BioShock 2’s creative director believes that the 2K Marin team is preparing itself for criticism from fans returning to the world of Rapture.
BioShock 2’s creative director, Jordan Thomas, spoke to Destructoid in an interview, revealing that the developers are expecting some fan backlash.
Well, since the early days, I’ve been candid with the team about the fact that no matter what we finally produced, we had to be comfy with the idea that a lot of people would disagree with our core creative choices — internally and externally. For a lot of people, the idea of a sequel to BioShock will always be an abstract ideal, against which any physical experience (with realistic limits) must pale. It’s the nature of fan enthusiasm, I think, to hold a special place in our hearts for things that are novel, and originality certainly drove the first game’s success.
Candidly, I think BioShock 2 will foster much more dissent than the first by its very nature — we’re going to see some critics and fans who adore the particular ratio of nostalgia to novelty that we happened to choose, and that’s grand. But there will be others who wanted Something Else so badly that they’ll crack open the backyard shed, gaze longingly at their favorite torches and pitchforks, and march on Novato. We had to make our peace with that over two years ago, scary as it is.
Now that isn’t to say our game is perfect and we’re these misunderstood creative martyrs — even if we weren’t being compared against that First Love effect, we’d have strengths and weaknesses like anybody.
There will be those who argue against the need for a BioShock sequel, as 2K Marin explains:
Generally speaking, the argument that a sequel to X is doomed can only settled by a group of people who, themselves, were excited enough to return to that mythos that their passion is self-evident in the work itself,” offers Thomas. “You can’t please everyone, but I’ve found that at the end of the day, if you take the problem of familiarity seriously — and try to empathize with the audience — you can offer a compelling experience in any setting.
BioShock 2 will be released worldwide tomorrow, and won’t feature any dedicated servers or LAN. You probably won’t see the game’s twist coming, either. Expect our review of the shooter soon.
