Ken Levine wants BioShock Infinite to be kept secret

Ken Levine says that much of BioShock has been kept secret from the public, from the press, and even the game’s own development team.

“I’m fortunate in the sense that nobody is telling me what I can and can’t say at the company,” said Levine, speaking to CVG. “I’m very lucky that I don’t have to deal with that. I’m the one who makes the decisions on what we reveal and when.”

Levine says that he wants to retain as many of the game’s surprises as possible so that players can experience them first-hand when they play for themselves.

“I think I would rather err on telling too little than too much, because you don’t want to ruin it for people. The way we develop, even most of the team here doesn’t know large chunks of the story. I want to preserve them, and observe them observing those parts of the story so I can see their reactions.

“Keeping people virgins to that content is really important because you never get that reaction from someone the second time.”

The veteran developer wouldn’t confirm whether or not BioShock Infinite would get another big showing at E3. And from the sounds of things, he’s in no rush to organise hands-on demos, either.

“We actually had somebody come recently to us – a journalist – and say: ‘Can we get our hands on it? Can we play it?’ And I said ‘no’ because right now it’s like handing somebody a chessboard with two rooks, a knight and the queen, and saying, ‘Here it is, it’s chess.’ And it’s not, because it’s missing those vital pieces.”