Three months after its first developer blog, Ghost Story Games and Ken Levine are back to remind everyone that Judas is still around, that the studio is still working on it, and that it is still planning to be released, eventually. On that last point, no, the blog does not include a release date or an indication as to when it’ll be out. In fairness, a trailer at The Game Awards could give players all the answers they want that are not included in this blog, but we could also just as easily go another year wondering how the spiritual successor to BioShock is coming along.
As far as what the blog does include, we get a new piece of concept art of the game’s titular character, Judas. We also hear from several members of the development team, instead of just hearing from Ken Levine, with lead narrative designer Drew Mitchell, lead artist Karen Segars, and studio art director Nathan Phail-Liff all contributing comments on the creative process behind Judas, and more specifically, the development of its main character.
“The project began with us wanting to tell stories that are less linear, that react to the player and unfold in ways that no one’s ever seen in one of Ken’s games,” said Mitchell. “That told us a lot up front about what we’d need: namely, characters with strong, competing objectives, who each had a stake in everything the player did. Starting with that framework, we spent a lot of time thinking about those characters, their conflicts, the right setting to force them all together, and the systems underpinning it all. For a long time, there wasn’t even a set protagonist — just sort of a cipher, a blank slate.“
“Eventually, the story and world started to coalesce into something specific, and we needed to figure out who the player character should be. As a rule, you want to put your heroes in the last place they ever want to find themselves. So, what kind of person would really struggle to deal with all these relationships and warring interests? And I remember that was the point where Ken came up with this monologue that kicked everything off.“
Studio art director Nathan Phail-Liff also added comments on how the game’s setting evolved in its creation, and how it grew from a more practical location to what it is now. “At the beginning of its journey, it was a more practical, conventional, modular starship. But over the course of its mission, due to conflict between factions of people and ideals, it’s changed into what you see now. And we’re working on communicating this through the environment.“
“Like with any city with significant history, if you start digging up the street, you would find layers of the city’s past. Older eras of street long buried, forgotten, and built over by the roads upon which you now walk. With the Mayflower as a generational starship, we want to imbue this world with the same sense of time, history, and credibility; this is a civilization that went through eras of conflict and rebirth. And having the characters and the architecture of the world reflect those layers of the onion is a powerful mechanism for visual storytelling. This allows players to act as a sort of historian and architect as they explore the Mayflower. Through uncovering more, you’ll make increasingly informed decisions with the story and characters on your journey.“
All of this is, ultimately, wonderful insight to how Judas has been created in the years since development began, and it’s good to see Ghost Story Games communicating to players with a little more frequency than we’ve seen previously.
Hopefully, this continues, and we’ll get an even better look into the game and perhaps even some gameplay soon.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
