Ken Levine of Irrational Games, the mastermind behind the dystopic, underwater paradise-gone-wrong game, BioShock, made his opinions known regarding the inclusion of Move support in his latest title, BioShock: Infinite. Short story? He will not include it. The reasons behind his decisions though, are profound and show his commitment to bringing gamers a quality product of his own creation and not to include features that might be superfluous.
PlayStation Move support in video games can work, but it can also feel gimmicky and tacked on. Levine’s comment states that adding motion controller support for the next BioShock game would take gamers out of the experience and would feel very out of place. Inclusion of any motion controller compatibility should be a decision made at the outset of development. In the case of BioShock: Infinite, it wasn’t planned and attempting to force it in near completion of the title would feel wrong (because it is). It would be like adding 3D to a film during post-production (see: Clash of the Titans) - it just won’t work well.
Levine’s comments on the matter come from Play magazine and are straight to the point.
Good to see Ken Levine is one of those individuals who won’t bend to the will of a first-party company. Including motion control support should feel organic and fit to situations. Games need to be designed to use it as a necessary, useful and immersive tool as opposed to being a gimmick for the sake of being a gimmick.
“I’d never want to throw in Move support just because it’s going to make some first party happy or because some marketing department wants it on the box because, at the end of the day, gamers know. If you don’t have anything special to say about that control device gamers are going to know.
“Do you want to play BioShock and it’s like, ‘okay, do you want to harvest or save Little Sister? Waggle left to harvest, waggle right to save!’ You can have Move support on your box but people are going to know you’re cheating them.”
Killzone 3’s use of the six-axis controller is a good example, turning the controller to arm bombs doesn’t feel too out of place and works in the scheme of the situation. However, if the feature wasn’t made available to gamers, would they really feel cheated? It’s totally unnecessary.
BioShock: Infinite will be releasing simultaneously across all platforms, so the decision to exclude motion controls may have been influenced by that decision as well. Why spend more time including a feature that will seem phoned in because the developer needs to meet the street date?
All that ridiculousness aside, do yourself a favor and check out the BioShock: Infinite gameplay trailer. After watching it, the last thing on your mind will be whether or not the game will have motion control.
BioShock: Infinite has no official release date, but will be coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.
Source: Play
