You’ve gotta hand it to Ken Levine: the man is not content to simply sit back and cash out on a franchise that pumps out sequel after sequel while leaving the original gameplay largely intact. Oh no, Levine and his 2K Boston team are looking to do something fresh, something different, something unique. The team could have simply made Bioshock 2 and watched the paychecks roll in, but that’s not what they wanted. Said Levine to GamesIndustry.biz:

"I think for us, we come out of our BioShock coma - from shipping that game, and how hard that was - and then making a determination. What’s next for us, and how aggressive are we going to be?

"And we all looked at each other, and these guys have worked together for maybe six or ten years, all the senior creative guys on Bioshock, and asked what do we want to do? Do we want to do something a little more straightforward next time, or do we want to swing for the fences again? To paraphrase, we decided to swing for the fences.

"The goal for our next project is something very, very different, so it’s a little scary - because we don’t know what it is, exactly. We’re getting a much clearer sense every single day in terms of what we’re doing, deciding what’s in and out of the game. But it’s going to be aggressive.

"There are things related to story, gameplay and...I don’t know how to describe it...people’s relationship with the game over the long term. That’s what we’re thinking about, but it’s about as clear as I can be."

Last time Levine and Co. were aggressive and swung for the fences, they created a title that won Game of the Year from numerous publications, sold a bazillion copies, and is still regarded as one of the finest IPs of this generation. If Levine thinks he can catch lightning in a bottle twice, then let’s all stand back and give him room to work.

Maybe this time he’ll make a shooter about a utopian city in the clouds populated by the societal elite until everything went horribly wrong...