Captain_Freud

Ken, you're one of my favorite people working in the games industry. I love reading what you have to say about games, design, and art in general. Your interviews are always interesting; it's one of the reasons I followed the development of Bioshock Infinite so heavily. I've been wanting to ask you this for a while now, so please forgive the length.

When the game went gold, you said the team had cut enough content to "make five or six games." You lost several key team members along the way and the game was delayed twice over the course of five years. You only have to compare the trailers to see that the game was clearly very different from inception to release.

I want to ask you: do you wish you had approached the development of Infinite differently? What could you have done better? Everyone at Irrational obviously had plenty of ambition and great ideas, but after playing the game myself, I feel like the issues came about in creating a final product.

There was a lot you wanted to talk about. You had the American setting, redemption through religion, false idols, being an icon / providing hope, communist revolutions, the benefits and detriments of capitalism, fatherhood, baptism and renewal, racism, PTSD, the impossibility of a truly just war, prophesy, mob mentality, regret, wish fulfillment, ghosts, etc. On top of all that was a thick layer of sci-fi and alternate universes.

And that's not even touching gameplay pressures! You had to satisfy the FPS crowd and their need for action packed gameplay, a conflict you've talked about in several interviews (including the box-art criticisms). The Bioshock fans had their expectations of what a "true" sequel needed, which included biotic powers, upgrading weapons, RPG mechanics, looting, vending machines, horror elements, and above all else a twist that lived up to the legacy of "Would you kindly?"

When I played Infinite, I saw so many individually great moments - the opening lottery, the skyrail combat sequences, the Boys of Silence, Comstock's entire arc - but I never felt like I was playing a cohesive game. I was playing through the remnants of five or six different games. There was the game about religious redemption, fatherhood, and second-chances. There was the game about Americana, capitalism, racism, and revolution. And there was the sequel to Bioshock, an FPS where I killed enemies, upgraded my weapons, and used biotic powers.

I think many of the problems can be traced back to the development of the game. The departures, the cut content, the overall concept changes from one E3 to the next. Do you wish you had limited the scope of Bioshock Infinite? Set limitations on yourself and made a more cohesive game? Or do you think artistic ambition shouldn't be restricted and that limitations only stiffle creativity?

Frankly, I'm excited for Burial at Sea because I'm dying to see what your team does on a smaller scale.

Because 99% of what people consider "debate" is just shit-slinging and bad faith arguments. Take a look at the profiles of the people whining about a ban, they're almost never worth the time.

EDIT: His answer. And further explanation.

How do you solve the conflict between realism and good design? When, if ever, has the realism of DayZ needed to be toned down for the sake of gameplay?

+1 for anything 343i related, all of their major projects have had interesting development paths.

How is it condescending? Everything he says applies to anyone's online habits: you don't owe anyone your time or a response. Again, 99% of the time the people getting blocked are obnoxious assholes with no introspection, and they had it coming.