Ken Levine recently faced criticism from his staff for apparent indecision problems

The year began in the industry with strong accusations levelled at Ken Levine. The father of BioShock and the classic System Shock 2 faced harsh criticism from workers at Ghost Story Games, his current studio, where former employees spoke of sudden changes to Levine’s ideas, causing material that many had been working on for months to be thrown away.

The legendary creative has been speaking on the Arcade Attack podcast, shared by Eurogamer, about his experience on Thief: The Dark Project and how developers constantly struggle to avoid throwing away their work. “As a writer, there’s a saying: writing is rewriting. And it’s a luxury in the games industry to be able to do that,” Levine said.

“I’ve been lucky enough to have that luxury, and I think part of the reason the work I do is good is because I’ve been able to say no, this isn’t working, scrap it, and move on.” Still, Levine said he understands that this feels like a problem of indecision but confessed that he doesn’t know any other way of working.

Levine has referred in the podcast to the fact that he hasn’t shown anything about the new game he has been working on at Ghost Story Games for almost eight years, explaining that, although he understands the desire of the fans, who have been waiting for news for a long time, he prefers not to show anything until the project is very advanced, to avoid showing something that ends up out of the game, in the end, this being one of the criticisms he received for Bioshock Infinite.

Just a few days ago, Ken Levine already talked about the development of his new game and when we could get a first look, assuring that players prefer to know what they will finally find, and the only way he can assure it is by presenting the game close to its release. Unfortunately, Ken Levine is not the only creative who has faced nightmarish developments in his video games. This is not the first time Ken Levine has faced serious criticism. If you are interested, you can read more about it here.

Source: puttana