If you came here hoping to find out concrete details about the game currently in development at Ken Levine's new studio, then we're sorry to disappoint.
The former Irrational chief was speaking to Eurogamer at Rezzed this week, and during his presentation the Bioshock creator spoke about his new game, teasing a couple of aspects, but not really revealing anything meaningful.
We know, for example, that Levine is "comfortable with a little friction," and he doesn't want to make a game that will "hand you things." In terms of the level of challenge we can expect, we're given a reference point; the studio's debut title will be "a more difficult experience, more challenging to the gamer than [Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite]."
There's no doubt that both Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite are exceptional games, but as Levine points out, a lot of work went into creating games that offered little in the way of replay value.
"The impetus [for change was] you spent five years on a game which people finish in a weekend," he said during the talk. "I'm really envious of games like Civilization which I've played for a very long time. A lot of games now are built to maintain a long relationship with the gamer. My games haven't really had that. So this appealed to me."
During the presentation we got a sense of what Levine is inspired by (he talked about branching narratives à la Telltale, and not for the first time he referenced the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor), and what he wants to achieve with his next game, but he wouldn't be drawn on revealing any of the details:
"One of the main reasons we're not communicating right now [is because] game development is a perilous process especially when you're out there talking about. Things change from under you.
"Ideally, and I don't know, but ideally we'd want to just say 'here it is, go check it out', but we're really not going to be talking about this thing publicly until we have a high degree of certainty of what it's going to look and feel like."
In the past Levine has dropped a few additional details that are worth mentioning here. For example, we've been told that the title is going to be "a small-scale open-world game," as was revealed way back in 2015 (although let's bear in mind that plans can often change). During that interview he also dropped an interesting turn of phrase where he described the approach they're taking as "narrative Lego," but what exactly this means remains to be seen.
Still, we can't wait to find out what Levine is cooking up with his new studio, and we await more news with interest.
Thanks, VG247.