Ken Levine recently sat down with IGN to have a retrospective chat about his career, and naturally one of the big touchstones was the series he's best-known for: Levine co-directed Bioshock and was the sole director on Bioshock Infinite. At one point Levine is asked if it was tough to leave Bioshock behind after the closure of Irrational Games, and particularly now that Bioshock 4 in the hands of others.
"I was very incredibly fortunate to have a franchise that people cared about," says Levine. "It's very important to me. Like I've got a giant Big Daddy in my living room, I've got toys and stuff around. It's very important to me, but I didn't have a lot else to say in that world.
"So a franchise is an interesting thing because it can come to own you if you're not careful, right? Like it can define you. It was scary and risky and kind of crazy to walk away from a very successful franchise. I didn't do it because I didn't love the franchise. I did it because I didn't want to just make a new thing and call it [Bioshock] because that would be safer. I wanted to step away and challenge myself...
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