he created?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=agqqjUd2bIY\">Speaking to IGN<\/a>, Levine said BioShock remains &#8220;very important&#8221; to him and that he feels &#8220;incredibly fortunate&#8221; to have worked on a franchise that means so much to so many people. However, he opted to step away in part because he &#8220;didn&#8217;t have a lot else to say in that world.&#8221; He also reflected on how working on established franchises can be something of a trap.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A franchise is an interesting thing because it can come to own <em>you <\/em>if you&#8217;re not careful. It can define you. It was scary and risky and crazy to walk away from a very successful franchise. I didn&#8217;t [walk away] because I didn&#8217;t love the franchise,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I wanted to step away and challenge myself in a different way, and challenge a team in a different way. Things can own you if you hold them too tightly rather than the other way around. I will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran game developer Ken Levine stepped away from the BioShock series after 2013&#8217;s BioShock Infinite, and while the series is going ahead with BioShock 4, it&#8217;s doing so without him. Why did Levine step away to work on a different game, Judas, instead of sticking with the series he created? Speaking to IGN, Levine said&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":77883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external","brand-gamespot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77884,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77881\/revisions\/77884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}