The director of BioShock, who has been working on this project at Ghost Story Games for years, revealed more about the single-player, narrative-driven FPS.
Creating marketing materials like trailers takes a lot of time and energy, and the team wants to focus on finishing Judas. They also miss having a more direct relationship with players. They hope to communicate more frequently, sharing new details without revealing too much. The goal is to keep updates lo-fi but more regular—without always needing flashy trailers and perfectly polished final imagery.
Ghost Story Games has just hit a key milestone: Villainy, a central system in Judas. In BioShock and BioShock Infinite, the villain stays the villain—Fontaine and Comstock are always the bad guys. In Judas, your actions attract members of the Big 3 as friends, but if you ignore one long enough, they become the villain. From then on, they gain new powers to thwart your actions and goals. Eventually, you must decide whom to focus on and whom to alienate.
One of Ken Levine’s all-time favorites is Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor for its Nemesis-driven emergent gameplay. That system let you build small relationships with many orcs, but with so many, there wasn’t time to truly develop them as characters. In Judas, you’ll get to know these characters intimately—the loss of one should feel like losing a friend. The team wants to play with that dynamic and make the choice truly difficult. The Big 3 will compete for your favor and attention: they can bribe you, save you in battle, gossip about the others, and share their darkest secrets—yet you’ll still have to choose whom to trust.
In BioShock Infinite, the team invested heavily in your relationship with Elizabeth—you learned her abilities, hopes, and dreams—yet she knew almost nothing about you, the player controlling Booker. In Judas, the Big 3 watch you play. They form opinions about your approach to combat, hacking, and crafting—and, most importantly, about your interactions with the other two.
As part of the Villainy milestone, the studio ran its largest playtest yet. New players experienced the feature firsthand, and their feedback on decision weight, outcomes, character motivations, and how Big 3 assists or betrayals changed future choices has been invaluable.
When is Judas coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC? Ghost Story Games would love to give a date, but they’re not ready to lock one. Dates slip, and they’d rather avoid changing it after announcing. They know Judas isn’t truly a game until players can play it—that’s the day the whole team is working toward.
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