Ken Levine explains why BioShock Infinite isn't photorealistic

by Justin McElroy on Aug 12th 2010 5:00PM

There's a lot to process in the debut trailer and screens for BioShock Infinite, not the least of which is the look of the characters, which have a slightly exaggerated look to them. In a discussion with Gamers With Jobs on their 200th podcast, Irrational Games boss Ken Levine explained.

"A movie uses photorealism quite often because it's free. We don't get a cost benefit for being photorealistic, it's the same reason Pixar's not photorealistic, you just end up creepy," he said. "There's no need to be photorealistic and I think it's kind of a cop out. I'd much rather play a game that's stylized."

Or maybe by 2012, we'll all look like Pixar characters and that will be the new photorealism. See, it's hard to say, because that's so long from now.

Source: GWJ Conference Call Episode 200

Tags: 2k-games, bioshock, bioshock-infinite, gamers-with-jobs, irrational-games, ken-levine, microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, xbox

Reader Comments (54)

The day video games become photo-realistic, FPS will become unpopular and so will other violent video games (people will be grossed out by what they just did, or feel guilt).

@Assassin

You must be playing on a different internet than I am.

I'm not entirely sure what I think of Ken Levine, but I definitely agree with this. Video game graphics have not yet reached the point of being so advanced as to be indistinguishable from live-action, so most attempts at being excessively photorealistic are doomed to the uncanny valley (see: Heavy Rain). Of course, even if photorealism were feasible in video games, that doesn't necessarily mean it would be better than stylized models. Animation is the ultimate cinematic realization of expressionism - the potential for creating worlds, images and moods is limited only to the imagination of the artist(s).
On a similar note, I think video games should not be about trying to imitate our world, but about trying to bring us into theirs.