Ken Levine leaving behind linear narratives and ‘going back to the drawing board’

SAN FRANCISCO — Ken Levine has developed a reputation for being a master storyteller over the years thanks to games like System Shock and BioShock. But after nearly 20 years, he’s ready to try something new.

“I’m very proud of what I did with linear narrative. I we think took it pretty far,” Levine said during a talk Friday at the Game Developers Conference 2014. “So why change? The problem with narrative is that it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And that gets time-consuming and expensive, and you devote years of your life to this one sort of big moment where you ship the game, people play it for 12 hours, and they have that great experience. You see cosplayers and fans, but you don’t have that constant engagement with the audience.”