BioShock creator Ken Levine explains why he only makes singleplayer games

BioShock creator and ex-Irrational Games boss Ken Levine loves singleplayer games, and probably for the same reasons as you.

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It's been over 12 years since Ken Levine last shipped a game. His latest shooter, Judas, is seen as a spiritual successor to BioShock thanks to its emphasis on story-driven immersion.

In other words, Levine wants to take players on another personal journey, which is a big reason why he still makes singleplayer games. In a recent interview, Levine shares his frank and rather candid take on singleplayer games, giving a brief history lesson on how these worlds affected him as someone with social anxiety, and the nostalgia he still feels for them. Plus, the game isn't a person, so it "will never leave you," Levine says.

"Back in the old days of nerdery...being a nerd was not cool.

"If you were a kid, the reason that uncool kids got attracted to that stuff is, if you didn't have a lot of friends, you always had someone to play it.

"I got my Atari 2800 in the sixth or seventh grade, and I didn't really have any friends for various reasons, but I could come home from school and I'd have someone to play with, which was the Atari.

"There was something about it that was good, but sometimes it was negative. The nice thing about games is that you can never say the wrong thing, hurt the game's feelings, the game will never leave you--all things that can happen in life.

"With someone with a bit of social anxiety, singleplayer games were just amazing--I could just immerse myself. I could adopt a set of problems that were totally different than mine, I always found it a great way to just get away from I'm doing.

"Or not even to get away, but to go somewhere special, go somewhere unique. I've just been so many places in singleplayer games.

"I love and appreciate all kinds of games, but I've mostly been a singleplayer gamer because I like to just lock myself away and go somewhere and be that person who matters the most in the world. Or the most hated person in the world in some games.

"Either way, you get to really walk a mile in somebody else's shoes. Multiplayer games are not designed for that as much.

"I always liked singleplayer games, I always liked designing singleplayer games, I never made a multiplayer-only game, and most of my games have been almost entirely singleplayer. I guess that's what I connect to more than other things probably because what I grew up with, and what games did for me as a kid."

In 2014, Irrational Games was shut down and almost all of the teams were laid off. The remaining Irrational Games team members then re-branded as Ghost Story Games in 2017.

Judas was announced in December 2022 and was originally scheduled to launch before March 2025, but that didn't happen. Judas is now listed as "coming soon."