Levine admits faults with BioShock story

By Ellie Gibson Published 20 February, 2008

Advocates "really f***ing stupid" plots.

Ken Levine, creative director on BioShock, has said he believes the gameplay in the third act is some of the strongest in the entire game - but that the storyline peaked too soon.

Levine's comments came in his speech at the Game Developers Conference, titled 'Storytelling in BioShock: Empowering players to care about your stupid story'. He discussed the importance of mystery in plots, telling the audience, "Asking questions is more interesting than answering them. Think of Lost - what is their entire stock-in-trade? It's basically asking a bunch of questions they don't answer for a very long time. Think of Cloverfield, what is that? It's Godzilla with less information.

"We call it the mystery balloon because we're pretentious," Levine continued. "Think of a half-filled helium balloon that's naturally going down. That's mystery, or your story, and your job is to tap it back up again before it gets too low. The problem is if you tap it up too high, as with season three of Lost, you start losing your audience. They want some questions answered, but not all of them."

Turning to BioShock, Levine said he understands the reaction from some critics and gamers who were unsatisfied with the storyline later on in the game. "I think the last levels, as for gameplay, were some of the strongest levels. But when we answered the whole question about Ryan, the mystery balloon hit bottom and people were left hanging. I underestimated the impact that would have on the game and people's perception of it," he admitted.

"You have to be very careful because the hand that gives can also taketh away, and that's what happened in the third act of BioShock. We learned a big lesson there."

Along with the negative criticisms, BioShock was also highly praised for the depth of its story. According to Levine, not all gamers will appreciate such complexity - but that's just something developers have to accept and account for.

"We understood people would just want to come into BioShock and blow stuff up," he said. "The sales numbers reflect we were able to hit those people. If you don't hit those people, you're going to be making those beloved games we at Irrational have made many of that sell 150,000 units."

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • captainrentboy #1 4 years ago

    How dare he insult Lost! Season 4 has got off to a corking start, damn him!

  • Ryze #2 4 years ago

    The best way to react to constructive criticism I reckon.

    Let's hope the same happens with the 360 hardware, with XBL and with the d-pad.

    No reason not to continually evolve and make things even better.
    Edited by 1 at 20/02/08 @ 20:12

  • CreepinJesus #3 4 years ago

    I got bored with the storyline way before that...

  • Pirotic #4 4 years ago

    Seems like a top guy, most other designers would still be dizzy from winning so many game of the year awards to even take note of any minor criticisms.

  • sharpfish #5 4 years ago

    I'd worry about mediocre core gameplay before I started blaming the story... this is a game afterall.

  • kcorb #6 4 years ago

    The game play wasn't very good at the end seeing as how you can wrench everyone to death.
    But he referred to his studio as Irrational. They still have hope. Make more awesome games!

  • nervouspete #7 4 years ago

    "Asking questions is more interesting than asking them."

    Complete guff. Pretty much all the fiction and films I value aren't about "Ooh, here's a mystery. Let's arse around with it for several dozen chapters/episodes until we offer up an underdeveloped answer," they're incredibly tightly written pieces with a message the author is trying to get across. Does Alfred Bester's sci-fi have a load of mysteries that aren't really? No. What he does have is compelling characters and plots rushing forward at a pace that although quick, allows you to savour each moment.

    Does Dune have questions? Do the films of Powell & Pressburger? The only questions worth asking ultimately is why people behave as they do, anything else is sleight of hand. This is why The Wire is the best TV show in many, many years, and why the new Battlestar Galactica, despite its faults, makes for compelling television. The 'question/answer' route was why M Night Shymalan's were increasingly uninteresting.

  • Sir_TimAlot #8 4 years ago

    Would you kindly stop posting comments.

  • Grayvern #9 4 years ago

    The point is that I was satisfied with most of the plot, I wasnt however satisfied with the disparity in endings or the last boss battle everything else was good, especially we didnt want or need more mistery than that reveal we perhaps however wanted more motivation for the destruction of Faontaine, why didnt Tanembaum and the character just run, or the character abandon Tanembaum.

  • 3william56 #10 4 years ago

    The trick isn't to avoid answering questions, it's to ask some good ones, then answer the smaller ones at a progressive rate through the plot, add a few more, then answer the biggies at the very end. Lost is a great idea stretched thinner than Kiera Knightley, and so becoming increasingly tiresome as it ducks and weaves answering *anything*, even when it would be patently obvious to do so. The idea of Lost stretching another 3 bl**dy years is a joke. Compare with Heroes series 1, which (a) knew what answers were from the start, and (b) progressed sensibly towards those answers. Unfortunately Heroes 2 didn't have questions or answers and lamed out in a fairly messy fashion.

  • Tio #11 4 years ago

    The story did sort of tail off , after the big "secret". My main problem with the game is it just got easier as the game progressed, it seemed the enemies didn't scale up with my weapons or plasmids and i could just wrench everything.

    Still enjoyed the game mind and in the end thats what its all about.

  • jlaakso #12 4 years ago

    You know, seeing all the wrench powergaming options offered to me, I just decided from the get go that I wouldn't want to just wrench everyone and everything. Thus I didn't get any of the super strength or speed powerups. I had plenty to do without the wrench.

  • thejeek #13 4 years ago

    FWIW, I don't think I used the wrench all except the first time I picked it up. One of the great things about Bioshock is the wide range of ways you could approach the combat. I hacked every turret in the game and spent much of the time luring enemies into turrets' lines of fire and hiding - it's all down to how you want to play it.

  • peterfll #14 4 years ago

    I only finished Bioshock at the weekend. Splendid game. The story line had its "meh" moments but heh - it's only a game.

  • 7creature #15 4 years ago

    nervouspete: +100 :-P

  • Schiraman #16 4 years ago

    Meh, it wasn't a matter of the story in Bioshock being too complex or peaking too early - it just wasn't any good. We get so used to stories in games not even trying that people got excited when a game actually made an effort - and so for the most part overlooked the fact that it made no sense.

  • ParanoidZombie #17 4 years ago

    Cheer up, ken, Bioshock is a great game anyway. It has some flaws, that's for sure, but nothing bioshock 2 can't fix.

  • Nallen #18 4 years ago

    Lost is fucking shit. They clearly have no clue where they are going with that show. I said that from the start.

    QFT

  • Feanor #19 4 years ago

    They know exactly where they're going - home from the island. Six of them, at least.