When a new version of BioShock was announced for PlayStation Vita during E3 2011, Ken Levine described it as "its own thing being built from the ground up."
Speaking to Joystiq, Levine has confirmed that the game will still stand alone, though full development hasn't begun yet.
"We're still sort of in the paper design stage," he said.
When development does begin, Levine says the Vita version won't simply be a downscaled version of one of the console games.
"That's not the current goal for what we're doing," Levine said. "I think for us, the idea we have is a really good expression on a platform like [Vita]. It's a different goal. And it has to sort of have its own voice in the franchise. If it just feels like a quieter voice in the franchise, I don't think that works for us."
Levine says there's nothing wrong with developers porting console games to handhelds, but that it simply isn't the way Irrational does things.
"I think there's room for every kind of game and every kind of approach. But just [not] for what we do. That's not to say I won't play a lot of those games. I'd love to have that kind of game on a handheld," he said, "[but] I'd rather do something that's an experiment and that's a little different and is unique for the franchise."
As for the team developing the game, Levine says it may not be Irrational, but that he'll work hard to make sure the franchise's quality is maintained if the Vita game is outsourced.
"There are never enough resources to do anything, you know? We're always stretched," he said. "To keep quality level...I wish I could say it was easy. It just tends to be more time consuming. It's just hard to find the right partners or the right people to hire."
Levine said that more than anything, Irrational is proud of its quality output, and maintaining that quality is a priority.
"We have a Metacritic average of something like 88 or 89 percent," he said. "And the way you do that is you're very careful with your bets. We made that bet and now we're very carefully proceeding to make sure that it's a game that stands tall within the franchise."
What you think upcoming Bioshock game?
Ken Levine is one of my favourite people in gaming and almost anything touches turns into gold.I going to Vita and going buy games he makes.
When a new version of BioShock was announced for PlayStation Vita during E3 2011, Ken Levine described it as "its own thing being built from the ground up."
Speaking to Joystiq, Levine has confirmed that the game will still stand alone, though full development hasn't begun yet.
"We're still sort of in the paper design stage," he said.
When development does begin, Levine says the Vita version won't simply be a downscaled version of one of the console games.
"That's not the current goal for what we're doing," Levine said. "I think for us, the idea we have is a really good expression on a platform like [Vita]. It's a different goal. And it has to sort of have its own voice in the franchise. If it just feels like a quieter voice in the franchise, I don't think that works for us."
Levine says there's nothing wrong with developers porting console games to handhelds, but that it simply isn't the way Irrational does things.
"I think there's room for every kind of game and every kind of approach. But just [not] for what we do. That's not to say I won't play a lot of those games. I'd love to have that kind of game on a handheld," he said, "[but] I'd rather do something that's an experiment and that's a little different and is unique for the franchise."
As for the team developing the game, Levine says it may not be Irrational, but that he'll work hard to make sure the franchise's quality is maintained if the Vita game is outsourced.
"There are never enough resources to do anything, you know? We're always stretched," he said. "To keep quality level...I wish I could say it was easy. It just tends to be more time consuming. It's just hard to find the right partners or the right people to hire."
Levine said that more than anything, Irrational is proud of its quality output, and maintaining that quality is a priority.
"We have a Metacritic average of something like 88 or 89 percent," he said. "And the way you do that is you're very careful with your bets. We made that bet and now we're very carefully proceeding to make sure that it's a game that stands tall within the franchise."
What you think upcoming Bioshock game?
Ken Levine is one of my favourite people in gaming and almost anything touches turns into gold.I going to Vita and going buy games he makes.