Ken Levine says BioShock nearly went nowhere and was almost canceled: "We can't make those games because they don't sell"

Jul. 13, 2024

System Shock 2’s performance didn’t give publishers much confidence

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BioShockand BioShock Infinite director Ken Levine has opened up about early troubles that the series faced when it came to budgets, low sales expectations based on the genre, and a close call with cancelation.

Speaking toEdge Magazine’s400th Issue, Levine recalls that many of the original developers came to Irrational Games “because they liked” immersive sim classic System Shock 2 and wanted to make something similar to the ‘get bullied by AI’ shooter, but Levine supposedly vetoed the idea early on because of financial concerns. “‘We can’t make those games because they don’t sell,'” he supposedly said to the new coming staff. “Finally, they wore me down.”

Irrational Games then made a “cheap prototype” to pitch to publishers, who had an expected response at the time and rejected the game because games like System Shock didn’t “make any money.” Eventually, the team came up with the idea of pitching BioShock to journalists instead, who covered the game as part of a retrospective on System Shock 2. “The next day, people saw the article, and we started getting phone calls,” Levin says. “I think it created a sense of demand in the publisher.”

Rockstar Gamesand 2K parent company Take-Two grabbed publishing rights for the soon-to-be hit, setting it up with a “modest budget,” before outright acquiring Irrational Games and throwing “a bunch more money into BioShock.” The 2007 shooter was still “extremely cheap” compared to today’s blockbusters, but that didn’t stop it from being “almost cancelled” due to “going over budget and over time,” according to Levine. There were also apparently publisher concerns about the game’s infanticide - BioShock gave players the option to kill and harvest ‘Little Sisters’ for more resources - though, anyone that’s played that game knows it did eventually make the cut.

Lucky for Take-Two, the project wasn’t canceled. In fact, it became a bonafide hit, spawning two sequels and selling over 41 million copies.Netflix is also working on a live-action film adaptationthat promises some “new little twists” on the series about utopias turned to shit. Afourth game in the series is also “ramping up” developmentwithout Levine at the helm, since Irrational Games shut down about a decade ago and the director left to make another BioShock-like calledJudas.

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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.

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