Top Story
Ken Levine’s next game will be an immersive sim
We haven’t heard much from Ken Levine – most famous for creating the Bioshock series – since Bioshock Infinite was released in 2013. Ghost Story Games, which was formed from the core team of Irrational Games in 2014, has just posted a job listing for a cinematic narrative scripter that hints at what their next game is: “A creatively ambitious project in the immersive sim genre.”
Always a man, a lighthouse, a city and a long wait
This is not exactly a surprise, since Levine’s games tend to be immersive sims – but this time around there are lot more immersive sims in the market! The success of the BioShock games prompted a lot of imitation and elaboration on the immersive sim design philosophy.
While it’s not exactly news that Ghost Story Games is working on something, any sign of life from the studio and evidence that their work is going somewhere is very welcome. The team is still relatively small for a AAA game – around 40 people – so we will most likely have a wait a while longer to see anything concrete.
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
Which of these villains were cut from Batman Arkham Asylum?
- Catwoman
- Mad Hatter
- Two-Face
- The Penguin
The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!
News Bits
Doctor Who: The Edge of Time launches next month
This is the news Doctor Who fans have been waiting for! Doctor Who: The Edge of Time – a VR game combining action, adventure and mind-bending puzzles – finally has a firm release date, namely November 12th. The game will reference classic episodes from the entire run of the 55-year-old series, and feature Jodie Whittaker voicing The Doctor, and Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks.
Doctor Who: The Edge Of Time arrives on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, HTC Vive and HTC Vive Cosmos on November 12th.
Root Letter sequel headed west
Root Film, the sequel to Kadokawa Games’ visual novel Root Letter, is coming to PlayStation 4 and Switch in North America and Europe. Investigate another murder in the Shimane prefecture by noting keywords during conversations, deducing their significant and then confronting characters, as well as seeing the same events from multiple perspectives. Not that you’d know from watching the announcement trailer!
Daily Fact
The best Doctor Who game was free – and still not very good
Doctor Who is extremely popular, but the good Doctor hasn’t starred in particularly many videogames – and the few that exist are either awful or tonally inappropriate platformers. The most promising attempt was Doctor Who: The Adventure Games, which had a lot going for it: It focused on puzzles and storytelling, it had the full backing of the BBC as well as several actors and writers from the show and was developed by the British studio behind the Broken Sword series.
What could possibly go wrong? Well, the decision to give the game away for free, for starters. It forced the team to rush through development on a shoestring budget, which admittedly is very typical of Doctor Who, but not exactly a recipe for success in game development. The game was also aimed more at Doctor Who fans than gamers, so the puzzles were all pretty simple.
All in all, Doctor Who: The Adventure Games came out okay – but they should have been great! Let’s hope The Edge of Time fares better.