Ken Levine on his new game and increasing the challenge

Ken Levine, of BioShock fame, opened up a little bit talking about his new studio, Ghost Story, and the new game that they are working on. Truth be told, there were no details, however, some of his comments make for interesting speculation on the future. One of the things he insisted on was that they plan on making the games more challenging.

BioShock and BioShock Infinite (BioShock 2 was developed by a different studio) were pretty straightforward FPS experiences, polished and at times almost “on rails”. This is something that Levin is looking to change with his new game. “I’ve been inspired by games which are comfortable with a little friction, which doesn’t hand you things, which tests you both with difficulty and how it works. How things work aren’t laid for you.” If we were to take a guess, someone has been playing Dark Souls in the meantime.

There is no word on the actual product, the only thing to go on is that it will present a “more difficult experience” than the BioShock games. The reason for this is mainly because he noticed that people have been able to get through the game he and his team spent ages carefully crafting in a matter of days if not hours. “A lot of games now are built to maintain a long relationship with the gamer. My games haven’t really had that”, he said, adding that he spent a lot of time playing Civilization and he would like his game to have that quality.

It would appear that Take Two Interactive has nothing against their golden goose taking a little time to gather some of those proverbial creative juices. Check the video for more interesting bits from the talk with Ken Levine.