Ken Levine

And so it's kind of...

It's interesting to see, like, the direct lineage, you know, in the same way that, you know, you think about someone like... you know, Warren Spector or Ken Levine or whoever, who has like all these kind of acolytes everywhere where it's like, it's, it's like one of those things where it's like, Oh, the acolytes of CD project are now starting to spread out a little bit.

Well, this is why I'm so optimistic about the future of Rebel Wolves.

Because I think this game is solid.

Um, Kojima definitely wants to do a thousand things at once.

So maybe, maybe that's what's happened, but Microsoft, I think if they're going to go out and get anybody's game, Ken Levine's game, Kojima's next game, those are some pretty, pretty big gets for a company.

Um, regardless of the layoffs they just did, which I'm sure a lot of people are going to bring up.

Because it's like, well, you just laid these people off, but blah, blah, blah.

If you have 500 people in a game development company and you're paying their insurance, that you are outfitting their buildings, and you have a bunch of people there who are all taking in wages, or you are simply taking on the publishing rights to a game, the difference in cost is dramatic.

They're not really comparable.

If Kojima comes to you, we talked about this earlier, by the way, I think prior to the podcast, but if somebody comes to you and their name's Kojima, maybe Ken Levine, maybe one or two others, Tops, there is a different idea that if they come to you and say, we are in the game, we are making the game.

You just need a publisher.

But I will say, if you loved SOMA, I think this has got the good stuff.

I'm also going back to earlier talking about Ken Levine and Judas, which maybe isn't coming out as soon as we thought.

If you love Bioshock, this has also, I think, got a lot of the sauce, got a lot of the stuff.

um because it's

No, but I think that – I'm glad you brought that up, Jack, because I do think that that's like a thing that's worth bringing up in some of these conversations because like – As much as we want, like because we as players, right, as like appreciators of the medium, like our thought process is always going to be geared towards like what is the best artistic outcome, right? What is the outcome where we get the best video game, the most unique artistic expression? And like that's all well and good.

But I think that, like, Jack, I'm sure you would agree with me as Ken Levine fans, that sometimes auteurs need editors.

And that motherfuckers like Kojima love to take ten years and several hundred million dollars over budget to deliver a game that is unfinished.

And...

No, I 100% agree that it can, but I think an audience will be more eager to accept something as a legit spiritual successor when it is made by...

Like, people are going to see the Ken Levine never going to come out ghosts game and be like, this is a spiritual successor to Bioshock and System Shock because it's made by... him and his team, rather than, you know, as good as it was received, Twisted Tower, which is like kind of a Bioshock-esque game.

It's not really a spiritual successor.

Yeah, it's interesting, though

again, it's like still, like, still regardless, his name has a prestige behind it.

Now, if he's throwing a bunch of bombs out, like, you know, like, you know, Cliffy B, you know, or what's his face? What the hell is at the end of his career? Who, Ken Levine? David Jaffe.

He's not the end of career.

That career has been over.

If they have their...

Because things like Ken Levine's game there, Judas, it just has placeholders, so there's no spoiling.

Because it's just like, placeholder, get 10 kills.

There's not real achievements, but a lot of these games that are far up...

There's not a hundred games like Carrier Command.

There are a hundred games like Quake or Doom, you know? And even in the space that I work in and that my team works in, um you know if you look at dsx dishonored you know system shock and thief and those games some of which i did not work on bioshock is brilliant ken levine's bioshock and i love it so much and i work with a guy who worked on you know bioshock 2 and you know those games there's not a hundred of those that are amazing either i think you know it um and so i think sometimes the model itself.

Like, you know, there's a game coming out called like Castle Weepstone.

That's so striking to me.