BioShock creator Ken Levine reveals key narrative beats on Judas, his new sci-fi FPS

The latest dev log for Judas reveals the game's core design philosophy, giving players a better idea on what to expect from the new reactive shooter.

It's been 12 years since BioShock Infinite released, and since then, franchise creator Ken Levine has been slowly putting together his vision for his next game, Judas. It wasn't so long ago that we didn't know anything about the project, but in recent years, Levine's new studio Ghost Story Games has been putting out some surprisingly substantial development logs that highlight things like themes, characters, and the main ethos of Judas.

The most recent log is no exception. In Judas' second update, Ghost Story says that they've created a more automated system for dynamic environments, one that can tailor-make specific areas based on the story and/or the decisions that players make. There's extensive discussion of Judas' main floating starship-city, The Mayflower, and how it'll be layered like an onion with tons of things to uncover and explore--all while changing over time.

• Read more: Judas will go deeper than BioShock with meaningful villains that react to how you play

Perhaps the most interesting part is how Levine talks about the philosophy of Judas, the main character of the game. Similar to how Big Daddies had a kinship with Little Sisters in BioShock, Judas has a close connection with machines, and this affinity has essentially shaped her place as an outcast in the world. She's not accepted by people, likely because she has no interest in fitting into society, and prefers the more direct, analog language of robots.

We've included the full excerpt from Levine below because it exposes a key character motivation for Judas, and the players themselves:

I often come up with ideas when I'm out on runs, and one day I thought of this speech that would define this character that we were trying to figure out. This speech popped my in my head as I was struggling through the third mile:

"I only eat at vending machines, because I don't like interacting with waiters. Restaurants are more complicated: there are greetings and 'hellos' and 'Is this table okay?' And I'm thinking, 'Why should I care what you recommend? You're not me!' But I'm not supposed to say that, so I just have to count the seconds until the interaction can end, devise socially acceptable ways of saying 'Go fuck yourself.' Because for me, conversation is a prelude to failure. Vending machines never ask me a question that I don't know the answer to. The exchange is reduced to the transaction: money in, product out. Why can't people be more like that?"

"This stream of consciousness became the touchstone we kept coming back to for the character and ultimately the entire game.

"Judas," as she came to be known, understands machines in a way she can never understand people. That became her greatest strength... and greatest weakness. We put her in a science fiction world, a colony ship filled with robots - a futuristic setting that makes someone like her extremely powerful.

But it's also a world where personal success hinges on how well you can conform to the rules, because dissent would lead to the failure of the mission. That makes her an outlaw, a pariah - a Judas.

That tension at the heart of the character came to inform everything about the game, which we stopped thinking of as an FPS and started calling a "Judas Simulator." Everything comes back to that core idea of you interacting with the world as Judas.

Judas is slated to release sometime in 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It will be a key part of Take-Two's Fiscal Year 2027 product launch slate.