Ken Levine on writing games: a "depressing process, but afterwards it's the best thing ever"

Bioshock

In a fascinating episode of the Irrational Interview podcast , creative director Ken Levine discusses the art of games writing with Uncharted writer Amy Hennig. They talk about the how the technical requirements of the development process enforces a haphazard approach to scripting. Levine uses Bioshock's most famous moment as an example.

"I'll write a scene like the Andrew Ryan scene in Bioshock 1 before I've written most of the game, and because of the animation requirements, because it's a big animated scene we had to get started on that very early," he says. "I really don't exactly know how the hell I'm going to get to that."

"I don't know exactly how I'm going after that scene, but that scene is going to be set in stone to a degree, because of the animation requirements of it. You have to trust yourself, too, to say "this is okay, I'm going to figure this out!""

Hennig explains that key scenes are decided very early on to give the rest of the team something to develop, but the overall arc surrounding those points tends be altered as development continues. "I think people also underestimate how flexible stories are, in terms of problem solving," says Levine in response. "I think people think that stories are a lot more rigid than they actually are."

"It's the easiest thing to change, to some degree. You can be much more adaptive. You have a scene that's already written and recorded and animated and then something needs to change. The easiest thing to change is something in the story."

Levine and Hennig also reflect on the the constrained nature of game writing. While games are four or more times the size of a film, the time allowed to deliver plot points and move the story forwards is much more limited. "As game writers we have to work in an extremely, extremely compressed format," says Levine

Levine explains that the Bioshock team decided to "use the visual space" more when delivering plot points, as demonstrated in the Andrew Ryan scene and the ghostly interludes that appear as you explore Rapture in Bioshock. "You can't take for granted how patient your audience is going to be with your storytelling," he says.

It doesn't sound easy. Early on, Hennig describes games writing as "a massive and communal act of faith." Ken Levine admits that putting a game script together is a difficult and uncertain task. "I find it to be a miserable, depressing process," he says. "But afterwards it's the best thing ever."

You can download the 50 minute podcast from the Irrational site .

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.

Latest in FPS
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Ogryn
Warhammer 40,000: Darktide adds a psychic horde murderzone mode and makes Ogryns even smashier
Starfield's companion robot giving a thumbs-up
Former Bethesda dev who quit Starfield to go solo says it's 'much less stressful as an indie' without daily meetings or 'office politics': it's 'very refreshing to just care about the game'
A crew of prospectors in Wildgate, featuring a robot, a rabbit man, and a small aquatic creature in a combination mech/aquarium.
Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime's new company is putting Sea of Thieves-style shenanigans in space with a new crew-based shooter
Team Fortress Spy being shocked
An FPS studio pulled its game from Steam after it got caught linking to malware disguised as a demo, but the dev insists it was actually the victim of a labyrinthine conspiracy
Neighbors Suburban Warfare screenshot a child aims a slingshot at a man from across a cul-de-sac.
A beta of backyard FPS Neighbors: Suburban Warfare is out now, and the balance discussion is hysterical: nerf trash can lids and children
Fragpunk
Somebody finally figured out casual Counter-Strike
Latest in News
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'