Bioshock Infinite’s lead designer Ken Levine appeared on NPR’s All Tech Considered yesterday, discussing the history of the series and the newest game’s violence in the context of the story.
When host Arun Rath asked him about the violence in the game, bringing up a quote calling Infinite a “case study in unnecessary violence” Levine responded, “I think that it’s not particularly more violent than Bioshock 1. I think the conversation in the games space has changed a little bit. I think people used Infinite as a launching point to talk about the changing nature of games and can you make successful games that don’t have violence in video games.”
“I think the reaction to the violence is more an expression of people building confidence in the industry’s ability to express itself in more diverse fashions,” he continues.
Discussing possible reasons for the prevalence of first-person shooting in video games Levine said, “A shooter answers a lot of questions for you: the main mechanic is you have this gun, you have weapons, you have enemies, you have conflict coming at you. I think now, we have a little more confidence that, especially when you don’t have to appeal to eight or ten million people, when you can just digitally distribute, you can really try to have a 1-to-1 interaction with a smaller, more dedicated fan base and give them the thing they want. You couldn’t do that 20 years ago when I started.”
It’s worth checking the full interview out.