Ken Levine doesn't have to worry about what he's doing next – yet. But he will soon.
The creative director of Irrational Games spent the last five years working on BioShock Infinite, which was released this past March. On the completion of his previous critically acclaimed magnum opuses System Shock 2 and the original BioShock, what was next for Levine was to start pondering his next huge multi-year project. This time, it was slightly different, since Irrational decided to create two downloadable extra stories for Infinite. On November 12 it released Burial at Sea, part one, a short game that continued the main game's story.
After playing Burial at Sea, I spoke with Levine about the new story twists in the add-on before moving on to other topics. I wanted to get Levine's thoughts on BioShock Infinite as seen in the light of recent commentary like the Feminist Frequency videos about the portrayal of women in game stories, as well as find out what he plans to do once the second and final part of Burial at Sea is finished.
(Levine's comments have been lightly edited for space and clarity. Some BioShock Infinite and Burial at Sea spoilers inside.)
WIRED: Why go back to Rapture for Burial at Sea? I feel like this story could have taken place anywhere – we could have seen Elizabeth go to any reality whatsoever. And the setting has always been so important to the stuff that you do, that I felt myself wondering, what was so important to this story that it had to be set in Rapture?
Ken Levine: It's always interesting because when you're showing the game, when we were showing Infinite before it was finished and people had all of these questions for me, like, why not a Rapture, why not some Easter eggs for Rapture? It's not something I wanted to go into. Because how could I answer that question? The reason why Rapture, I can see why you're asking that at the end of part one. I'd be very curious to talk to you when you finish the whole thing.
WIRED: So you think after part two, we'll have a greater sense of what happened in the events of part one? They seem kind of distinct, I played part one and the story wraps itself up at the end, it's not like it ends on a cliffhanger and says "Wait for part two!"
It's a very weird place for me to be; I've never done a piece of DLC before.Levine: We tried to walk a fine line there. A lot of people described it specifically as a cliffhanger. And I didn't necessarily want it to be a cliffhanger because you are selling people a part, right? I wanted it to be both something that contains an ending and, hopefully when you play the new one, I think you're going to find – there's a lot of questions that people will walk away with from this one. For instance, why is Elizabeth the way she is? And obviously it ends on a pretty dark note. There's no real semblance of the person we knew before. When you see her at the end, that look in her eye, it's a pretty dark note.
I'm already interpreting it incorrectly in my head from what I'm saying. So I wouldn't be too quick to interpret what I'm saying. Meaning, I'm being you, I'm projecting it to you and I'm thinking, if I was Chris, what would I take away from that? And the takeaway I have is actually the wrong one. But it's definitely a "part one."
WIRED: It seems like she's going around cleaning up loose ends. She accomplished something with drowning Booker/Comstock in what seemed to be various realities all at the same time, at the end of Infinite. And now it's like, well, this one, he sort of ran away, and so he wasn't in that place in that time, so it almost seems to me like this is one of a laundry list of things that Elizabeth has to do. And we're popping in at some point after she's already gone and done some other things she's had to do, cleaning up these timelines.
Levine: The interesting question for me, and I'm trying to do this without giving away anything from the future, is: What she does, and what she's doing, does it really matter in how it impacts upon her as a person and who she is, and her journey as a person? So to some degree, yes. To another degree, it's about what we do and what effect that has on us, rather than the specifics. You can change your life making a sandwich, you know? To me, yes, to some degree that's correct, but there's a reason Elizabeth is the focus of the next one, and it's dealing with – I'm really struggling here trying not to give anything away. I've never had a game that I've released in my life where it's like, oh, you didn't see it – all of it. It's a very weird place for me to be; I've never done a piece of DLC before. It's a really odd place to be because it's like half the story, right? If you checked out in the middle of Infinite, you'd probably have a very different takeaway. But it has to stand on its own, so I think that's what you were seeing to some degree, but also it's the beginning of something. I'm glad you felt like it wrapped up for you.
WIRED: Did you have the idea to do these two episodes of stories in Rapture as you were finalizing the form of the story for the main game?
Levine: I really decided what to do after I finished my work on Infinite. I didn't really have a chance to think about it before then. It's not like we just said, we want to go to Rapture – again, this is always hard to talk about because you haven't played the last part yet. But there's a larger story we want to tell about Elizabeth, which the part you saw is a component of.
WIRED: And you knew at the end of Infinite that Elizabeth's story – that it was the end of the Booker/Comstock story but at the same time it was Elizabeth's rebirth, if you will, she realized all the things that had been done to her and was taking control of her own destiny and moving forward from there.
Levine: She's obviously a different person from when you first met her – the person you met at the beginning of BioShock Infinite is not this person – and to some degree, it's a risk. We're putting this character who's sort of young and innocent and beloved into a very different role, sort of the opposite of that. But I guess all I can say is, this is part one of two.
WIRED: As a creator, someone who's making something so high-profile, in the spotlight and representative of triple-A videogames this year, when you see a lot of the dialogue that's going on about damsels in distress, and the representation of female characters in games – Infinite has been held up as an example of having good parts and bad parts if you're looking at it through that lens, where Elizabeth is a great female character but there still is that moment where she's kidnapped and has to wait around for a guy to come rescue her, so it's not above criticism from those angles. When you read that stuff, how does that affect you? Does it make you rethink some stuff? I'm curious to hear your perspective.
Levine: I'm always interested in telling a good story. I have very little interest in an agenda. Somebody who makes a piece of art that gets an idea across is always going to be so much more interesting to me than somebody who writes a polemic. I find polemics super boring. And there are great – I read this article yesterday about how Joss Whedon is an incredibly virulent anti-woman figure. And they specifically talked about – do you watch Firefly? They specifically talked about some stuff in that show that I thought was exceptionally interesting in terms of dealing with tropes, and... there's an episode where he meets this woman who wants to become his wife, and is the perfect woman for a certain ideal – she wants to cook for him and clean for him, and all those things that men used to want out of a wife. In the same way, there's still – there is an attraction for a man in being adored, and taken care of, and all that.
But there's also a problem with that, because those people who don't have interior lives tend to not be very interesting. I'm talking about strictly from what a man might want. I think that men have benefited hugely from feminism because the world's just an infinitely better place for women and for men because of it. But then the woman of course turns out to be playing into all those tropes because she's a con woman. And she takes advantage of him because she knows men are weak in that way. And I thought it was a really brilliant examination because it both showed men something that they couldn't help but find a little bit attractive and then totally subverted it, right? Really a smart, smart show. It wasn't showing a woman who – she wasn't a hero per se, but she was brilliant and smart and she knew how to play people and I thought she was a dynamite, dynamite character. She didn't really play into Mal, into the main character's weaknesses, she played into all of men's weaknesses, which we all share. Or, most men's weaknesses.
The feeling of being duped, I thought, was very powerful.Long story short: I'd like somebody to do it as a piece of art, rather than a piece of criticism because I think it's much more interesting as a piece of art. And it's much more challenging. You get so much further with – the things that have transformed people's views of society generally have been – if you look at the gay rights movement, what's really transformed the gay rights movement in the last 20 years is how effective homosexuals have been at showing them as perfectly normal people you'd want to know, in the media. Of demystifying themselves. Of making themselves say, "Hey, look, I'm just like you and me." And that's happened a lot through how they're presented in media. A lot of creative people, the Ryan Murphys of the world, the Ellens of the world – and I think you get a lot further with that. So I really wish those people would make art, I guess is what I'm saying.
[Note: Following this interview, Levine contacted WIRED to say that he wanted to provide some more follow-up thoughts on his comments above. We got back on the phone with him the next day and had the following discussion.]
Levine: There's an episode [of Firefly] called "Our Mrs. Reynolds," and Reynolds is the last name of the main male character on the show. He meets this woman on sort of a backwards planet, and he helps those people on that planet and they basically offer him this woman, she offers herself as his bride in exchange for his help, right? Her name is Saffron. The whole episode is about how she is this archetype of, like, 1950's womanhood. That she wants to wash his feet, make his dinner. And the women on the crew are sort of disgusted with her. In fact, the men are – there's a part of them that's drawn to this treatment, this being the king of the castle. It sort of points to the fact that sort of deep down, there's parts of men and parts of women that some of these roles still play into.
But it turns out that she's actually just a con woman, and she's trying to seduce the captain to take over his ship, essentially. But she's playing a part, and that part is playing into some of the weaknesses that sexist tropes can give us. What I love about the episode is that it both showed why these tropes exist and how some people are attracted to these tropes and how smartly the woman used them to manipulate the man in the episode. And the main character's not a fool in any way, shape or form. He's very resistant. She almost wears him down. I just love it because it took a lot of notions of tropes, of damsels in distress and 1950's housewifery and all those things in an artistic way, without wagging fingers, really exposed a lot of what secretly goes on in men and women's minds as a piece of art, as a very entertaining episode.
WIRED: So it wasn't an article that read, "Here are tropes, and here's why these tropes are bad," and you feel that it has more of a chance of changing people's minds about things because it's presented as a piece of art that we're engaged with and enjoying.
Levine: Exactly. And as a man – they did a good job, the episode was directed by a woman – as a man, you watch the episode and there is a tiny part of you as a man, even in this day and age, that sees the appeal of having somebody tend to your every want and desire. And then to show that this woman character actually knows that about men, uses that to basically con him, was I thought very... and he's not a fool, but it shows that even this swashbuckling guy has this weakness, and instead of saying this is good and this is bad, I think you're always better taking somebody, putting them in a place, and then hitting them, surprising them with the truth. Rather than just saying it.
I was totally taken in by the character, and I was totally duped along with the hero. The feeling of being duped, I thought, was very powerful.
WIRED: And that sounds very much like what you try to do in your games.
Levine: It's one thing to insult or trick a character, it's another thing to insult slash trick the player. The player takes that personally ... and that's something that games do well, instead of talking about this guy, we're talking partly about you.
And so that's why when you asked me about this whole notion of damsels and sexist tropes, I think that's absolutely a topic for games. I'd rather people do it in a way where they're making an argument, done in a way that expresses it through an artistic, a non-lecturing way. The Socratic method – did you ever read any Socrates, or Plato actually? If you read Plato, who writes about his mentor Socrates, Socrates always won his argument by asking questions, and bring the person to a place where they themselves acknowledge the truth rather than you telling them the truth. They always say the answer that you're bringing them to. There's a huge amount of douchebaggery out there, in terms of sexist douchebags, and jerks, and creepy rapist slash pseudo-rapist stuff, and I'm not denying that. But people – I think it's always better to try to reach people through art and argument rather than lecture.
[The rest of our original interview with Levine follows.]
WIRED: What did you think of Gone Home?
Levine: I think that what Steve did, who is a really smart guy, is he took the notion of environmental storytelling and took an angle of it where he removed the gameplay aspect of it, and ended up with a satisfying piece.
WIRED: When we were at the Smithsonian for the Art of Video Games exhibition, I remember you answering an audience question about "pretentious indie games," with the idea that the audience member didn't like those games, but your response was that when you as a director play those games, you might take inspiration from them and put that back into the games you're making. I'm wondering even besides Gone Home if you've played any small-team indie stuff that's been interesting to you.
I'll play like 30 roguelikes a year now.Levine: It's funny, because remember, I come from – there wasn't a word "indie" when I started out, but until we totally sold the company we were always in that situation. It was a very tough time because there was no digital distribution and you always needed a publisher of some kind. There was no iPhone, there wasn't a direct relationship with the consumer. That stuff to me – the ability of a guy like Steve Gaynor to go off and have an idea, an idea that is not ever going to sell 10 million copies but is going to appeal to a certain audience, to be able to have an economic where you can fund that and make that work and not have to deal with a publisher – not that publishers are bad, but in the sense that you're not going to have to go to a marketing meeting and pitch Gone Home to some guy at EA, right, because they're not gonna understand what that is, necessarily.
Things like Kickstarter, of course, on top of that in terms of getting funding, the economics have changed. And it's weird, probably, coming from a guy who works at a big publisher, a lot of people think that I find that disconcerting. I think it's the best thing that's ever happened because what it means is more games. It means more artisanal games. And what I mean by that is, Gone Home is an artisanal game, right? It's designed to appeal to a particular group of people, a relatively small, particular group of people and scratch exactly that itch that they have. And I think we're seeing a bunch of games where the economic, because of things like Kickstarter and things like digital distribution, make that possible.
And I also don't want to underestimate things like Unity, having engines that are off the shelf and kind of work, is a huge step up. So I'm incredibly excited by that, and I'm incredibly excited to see what people are doing with that space. I think it's just a pure win. You're going to see a lot of stuff – I was playing Sword of the Stars. I'll play like 30 roguelikes a year now, because there are a few pixel-art roguelikes out there. When you ask me if I play indie games, I play a ton of indie games and most of them, like most games, are okay. Or not ideal. Some are better and some are worse.
I think the biggest concern I have is, I see almost – I'm sort of joking about the roguelike pixel-art games; I'm starting to think there's almost a yearning for nostalgia that's almost limiting to coming up with stuff that's very unique in visuals. A game like Limbo, a really beautiful indie game, or a game like Journey, which has a completely unique visual, I worry that people are sort of trapped in their childhoods and should feel a little more comfortable – I don't feel there need to be as many pixel art games as there are. But the market will answer that question. Maybe that's what people want. I'd just rather see people take a few more risks.
WIRED: It's probably difficult, breaking into indie games now and trying to get your stuff noticed, it might be easier to make a piece of pixel art and have people think, "Wow, a pixel game, I love those!"
Levine: And that's completely true, because I mentioned the Sword of the Stars thing, I actually quite like it, I wasn't trying to ding on it. I like Kickstarter, I kickstart everything. I've kickstarted 120 different things, or 100 different things. I like seeing people experiment, I love experimentation. It's something that I kind of miss sometimes. I miss the fact that – with Infinite, we did it, but just the economics of it, you have to appeal to – it's not an artisanal game, right?
WIRED: Do you look at indie games and think to yourself – are you going to move on to another huge triple-A project that needs to sell X million copies and needs to be really broad, or is there a way where you are now to experiment and try little things?
It's kind of hard when you've worked on something for five years, and somebody plays it and 12 hours later they're done.Levine: I think there is. That's not a yes or no question. There's the scale of the experiment. You can do some experimentation. I think Infinite did some experimentation beyond BioShock. If you look at Gone Home, it's interesting because it takes the System Shock model and it rips out a large part of it. Which is the combat, the RPG growth, but it's basically you walking around an environment, doing environmental storytelling and mise en scene and finding audio logs. And what's smart about it is, he said, okay, this is the part that an audience said they don't need the rest of it, they're just gonna want this part and I can just focus on that part of it. To be fair, that part of it, the whole combat part, that takes a lot of resources.
So, you know, there are times, and what I've really been thinking about recently is narrative, and how to make narrative replayable. And that's a super, super hard problem. The thing I'm having more – and I've talked a little bit about this, and I think I'll do a GDC talk on it – is called "narrative Legos," this idea I've been kicking around. How do you break down narrative into its smallest component parts, and have them remix and remash and still come up with a coherent narrative that effectively allows you to play through the narrative and have it meaningfully changed – not just change from you choose A, B or C like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. But having it meaningfully feel different. That's a huge problem, and sometimes I almost think it's a problem you can't take on in a huge game because it's just too much risk for a crazy sort of indie experiment idea. That's a big question, can you take on that kind of huge challenge and risk in a mainstream, huge, triple-A game. I don't know.
WIRED: So is this something you'd like to see other people try with smaller things, and see what they come up with before you try to work it into something where there's more on the line?
Levine: No, it may be a function of, I have to figure out how to do it within a context here, or I don't know. It's something that I want to take on. I don't exactly know. I'm still working on DLC. I'm doing DLC, I'm writing Logan's Run, you know. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about how I'm going to manage the future. I've thought about my goals for the future. I haven't thought about how I'm actually going to make them happen yet. It's okay. It's not like this is an interview going out into the public space where I'm saying I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing.
WIRED: No, nothing like that at all! And please don't check WIRED over the next few days.
Levine: Look, I'm establishing goals now. And to figure out how to achieve those goals is next, but it's a goal I care about, because I care about narrative. Narrative's very expensive, and it's one and done, generally. And even if it's choose your own adventure, choose path A, B, or C, there's still distinct paths, right? And it's very, very expensive, and it's kind of hard when you've worked on something for five years, and somebody plays it and 12 hours later they're done. So it's a problem I've been thinking about for a while.
But again, I don't want to go write an article about it, I want to go make a game out of it. I've just got to figure out how.
