If you've been wondering why it's taking so long for Ken Levine and his team at Ghost Story Games to put out Judas, here's one reason: the studio spent five years purely on the research and development of the game's main mechanic.
This feature, known as Villainy, is what dictates your relationship with three characters in-game, and how giving enough attention to one while ignoring another results in who will be the main villain of your playthrough. What you do in Judas attracts the attention of the Big 3, but you can't please them all.
"We want losing one of them to feel like losing a friend. We want to play with that dynamic, and we want that choice to be super hard. The Big 3 are all going to be competing for your favour and attention," Levine explained last year. "They can bribe you, save you in battle, talk shit about the other characters, and share with you their darkest secrets. But eventually, you’ve got to decide who you trust and who you don’t."
Now, in a new interview with Game Informer, Ken Levine reveals Ghost Story Games spent five years in the research and development phase of making this mechanic for Judas.
"What sets it apart from other games is the way we’re building it (and the reason we spent five years in just R&D). We wanted the characters to not only respond to major choices, but to also recognise and respond to your sequence of actions, down to the smallest details," he told the outlet.
Designed to reflect real-life relationships, the task of pleasing the Big 3 is described as a "plate-spinning exercise" where it's simply not possible to keep everyone happy. The developer wants players to inhabit a character more than they did in BioShock, where "you not only get to decide how she [the protagonist] proceeds through the story, but also who you should trust and how you should deal with the consequences of your choices".