A new sci-fi FPS RPG from BioShock's original creator Ken Levine may be closer to being done than expected, if recent reports are to be believed. A recent job posting for a senior producer has provided more clues to the status of the largely secretive project.
Following the release of 2013's BioShock Infinite, head of Irrational Games and BioShock series creator Ken Levine informed publishers Take-Two Interactive that he would not be apart of a future BioShock title, citing stress and the desire to make smaller, more experimental narrative based games. Levine followed this announcement by rebranding Irrational Games into Ghost Story Games back in early 2017. The new studio, which is still under Take-Two Interactive, has a far smaller team with just 35 members working on a still unnamed title.
Gamespot reports that Ghost Story Games is looking to grow its team, citing a new job posting looking for a senior producer. This is not the first time the internet has noticed a Ghost Story Games job posting, but this one has more significant ramifications. Based off the description, the senior producer will be someone with the "ability to build and maintain project timelines and benchmark documentation, managing the progress of department achievements and individual tasks against those schedules." According to Gamespot, this could signify that, "the game is 'in later stages of production," although it is important to note that this quote does not explicitly appear in the actual job posting at publication time, but rather only in the report.
Interestingly, while some may assume that this job listing is an indicator of deep progress on Levine's latest project, a producer is typically someone hired early on to ensure smooth sailing throughout the whole of the production process - not usually a position to fill in a game's final stretch of development. This could mean a few different things, depending on behind the scenes factors not currently known: either a previous senior producer could have left the team late into production, or Ghost Story Games is just now moving out of the conceptualization stage and into proper production. Still, even if the latter is the true, this transition from concept to production typically is not even halfway through a standard title's timeline (and none of that is even to mention any potential delays in the era of COVID-19).
It could be argued that while Ghost Story Games technically is no longer in the early stages of production, it sounds unlikely that they are close to releasing a finished product any time soon. Of course, this is in no way meant to disparage Levine nor his team, there are only 35 people working on a brand new IP, which is a very lengthy process to say the least. Even Take-Two Interactive, with its vast resources, is still a few years way from a new BioShock title. For now, fans either wanting a new BioShock title or a new IP (or both) will just have to wait and trust that the developers are making the right decisions.
Source: Gamespot