BioShock Infinite mastermind Ken Levine has taken up his golden quill and ink and has gotten to work on his latest game. He announced via Twitter today that his writing was underway and that this new game was "something else."
Fans pulled for more information on the game, and when asked for his source of inspiration, Levine replied with the hit TV show Mad Men as one of the titles, as well as many acclaimed film directors like Stanley Kubrick, the Coen Brothers and Steve Soderbergh.
Seeing as there was a five and a half year wait between BioShock and BioShock Infinite, I hope this project goes a little bit quicker for Irrational Games.
In that time frame, Levine has been getting this persona as a gaming auteur, kind of like an American Hideo Kojima. The man already had critical acclaim up his sleeve with minor hits like System Shock 2 and Freedom Force, but ever since the fist BioShock game hit the market in 2007, his name alone instantly generates hype.
Any project he is even rumored to be tied to becomes instantly known overnight, and any game he works on is widely speculated before release and picked apart for the finer details once it gets out there. We were blown away by his narrative prowess in BioShock Infinite released just this year. Whether he is hard at work on the next BioShock or, as he suggests, something entirely new, we are always eager for more from Ken Levine and will be vigilantly watching like hawks for any new information to emerge.
UPDATE from Editor-in-Chief Sean Aune: Apparently Ken Levine decided to have some fun with everyone on his Twitter account and all of this was false.
I suspect no amount of saying "I didn't start writing a new game" would convince people I didn't start writing a new game.
— Ken Levine (@levine) May 14, 2013
He then spent numerous tweets mocking journalists who wrote it up as if we had somehow failed at journalism because we took messages directly from the source as being truthful.
Going to see how many languages I can find this story in. Should be a busy day.
— Ken Levine (@levine) May 14, 2013
Essentially Levine trolled game journalists out of what we can only assume was boredom. We stand by this story as Levine has used his Twitter account in the past to legitimately confirm rumors and stories so there was no reason not to believe his original messages.
Having spoken with Senior Gaming Editor Joey Davidson in regards to this story, Levine's actions make no sense. If the leader of any given country was to tweet, "I'm ending income taxes," people would tend to believe it. To put it on a similar playing field as Levine, imagine if George Lucas said he was writing a new story based on influences from X,Y and Z. It would be written up.
In short, if we can't believe things said directly from the source, who should we trust?
