It’s a great time to be into science fiction video games
That’s especially true if you’re into games set in outer space such as the upcoming “Judas,” Ken Levine’s long-anticipated return after wowing most players and causing lots of discourse with BioShock Infinite in 2013 is looking stunning.
This new look at the first-person shooter was presented during the State of Play stream that aired on Jan. 31, 2024, and while most of the marketing campaign appears to be backed by Sony, the game actually is a third-party release coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. We aren’t expecting it to drop day-one on Game Pass though.
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So, beyond the obvious BioShock similarities — which are funny, considering Levine essentially relaunched Irrational Games to set out to create something different — what’s Judas actually about? Well, the two trailers released so far show us a clearly conflicted woman who might be responsible for a good deal of all the bad stuff that’s going on inside the rapidly deteriorating spaceship where the story takes place. She claims that she’s “liberating” the people who live there, but what if she made a huge mistake?
Other unearthed details reveal the ship (named Mayflower) is essentially a city traveling through space that is run and controlled by computers, which is a common negative sign in sci-fi, but what if Levine and his team are actually deconstructing what we’ve come to expect from that type of futuristic tales?
After all, Ghost Story Games was launched with the aim of doubling down on “emergent narrative” elements over the blockbuster-y design found in AAA video games. That said, the trailers make this look even bigger and noisier than their BioShock games, so the project might’ve undergone conceptual changes over the years.
Likewise, a familiar retro aesthetic permeates the Mayflower’s environments and the weapons the player character is seen using (alongside Plasmid-like powers) against the twisted automatons which have seemingly gone crazy. Is this a shameless combination of BioShock and System Shock with a stronger focus on player choice? We’re down for that even if it feels a bit too familiar!
“Judas” has yet to receive an official release date. It will be released on PC via the Epic Games Store and Steam, as well as Xbox and Playstation 5.