BioShock creator Ken Levine was interviewed by IGN as part of the publication's IGN Icons series, and he shared his opinion on the evergreen debate between realistic and stylized graphics. Levine reckons that relying on cutting-edge technology to deliver realistic graphics is expensive and also doesn't age as well as a more stylized approach.
I don't think we've ever been a company that was like, oh my God, we need the latest and greatest technology. In the rendering space we've never been a company; outside of SWAT 4, we never really tried to do ultrarealism in our games. It's expensive, and it doesn't age as well as sort of more stylistic things because BioShock still looks good, I think, because it wasn't trying to get every nut and bolt super realistically rendered. It was realistic-looking, sort of, but it was more stylized.
I think if you have the right art director and the right approach, you don't need to be on the cutting edge of technology all the time. Even the stuff we're doing with Judas, all this narrative stuff we're doing is not CPU intensive. It's work intensive on our side, and Baldur's Gate is the same way. That was just like a ton of work behind that. None of it was particularly technologically demanding, right? It was just a billion branching tree structures that they had to manage and think about - which I tip my hat to those guys because they did an amazing job with it - but that's not a technological, hardware challenge. It's an engineering and thought challenge.
Levine's argument is certainly one that's been heard before. Blizzard Entertainment, for instance, is known for its stylized art style that tends to age extremely well, as showcased by World of Warcraft.
Even Levine's next game, Judas (powered by Unreal Engine), appears to feature stylized visuals. Given his statement, it's unlikely to support cutting-edge tech like path tracing support. By the way, speaking to IGN, he also explained why Judas is taking so long:
The reason it took so long is not really related to rendering technology or anything like that. It was figuring out how we crafted the system, this narrative Lego system that is combining modular elements together dynamically at runtime to make stories happen that are very reactive to the player. So we had a technology, and then we had to figure out how to write a story for that. Like, how do we write stories at maximum leverage? As much as you love the stories from BioShock and BioShock Infinite, they are pretty linear experiences; outside of the combat, they're not that highly reactive to player action in the same way. And I really wanted to do a game that was, you know, sort of the opposite end of the spectrum from that.
The game still has no release date. Hopefully, we'll get some updates next month during Summer Game Fest.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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