Ken Levine’s BioShock successor Judas still in development, with a new gameplay system that decides who the villain is based on your actions

Remember Judas, the first-person shooter and next game from BioShock creator Ken Levine? Yeah, it’s hard to blame you if you forgot.

Similarly to BioShock 4, Judas has not been heard or seen in over a year, but Levine just dropped a new blog post out of the blue detailing what’s been going on with the game’s development. Don’t get too excited, because it’s likely still far off from releasing, but it’s not all bad news.

Along with new, gorgeous key art for the game seen at the top of this article, Levine detailed Judas’s Villainy system, which he says some takes inspiration from Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system, but functions quite differently.

“We’ve just finished a major milestone: Villainy,” he said in the post on PlayStation Blog, which also includes a minor glimpse at gameplay. “Villainy is a central feature of Judas. When you play BioShock or BioShock Infinite, the villain is always going to be the villain. Fontaine, Comstock — they’re always going to be the bad guys. In Judas, your actions will attract members of the Big 3 to you as friends. But ignore one of them enough, and they become the villain. From there, they will get access to a new suite of powers to subvert your actions and goals.”

These Big 3 characters (Tom, Hope, and Nefi) will be central to the game, according to Levine, and players will “get to know these characters intimately.” Much of Judas is still being kept secret, but Levine and his new studio Ghost Story Games want “losing one of them to feel like losing a friend,” and they will all be “competing for your favor and attention.”

“In BioShock Infinite, there was a lot of energy invested into developing your relationship with Elizabeth,” said Levine. “By the end of the game, you knew everything about her, her abilities, her hopes and dreams. But the truth is she knew almost nothing about you, the gamer playing Booker. In Judas, the Big 3 observe you as you play, and they have feelings not only about how you approach combat, hacking, and crafting, but most importantly your interactions with the other two characters.”

This sounds pretty awesome in theory, but it must be said that it’s now been over 12 years since BioShock Infinite, which is the last game Levine released at Irrational Games, along with its Burial at Sea DLC. The industry has changed entirely since then, and expectations for this title will be high.

With still no release date in sight, I’m choosing to be cautiously optimistic that Judas will end up being a title that may surprise us all whenever it finally comes out.