Bioshock creator Ken Levine reveals new details about his next game Judas and its central Villainy gameplay mechanic

• Bioshock creator Ken Levine has provided a new update on Judas and the game's core gameplay feature: Villainy
• Villainy is a choice-driven system that affects who will become the villain out of the Big 3
• The studio isn't ready to share a release date

After over a year of radio silence, Bioshock creator Ken Levine has finally emerged to provide an update on his next game, Judas.

In Ghost Story Games' first developer log, Levine said that the studio is focusing all its efforts on finishing the game and has decided to begin having a more direct communication with fans, which will offer more frequent updates than before.

For this first update, Levine highlighted Villainy, a central feature of Judas that is essentially a choice-driven system that will affect who will become the game's villain out of three characters: Tom, Nefertiti, and Hope.

"In Judas, your actions will attract members of the Big 3 to you as friends. But ignore one of them enough, and they become the VILLAIN," Levine explained. "From there, they will get access to a new suite of powers to subvert your actions and goals."

Villainy is just one example of how the Big 3 can retaliate, and the "more dangerous and character-specific stuff" will be revealed at a later date.

Levine also touched on the game's relationship system and once again compared it to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's reactive Nemesis system, explaining that the Big 3 will observe the player and have feelings about how you approach everything from combat, hacking, crafting, and how they interact with the other two characters.

"In Judas, you're going to get to know these characters intimately. We want losing one of them to feel like losing a friend," he said. "We want to play with that dynamic, and we want that choice to be super hard. The Big 3 are all going to be competing for your favor and attention.

"They can bribe you, save you in battle, talk s**t about the other characters, and share with you their darkest secrets. But eventually, you've got to decide who you trust and who you don't."

Judas still doesn't have a release date, because Ghost Story Games is "not quite ready to finalize that," but the game is expected to launch on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S.

You might also like...

• New Resident Evil Requiem gameplay teaser solidifies it as my most anticipated game of 2026 so far
• Final Fantasy 14 director has a pretty simple explanation for why the Monster Hunter Wilds collab will feature Omega – 'In the Monster Hunter team, there are many Warriors of Light'
• Here are the three biggest things we learned from the Hollow Knight: Silksong release date trailer