"We're still sort of in the paper design stage," Irrational Games head and co-founder Ken Levine told me this weekend. Sitting in a nondescript conference room four floors above Manhattan's Union Square, sipping on his second Diet Coke, Levine was referring to the new BioShock game coming to PlayStation Vita, which he announced himself on Sony's E3 press conference stage earlier this year.
Despite the naming convention, BioShock on Vita isn't planned as a portable version of the upcoming game, Infinite, or the former two games set in the underwater city of Rapture -- at least, not right now. "That's not the current goal for what we're doing," Levine explained. While he admitted that "things can change," he added, "I think for us, the idea we have is a really good expression on a platform like that [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."
Which isn't to say he derides other developers for taking the pared-down port approach. "I think there's room for every kind of game and every kind of approach. But just 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." It simply means the development of the BioShock Vita game isn't taking that route. "I'd rather do something that's an experiment and that's a little different. And is unique for the franchise," he teased.
