I can imagine ken was very adamant about the things he wanted in the game. I can also imagine it started to piss some of his team members off after awhile. If this is true all I can say to the 2k developers is: suck it up! Without Ken there is no bioshock!

If Levine had a major hand in what became Bioshock then I'm not liking the sequels chances. However it's all speculation and this point so I'll wait and see what develops.

its a good thing levine left bioshock where it should be. they're now in that beautiful period in every development cycle to make a sequel to a fantastic first game before the hype blows off completely and no one remembers how good bioshock was.

god of war was great. god of war 2 was fantastic. different man in charge. i think this goes for the majority of franchises. ken had a vision, he saw it through (pissed a lot of people off by his leadership and passion, apparently) and if he was to be forced by some publisher to just squeeze bioshock out of its last breath just for the sake of it, bioshock 2 would be a disappointment before it was already released.

having a different team working on a sequel to bioshock is the only logical solution this close to the first game's release. if it wasn't to be made right now, and ken decides 10 years from now that he wants to implement some of his ideas in a sequel, that would be interesting. the idea of a bioshock sequel is absurd as it is. they should leave rapture alone for a looong time.

ken is better off doing "project-x". bioshock is better off without him.

Oh but now that I think of it, Ken was pissed about that two endings stuff on BioShock... Yeah, I guess he might gotten overprotective of his stuff after losing System Shock.

Um. Bioshock 2 might be to Bioshock what Turok 2 was to Turok? If so, it's complete gold.

@ShadowXOR: I don't have the lonk, but I can confirm reading an interview on Kotaku where Levine said he was not happy with the 2 endings.

I agree with king3vbo, Bioshock is done as a franchise. Where could they possibly take it? It just feels like they're trying to spin gold out of straw.

Teh Surfer gurl said....snicka snika!

I'm surprised to hear that Levine is so hated. He always seemed really cool in interviews and took criticism well, unlike say, Denis Dyack or Dave Jaffe.

@xper, you're facts are right. Jaffe was NOT the director of GOWII. He undoubtedly had input, but Cory Barlog was the director.

Namelessted: before you contradict people, you should really check your facts :p If you look at Jaffe's blog (http://criminalcrackdown.blogspot.com/) he doesn't even list GOWII as a title he worked on.

@Necros

I think it's because she says things that people want to hear.

Anyone who doubts Surfer Girl, just read her blog. In its entirety. She definitely isn't full of shit, at least.

I only joined just to say my part to that piece of shit Ken. Irrational Games was one of the best PC developers we ever had. Swat 4 and Freedom Force were just a couple of the best. Bioshock was supposed to be an awesome game and I had followed it like no other. Ken and irrational sold out and let 2K's stupid asses buy them. Then 2K being the ex awesome publisher destroyed everything irrational had invisioned and Ken talked out of his ass so much it was sickening.

Ken had promised and even said on live tv there would be a modkit. That would have saved this game from it's horror. After they were bought 2K had the final word and announced against what Ken had said that there will be no modkit, which is now why this game is nothing more than a fart in the wind.

Ken had talked the game up like it was the best thing in the world. The world acts like it's supposed to? Ya right. Couldn't freeze water, lighting the ground on fire only benefited when they themselves had put gasoline or something on the ground to give it away as "Oh hey, you can set a trap here". Instead of being able to do it yourself.

Ken claimed it was half an RPG but there wasn't anything RPG about it, you could use any plasmid and any mod or anything right to boot and you were given enough slots to use just about all of them at the same time not to mention they gave you enough gun mod stations to level every gun in the game but maybe 2 or 3 mods giving the game less replay value than Mario 2.

Multiple endings my ass. They were basically the same thing with maybe a couple things changed. They ending wasn't even creative, it was dumber than George Bush. You underground in this awesome world, everything creative and well thought out, to get to this monster who looked like he set himself on fire? You can tell they ran out of ideas and just stiched that on.

Oh look I can be a big daddy. Too bad everyone knows your still you. In game a splicer was cautious to take on a big daddy. Nope, not you, every splicer in teh building comes running after you. I got to change my voice but some reason I had no gloves to cover my human hands, and im still using the guns from before? Where the hell is my super strength, rivot gun and huge ass drill.

Even worse they multiplatformed it. While I may be a PC gamer I have absolutely nothing against consoles except for their limitations. Make a PC games only you can have it be in depth and lots of options. Console's having limited memory and control (only gamepad) they have to dumb down the UI. Ken promised us we'd have our awesome UI. We didn't have crap. IT was still horrible. How exactly is playing pipe dream hacking? They didn't even get creative with it, it was the same thing through out the whole entire game. WAsn't even hard.

All in all. Ken is a piece of crap and so is 2K for turning into corporate monkey assholes.