How Judas’ Choice-Driven Narrative Sets It Apart from BioShock

While fans wait for Bioshock 4, Ghost Story Games and its founder Ken Levine have recently revealed more about the upcoming BioShock-like first-person shooter Judas in PlayStation’s 2024 State of Play. Formerly Irrational Games, developer of BioShock and BioShock Infinite, Ghost Story Games’ Judas will be its first title under the new name, with its last title as Irrational being BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea – Episode Two in 2014. At first glance, it appears the developer plans to use Judas to capitalize on its success with BioShock, as footage revealed during the State of Play showcases plenty of similarities between Judas and the famed BioShock series.

After the premiere of Judas‘ story trailer during the 2024 State of Play, many BioShock fans began quickly comparing it to their favorite bizarre underwater FPS, and justifiably so, due to several parallels between Judas and Bioshock when it comes to skills, graphics, and tone. Already, however, fans will be pleased to know that Ken Levine is promising Judas will be a completely separate experience from BioShock, largely due to one rather significant difference between it and the BioShock franchise.

Judas Is Set Apart From BioShock in Its Choices

BioShock’s Choices Were Few and Far Between

The original BioShock game is widely considered one of the best video game stories of all time, and this is largely due to its bizarre, compelling nature and the largely unforeseen plot twist at the end of BioShock‘s second act. Despite having an engaging narrative, it lacked a notable amount of player choice, as it was essentially themed around the player succumbing to the wishes of the game. In fact, the plot twist revealed that the player, Jack, had been under the control of Atlas, who was revealed to be Frank Fontaine, the entire game via the trigger phrase “Would you kindly.”

This is all not to say that BioShock didn’t give players any choice, as they had a great degree of freedom in choosing how to handle the game’s Little Sisters, who were formerly little girls but had been conditioned to harvest ADAM from the corpses found around BioShock‘s underwater city. Upon encountering a Little Sister, players could choose to either harvest Little Sisters for ADAM or rescue them from their possessed state. This would result in one of two different endings for the game, depending on whether players chose to rescue the Little Sisters or harvest them. However, this is about the extent of player choice in BioShock. Judas, on the other hand, promises players a large degree of freedom over its narrative.

Players Will Have a Large Degree of Freedom Over Judas’ Narrative

Not much has been disclosed about Judas thus far, save from what was showcased in 2024’s State of Play and Ken Levine’s comments in a recent PlayStation Blog post. In the blog post, Levine states that players “are the driver of every event in a story with a new cast of characters to get to know — and change — in ways you haven’t experienced before in our games.” The BioShock games of Ken Levine’s past have not implemented player freedom to this degree yet, allowing players to essentially shape every significant event of the story, so it will be interesting to see just how far this goes.

Other modern games have attempted to allow players the ability to shape a game’s narrative through their choices, but creating a story that considers the player’s choices at every major turn can prove to be a daunting task, as all possible outcomes must be taken into account when crafting the game’s resolution. That being said, Ken Levine is renowned for his incredible work, and that reputation may continue with Judas.