Judas
Publisher: Ghost Story Games
Format: Multi
REALEASED at a time when generic shooters were dusted off with dreary regularity, 2007’s BioShock was a gasp of fresh air as players journeyed through an undersea art-deco dystopia, fighting off genetically-altered mutants in old-timey scuba gear.
With powerhouse storytelling that stuck its diving boot into the right-wing ramblings of Ayn Rand, its briny, brainy sci-fi went back beyond the sea for a 2010 sequel, while 2013’s BioShock Infinite left Davy Jones' locker for a ripping yarn set in the flying city of Columbia.
With a fourth game stuck in development hell for years, BioShock’s creator Ken Levine is going it alone with spiritual successor Judas, which is set for release this year.
The maiden project from the legendary producer’s Ghost Story studio is a familiar-looking dystopian sci-fi romp – though this time set in outer space.
The maiden project from legendary producer Ken Levine’s Ghost Story studio is a familiar-looking dystopian sci-fi romp – though this time set in outer space
With Adam power fuelling the Rapture-set BioShock, Levine has always had a thing for the biblical, and so it is with Judas, named after history’s greatest Lundy (though he did give us a nice break at Easter).
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Set aboard the Mayflower – a disintegrating city-sized spaceship schlepping the last remnants of humanity to their new home in the cosmos - players star as Judas, a woman able to reprint herself back to life in an Orwellian world where everyone’s thoughts are recorded and broadcast on screens.
Computers control the Mayflower’s society, grooming its human residents to be model citizens and grass up deviants. Having broken free of her conditioning, Judas becomes a white-haired whistleblower, starting a revolution against the Big Three – the Mayflower’s funky AI overlords.
“Will you fix what’s broke? Or leave it all to burn?” goes the game’s tagline.
On the surface, Judas is BioShock in all but name, as players shoot and smack their way through a retro-styled universe brimming with twisted robots, magic powers and, if its name is anything to go by, stabbing folk in the back.
While its wild character designs and chin-stroking ruminations on the future of humanity may feel like they were swept from Bioshock’s cutting room floor, Judas promises to be a bigger, more challenging experience than Levine’s previous efforts, with its “narrative Lego” headline feature stitching together a unique plot based on every decision the player makes. The result is a game where no two playthroughs are the same.
By comparison, Levine says BioShock was “basically a corridor”.
Shaping up to be one of the most distinctive blockbusters of 2025, we’ll see whether Judas is worth your 30 pieces of silver when it releases sometime “before March 2025” on consoles and PC.
