Judging from the Judas story trailer shown at Sony's State of Play showcase alone, the next game from auteur creator Ken Levine will probably blow our minds wide open, just like the original BioShock did back in 2007. Penning a piece to accompany the trailer on the PlayStation Blog, Levine, creative director at Ghost Story games, poses a simple question: "What if you could choose between who to befriend and who to stab in the back?"
Player choice is nothing new in video games, of course, and the BioShock series dabbled in decision-making at times, but this sounds more involved. Shedding further light on the secretive Judas, promised for PS5 and shrouded in mystery, Levine says: "With Judas (coming to PS5), we wanted to craft an experience where these decisions and how the story unfolds is up to you. Because you, as Judas, are the driver of every event in a story with a new cast of characters to get to know — and change — in ways you haven't experienced before in our games."
Levine goes on to string together words in sequences that excite us for a video game in ways we'd almost forgotten possible, describing the game's dystopian setting. Judas takes place in the deserted, blood-spattered corridors of the Mayflower. In this spacefaring city, citizens are trained to spy on one another, and machines control every aspect of business, art, and government. The Mayflower's authoritarian leadership tried to make you a model citizen, and you sparked the revolution that tore society apart. Will you put the pieces back together or leave it all to burn?