BioShock, BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite (SPOILERS)

[AndyKurosaki]

Maybe not, Levine said that he's leaving Bioshock in 2K's hands. But yeah, it must suck for the people at Irrational that are now out of a job.

[DomsBeard]

I really enjoyed this and didn't understand the hate this game got from a lot of people. The Skyrail and Vigors made the combat far more exciting for me than the original Bioshock which I gave up on as I was bored of the respawn with less health/bullets System. My only grumble I had with Infinite was the criminal under use of Songbird, I think I mentioned it before but I'd imagined him chasing me Nemesis style throughout.

[Scrustle]

I felt like the Skyrail stuff wasn't really practical to use, so I almost never did. They tend to move you around the edge of a combat zone, so you hardly ever actually catch people out of cover, and when you do, you're moving so fast I found it almost impossible to actually land a bead. It felt like a far more efficient way to fight to just stay on the ground. That way you have cover too, while you don't on the Skyrails. They could have perhaps been better done than they were, but with the way they were put in to the game to me they felt like a gimmick that was there for the sake of it, and not something you would actually want to use in real combat.

Vigors were kind of fun, but they felt extremely limited compared to how they were in previous Bioshocks to me. There were so few of them, and none of them did anything particularly interesting or new, except maybe the shield one you get late in the game. I liked that one. But there were so few in the game, and three of them more or less did the same thing anyway (Shock Jockey, Bucking Bronco, and Murder of Crows). There weren't any interesting passive of environmental ones. I guess you could say that's what the clothes and tears were for, but they still felt like they were a less interesting version of what previous games had, and ideas that weren't really implemented anywhere near as well as they could have been. On a conceptual level at least. I'm sure the realities of game development probably got in the way of a lot of ideas that they had for the game.

On Irrational breaking up, I think it could be a good thing. I like the idea of Levine just getting a small team to make more focused games and not really worrying about mass appeal or huge budgets. I think those were two of the biggest contributing factors to the failings of Infinite, so cutting both those problems out will hopefully result in something great.

Although, I do think that it is a bit unfair of him to close down an entire studio just because he doesn't want to do big stuff anymore. He could have started a new studio with the people he wants and let Irrational do their own thing without him. I suppose he said they're going to help the Irrational people in getting in to a new job as easily as possible, which is good, but did he even need to put those people in that position to begin with?

And this all makes the future of Bioshock uncertain. I'm pretty sure we will get more games with that title in the future, but will they really be "Bioshock" anymore, without Levine? I'm doubtful. And 2K is probably very eager to use the brand power of that name, and even though they're no EA or Activision, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll do that name justice.

[Todinho]

I have no doubt Bioshock will continue the license is just too good for 2K to pass up especially since the ending of infinite allows them to do whatever they want now,one thing I dont get is why Levine decided to end Irrational if he wanted to build a new studio with his 15 pals ok but you dont have to kill your former and leave a bunch of people out of work.This is weird im sure there's behind the scene things happening that we dont know about but in the end it's a shame that a successfull studio has to close for what's probably a political reason.

[Cass]

The news was a shock, but considering it's basically what I asked for - games with more of Infinite's aesthetic and interesting story ideas, less of its need to be a mass-appeal shooter - I'm pretty happy with it. I also have no problem with Bioshock games continuing out of Irrational's hands, since Bioshock 2 was an absolute blast to play (and I never expected it to hit those same story heights anyway). So, for me at least, this can only be a good thing.

Plus if Levine becomes a smaller indie dev then there's a chance we might see games from him more than once every seven years.

[Flabyo]

It pains me that the general reaction is 'as long as Ken is ok, then there's nothing wrong here'.

They closed an ENTIRE STUDIO that made one of the BEST GAMES OF LAST YEAR.

Why are people not more angry about this?

[AndyKurosaki]

I don't think it's ok at all. I'm with the group that thinks "I'm bored and want a change. Good luck, poor bastards I used to work with". It's always a shame when a developer goes down. But it's pretty poor that Levine self-destructed it because "I can't be arsed".

[ratsoalbion]

I'm certain that there are more valid and serious reasons for Levine's decision than "can't be arsed", and I'm happy he's moving away from high profile, high pressure, big budget productions. Though being put out of work is never a nice thing I've no doubt that the development talent from Irrational will go on to find work elsewhere.

[Scrustle]

On the Giant Bombcast they brought up that perhaps it wasn't Levine's decision at all, but instead 2K were closing down the studio anyway, but gave Levine the chance to create a smaller studio out of the ashes anyway. There's also that 2K never actually announced the sales figures for Infinite, which is a little strange, so maybe they're downsizing the studio because they didn't get a good return on that game. They also brought up that Levine probably doesn't have the power to shut down entire studios himself. That's a decision only the publisher can make, usually.

[Todinho]

I find very difficult that infinite didnt make it's money back especially after all the steps Levine took to make the game sell no matter what,but maybe that 5 years of development and scrapped builds had maybe the costs larger that we thought but I still find hard that it didnt make it's money back especially with all the coverage it received.Like I said we dont know the whole picture or how things worked inside Irrational,the most probable scenario is that Levine wanted out to make his own things and 2K just decided to nuke the studio since it's probably cheaper to hand bioshock to 2k Marin than mantain Irrational.

[Alex79]

Out of interest, and I realise this is a really dumbed down question and may be impossible to answer without further clarification of your reasons, but how would everyone rank the games in this series? Personally, Bioshock 2 > Bioshock > Bioshock Infinite. I can go in to further reasons if anyone cares, but not whilst I'm typing on my phone! I was just going to ask if this is anyone's favourite of the series, but I'm interested what the general consensus of the whole series is. On the whole, it's a series I've enjoyed parts of, perhaps moreso the story than the games themselves, which I really have to admit I just found really quite annoying at times. I got a bizarre thing playing these games - after a while they began to make me a little nauseous and induced headaches. Something I have only ever experienced before when playing select Source engine games (and even then, not all of them). I can't help feeling that this may have tainted my enjoyment of them a little.

[DomsBeard]

I've only played Bioshock and Infinite and I preferred Infinite a million times over.

[Scrustle]

I find very difficult that infinite didnt make it's money back especially after all the steps Levine took to make the game sell no matter what,but maybe that 5 years of development and scrapped builds had maybe the costs larger that we thought but I still find hard that it didnt make it's money back especially with all the coverage it received.Like I said we dont know the whole picture or how things worked inside Irrational,the most probable scenario is that Levine wanted out to make his own things and 2K just decided to nuke the studio since it's probably cheaper to hand bioshock to 2k Marin than mantain Irrational.

Well that's the thing. The game did get re-worked many times during it's extremely long development cycle. A lot of ideas were scrapped. You just need to take a look at all the earlier previews to see that. They probably pumped an absurd amount of money in to the development of the game, for an extended period of time. Going by Wikipedia, it actually looks more like 6 years of development.

I don't know if the game made its money back, but I think there's still a distinct possibility that it wouldn't have. Or at the very least, it fell short of targets, looking at how some companies expect their stuff to sell nowadays. Even though Infinite was hyped up so much and sold a lot, maybe that still wasn't as much as 2K wanted. With as popular as it is, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume it couldn't reach Call of Duty levels of success, which seems to be the reason all these companies keep making such ridiculous sales targets these days. That kind of falls in line with other stuff about the game, like the cover art controversy (if you can even call it that), and simply some of the design decisions they made in the game. Seems like the game was trying to chase after that crowd somewhat.

But of course, they should have known that could never happen. Which is odd, because I wouldn't have expected 2K to make such a silly mistake. With the industry full of publishers running themselves in to the ground trying to chase the success of CoD, 2K seemed to be one of the more sensible publishers that just let their products talk for themselves. Maybe they thought Infinite was their "big chance" or something. Which would be kind of stupid, because of course a game set in a city floating in the sky where you have magical powers and jump through dimensions, and heavily focuses on a female character, isn't going to be able to reach that CoD crowd. And 2K have GTA anyway! That's their mainstream big seller. So big it outsold CoD last year, and is a big cultural event every single time a new game is released, even outside the industry. But with how things are going these days, I still wouldn't put it past them to make that goof.

Also, weren't 2K Marin closed down not long ago? After The Bureau was a massive flop, 2K axed them, or at least drastically downsized them. Such a shame. Bioshock 2 was great, and the longer we saw The Bureau turn in to what it finally became, the more I started liking the idea shown in the early teasers of the game which made it basically look like Bioshock, but set in 50s suburbia with sci-fi elements. The alien designs looked really great to me to, but then they replaced them with models that fell in line with what Enemy Unknown which made them look generic and boring.

As for how I rank the series, it has to be Bioshock > Bioshock 2 > Infinite. The first game did everything it did really well, and had the best story and atmosphere out of all of them. 2 did improve gameplay, but it was already great in the first, and the audio design had problems. Story was good, and presented you with some really interesting choices at some points, but overall it's nowhere near as good as the first. Infinite is still a pretty good game, but I don't think it really did anything brilliantly apart from the aesthetic and setting. But even those I think were done better in the previous game, or the first at least. It didn't do anything really badly though, just nowhere near as good as the previous games, and it felt like a mess of half-baked or mismatched ideas in a lot of places.

[Todinho]

2k Marin was downsized but they are still around,so I think it must be cheaper for 2k to pay them then the rest of Irrational to make other bioshock games,still they could've kept the folks at Irrational to do other things they're art departament alone is worth keeping around it must have been something more than just cutting costs.

Well for me it has to be Bioshock>Bioshock 2=infinite ,yeah it has to be the first one even with the terrible last part it,I wont go into details but 1 just had everything going for it while 2 had some good ideas but failed for me most of the time the gameplay is the best in the series though,and infinite well it ended up turning into something very different than what I was expecting and that would be ok if by doing that It didnt spread itself thinner than a slice of butter in a giant bread but the gameplay and level design are the real offenders here IMO.

[Flabyo]

Though being put out of work is never a nice thing I've no doubt that the development talent from Irrational will go on to find work elsewhere.

The console game development side of the industry is shrinking at a rapid rate. If I wanted to get back into it myself I wouldn't be able to without leaving the country now most likely, no-one is going to hire a veteran developer in the current climate when they can take on a couple of cheap graduates who'll not whine about the dumb way we expect constant overtime.

I regularly see after studio closures posts in comments threads saying 'I hope they don't go off to make a fucking mobile game'. Well I'm sorry, but if we want to eat we have to code, and right now that's pretty much the only kind of work going unless we want to take a massive pay cut and retrain...

The entire state of the industry right now is a depressing shambles. This won't be the only high profile studio closure this year, I'm pretty sure of it. If one of the few remaining large UK studios goes down this year then the jobs market here will be horrendous.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't Ken's decision. For whatever reason the publisher has decided to spin it the way they have, putting the emphasis on who is staying rather than who is leaving in the hope they won't get called out on it. If the game under performed and you're losing money, admit it. They'll have to at some point anyway as they're a public company.

Time after time we see studios close but the gaming press only seems to care if their leading auteurs are ok because hey, everyone else is just a cog in the development machine and had no impact on whether the games were any good or not right?

(Sorry, the way the press have been reporting this one has really got my back up)

[ratsoalbion]

Fair comments Mr F, well said.

[MARK-146]

In my opinion Bioshock Infinite didn't live up to all the hype, It never blew me away, the way It did many others I stopped playing when trying to get passed, the last major fight with the attacking airships.
I had a good few attempts but decided to walk away and forget it, as I get older I am becoming less tolerable, I like to play games for enjoyment, so when they start to get annoying or become tedious I'll walk away and not give them anymore of my precious time and try something else!

I am the first to admit I am not a the best gamer but nothing turns me off more, than when game developers think they should ramp up the difficulty on a whim. I was playing on normal and had died a few times, but realised my errors and continued up to the big battle. Nothing takes you out the moment more, than when they suddenly ramp up the difficulty!

I'm pleased the game was free with PS+, so its no great loss, there are not many games I would consider buying day one mainly because many games don't live up to the hype, well in my opinion anyway!

[arry_g]

Though being put out of work is never a nice thing I've no doubt that the development talent from Irrational will go on to find work elsewhere.

The console game development side of the industry is shrinking at a rapid rate. If I wanted to get back into it myself I wouldn't be able to without leaving the country now most likely, no-one is going to hire a veteran developer in the current climate when they can take on a couple of cheap graduates who'll not whine about the dumb way we expect constant overtime.

I regularly see after studio closures posts in comments threads saying 'I hope they don't go off to make a fucking mobile game'. Well I'm sorry, but if we want to eat we have to code, and right now that's pretty much the only kind of work going unless we want to take a massive pay cut and retrain...

The entire state of the industry right now is a depressing shambles. This won't be the only high profile studio closure this year, I'm pretty sure of it. If one of the few remaining large UK studios goes down this year then the jobs market here will be horrendous.

I wont go too much into this as I doubt anyone cares too much about the woes of a bog-standard, desktop product, software engineer on a gaming forum but this is true of more than just the gaming industry I fear and it is a problem. I work for a company that focuses on CAD and CAM products with four or so legacy desktop applications as well as a number of web applications, and I see new staff brought in for cheaper every year with contracts that imply less rights and more obligatory overtime. Many experienced staff are leaving as they feel their skills aren't appreciated (or worse are laid off in favour of cheaper graduate labour or overseas labour) only to find that in order to be competitive they have to be willing to take pay cuts and work insane hours that alienate them from their families. The alternative that many take is small web application and mobile application development which in small teams of 2 - 4 people mean that they might be able to churn out a few products, the problem of this is the risk factor (no steady salary, they could put in thousands of hours of work and see nothing in return) and getting awareness of their products. The jobs out there which are out there that do maintain expected salaries and adequate working conditions often require re-training as they expect knowledge in ideologies and languages that previous employers haven't invested in them to train in.

So, when I see the attitude of people regarding job losses and the situations the people (and they are people so some form of empathy should be present) involved in the gaming industry are in - it hits me hard because this is a horrible thing that many people across many industries are suffering. The difference is the gaming industry is in the public eye of a lot of people who each feel that they no best. That said, it is still an industry I hope to move into one day... but only on my own terms.

[ratsoalbion]

I hope that my comment regarding Irrational's staff didn't come across as too dismissive or flippant - it certainly wasn't intended that way.

I have a great deal of sympathy (and empathy - I'm currently between jobs myself) for those affected and I too am irked sometimes when internet commentators are ignorant to the effects of studio closures.

My point was more that I didn't believe that Levine would have taken the decision lightly (if indeed he took it at all), and that - despite the game's flaws - people with BioShock Infinite on their CV would at least have a better chance than many of finding employment within the industry.

[Flabyo]

Oh god no, I didn't mean it as singling out a particular comment on here! Think of it as a trigger for a rant I've been wanting to do rather than a rant actually directed at someone specific.

Articles like this one that's basically: oh, never mind eh? Ken's alright!