BioShock Creator Ken Levine recently opened up about his upcoming untitled game, emphasizing the importance of an interesting main character.
"The whole system that I came up with and that we’re developing is based upon the fact that to make an interesting character, you have to have a character who has a bunch of passions, wants, and needs," Levine told Game Informer. "The player now has the ability to facilitate those wants or needs or go against those wants or needs or ignore those wants or needs."
Levine believes this approach will work as it's a "very organic way to look at a character." He added, "It’s a quite systemic game. The system we’re in, the character’s feelings about you change, they go up and down."
Levine says a character's wants and needs are the heart of who they are. "It’s not their skin color, not their religion, not their sex. It’s what they want, what they need, and what’s in their way."
He relates this to BioShock's Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, saying while her religion and autism played a role in who she was, it was her wants -- "her absolute adoration of science" -- that ultimately defined her. "There are plenty of other Jews who would not choose to do what she did. But she chose to, because it aligned with her passion for science."
Relationships with NPCs will also play an important role in the game. He references how players chose to deal with Little Sisters in BioShock led to two possible endings. This will be expanded upon, as you'll have "very fluid relationships with the characters" throughout the game. Rather than having "seven or eight stops like your traditional branching tree structure," Levine's new game will have "potentially thousands of stops with hundreds of thousands of potential states you can be in with all your relationships to all the characters and wants."
Levine explains how relationships in the game relate to diplomacy in Civilization, saying the strategy game is "a huge inspiration for what we’re doing, thinking about these relationships that have ebb and flow. We’re just applying narrative content to it, dialogue."
As far as development goes, Levine says the new studio does, in fact, have a name, and they've just begun voiceover work with the first actor.
Check out the full interview over on Game Informer for more.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/10/ken-levine-talks-characters-and-relationships-in-his-next-game?abthid=5527546c7f324dbc52000076
