Ken Levine's Judas and Dev Log reintroduces the new system to let your choice determine the villain of the story

Ghost Story Games must feel that we are picky about Judas, a game from Bioshock creator Ken Levine, which touts the impressive “narrative LEGO toy” approach. The studio today removed the first of several development logs that appeared to be, in which the studio talked about the complexity of the game, shadows of Mordor's “Villainy” system.

Levine has been hinting at the game's Mordo Inspiration Shadow Ever since he made fun of Judas Waaaaay for the first time in 2017. At the time, he said he wanted to make a more ambitious game, The Hate System, which allowed players to build relationships with the orcs they fought and develop them into characters with motivation, special abilities, and more. This is a system that has been praised throughout the industry, but hardly any game contains similar features.

Initially, Levine talked about the concept of “radical recognition”, essentially the process of the game is the process of identifying the player’s achievements or failures or other activities and reacting to them. he More elaborated on in the interview we had with him last yearexplaining the game's “Big Three” trio, and its relevance to the plot and relationship with the player. Judas revolves around making choices to help or hinder the choices of these three characters, thus changing their relationship with the player.

Today's development log Further elaboration. As the blog explains, the ebb and flow of the “three majors” is part of the system’s ghost story. Although in most games, the villain of the story is set from the beginning, in Judah, the player selection guide is the villain who will be who. Players can be friends and interact with all three members, but inevitably, one person will eventually be ignored or rejected and the character will become a villain. Once this happens, they gain new abilities and will start taking action to subvert the player’s goals.

In Judah, you will learn about these characters intimately. We hope that losing one of them feels like losing a friend. We want to play this news, and we hope this choice is super difficult. All three will compete for your support and attention. They can bribe you, save you in battle, talk about other characters, and share their darkest secrets with you. But ultimately, you have to decide who you trust and who you don’t.

Ghost Story said the villain system marked a new milestone for the team, which also included the team's largest playback test. The blog also notes that the game could have over a hundred talking parts due to the large number of characters. While unfortunately, the studio isn't ready for lockdown on release date, it does abandon this new official Judas art by Drew Struzan:

Judah plans to release on Xbox, PC and PlayStation on unknown dates later.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior journalist at IGN. You can find her post on bluesky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Is there a story tip? Send it to [email protected].