Lead Programmer Says BioShock Should’ve Failed

BioShock should’ve failed. At least that’s how the game’s lead programmer, Chris Kline, opened up his Paris GDC session, wherein he explored the development of the 2007 high-brow hit. Gamasutra has the full report.

In this refreshingly honest talk, Kline admitted his initial doubts over the project: "I said this was going to be about failure and the very first failure was that we wanted to base this whole thing on System Shock 2." Not a bad idea considering the sequel’s critical success, but games aren’t made for review scores. Irrational quickly found it difficult to sell publishers on the successor to a financially unsuccessful game.

Kline noted another problem made on the art side, saying they began focusing too much on the monster models and not enough on Rapture, arguably the true star of BioShock.

Despite the difficulties, Kline looked back on the experience affectionately in the end, summarizing, "Some people think that constantly messing up, and pushing dates isn?t a good way to make a game, but as far as I?m concerned it?s the only way to make a good game." When you’re the lead programmer behind BioShock, even such a crazy-sounding opinion is clearly worth taking to heart.