Irrational Games, the team behind Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite is no more, but a core team of 12 people led by Ken Levine reformed itself as Ghost Story Games. After the long development of Infinite, Levine has decided to work on games as a smaller indie outfit.
The first hint of what their next game will be was a “small-scale open world” and taking inspirations from the Nemesis System of Shadow Of Mordor.
The new hints recently come from a job listing. Ghost Story is looking for level builders to work on “a creatively ambitious project in the immersive sim genre”. Requirements for the role includes “experience first-person shooters and semi-open (e.g., Borderlands/Shadows of Mordor) or open-world game” and deep knowledge of FPS/action/RPG/strategy/immersive sim titles.
For those not in the know, immersive sims are referring to games with immense amount of liberty given to the player to approach a problem. The term was mostly used to describe games from Looking Glass Studios (the Thief series, System Shock 1& 2) and Ion Storm’s Deus Ex. Modern contemporaries of the genre includes Deus Ex Mankind Divided, the Dishonor series, 2017’s Prey as well as the Bioshock series. They are basically a blend of FPS and RPG mechanics, though the immersive sim term has grown more use again recently.
It’s interesting to see how Ghost Story Games’ first project will turn into. Bioshock Infinite sure had a really strong story hook, but the gameplay is more closer to a traditional FPS than an immersive sim.