Ken Levine (game developer)

Levine was born in Flushing, New York to a Jewish family. He studied drama at Vassar College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama in 1988,[7] in Poughkeepsie, New York before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a film career, writing two screenplays.[8] Before he got into gaming, Levine used to work as a computer consultant on Wall Street but admitted he was not very good at it, describing his attitude towards the job as a "slacker."[9]

In 1995, he was hired as a game designer by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Looking Glass Studios after replying to a job ad in Next Generation magazine.[8] At Looking Glass, Levine worked with pioneering designer Doug Church[10] to establish the initial fiction and design of Thief: The Dark Project.[11]

In 1997, following his work on Thief, Levine left Looking Glass along with two coworkers, Jonathan Chey and Robert Fermier, to found Irrational Games.[12] The studio's first game was System Shock 2, an early hybrid of a role-playing game and first-person shooter. System Shock 2 is the sequel to Looking Glass' System Shock (1994). Levine served as lead writer and designer,[13] and the game shipped in 1999 to critical acclaim.[14]

Irrational Games developed Freedom Force and its sequel Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich, real-time tactical role-playing games that drew heavily on the love Levine and Irrational Games's artist Robb Waters had for the Silver Age of Comic Books. After the first Freedom Force game, Irrational developed Tribes: Vengeance and SWAT 4, on which Levine served as writer and executive producer respectively.

Although Tribes: Vengeance, SWAT 4, and Third Reich all shipped within a year of one another in 2004 and 2005, Irrational Games had been working in preproduction on the first-person shooter BioShock, the studio's most ambitious game at that point, since 2002.[15] The game went through numerous revisions to its premise and gameplay, and was released in August 2007.[16] In 2005, Levine, Chey, and Fermier sold Irrational Games to publisher Take-Two Interactive. Take-Two Interactive changed their name to 2K, just as BioShock was released. BioShock was a critical and commercial success, and is considered one of the best games of all time.[17] The BioShock franchise has sold over 25 million units to date.[18]

In 2008, Levine delivered the keynote address at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, discussing his youth as a nerd in the 1970s and how it impacted the path of his career.[8]

Since the release of BioShock, Levine served as creative director and lead writer on BioShock Infinite, set in 1912 in the floating city of Columbia. BioShock Infinite was a critical and commercial success, winning over 80 awards pre-release.[19][20]

On February 18, 2014, Levine announced that Irrational Games would be closing down, with fifteen members of the staff to follow Levine to focus on digital only, narrative-driven games for Take-Two.[21] Levine stated in a 2016 interview that the stress of managing Infinite's development had affected his health and personal relationships, and rather than stay on to lead an even larger BioShock game, opted to depart from it. Levine's current project involves a concept of "Narrative Legos" that can be used to create an endlessly-replayable story-driven video game.[22]

On February 23, 2017, Irrational Games was rebranded as Ghost Story Games, founded by 12 of the former Irrational members with Levine remaining as president and creative director.[23] In January 2022, the studio's game was reported to be in development hell, with employees blaming Levine for a lack of leadership in producing a vaguely pitched game that Levine described as a "narrative LEGO" in which every player would have a unique experience.[24] On December 8, 2022, they revealed their game, Judas.