Touching the Spider: A Conversation With Ken Levine | Sacred Symbols+, Episode 295

Ken Levine has a BA in Drama from Vassar. This is irrelevant to the interview, but I always thought it was cute af.

bioshock 1 was the only good game he made

I could never get tired of listening to Ken talk about video games. He really fires up my inner game developer

This is fucking great. What a great conversation. It makes me sad that we live in a bizzaro world in which Colin is public enemy number one for no apparent reason and can't have similar sit down with all of the most influential figures in games

I didn't play bioshock until about 2016 always heard the praise . I sat down on a rainy sunday and ripped thru 1 and 2 and then infinite the next day i couldn't put it down . Bioshock is one of my favorite games of all time and series all time . Now my 15 year old is playing it and it still holds up 🙏🙌

STOP HEAVILY BREATHING INTO THE MIC !

It sounds like you’re laughing at you interviewee… And also it distracts from what he’s saying enormously…

Such a pain.
Especially as you kept that up during the whole thing.

And this interview was one that I was especially interested in.

Please STOP that

I've always admired open-minded creatives like Ken Levine, who clearly has a vast understanding of how the video game medium works while also standing back on his own experiences.


Nobody is perfect and its by making mistakes that you make yourself a better person.


As a beginner dev and also suffering from anxiety, it was really interesting and inspiring to heard his story, it bring an all new perspective about the emotional impact BioShock themes and stories always had on me.


Such a great moment it was to listen you talking together !


Can't wait to see more of Judas 🤞

Holy fuck

As someone with true OCD, and not the misunderstanding of using OCD as an adjective to describe a general sense of personal cleanliness. I sincerely understand what he went through, and it's like having a haunted house in your head. CBT was incredibly beneficial for me as well.

amazing conversation

stop pandering to nazis, noone finds infinite racist besides dumb nazis.

I remember the last interview Ken gave right before infinite launched. The sheer look of exhausted defeat on his face as he apathetically said something like " we wanted this game to be great, but oh well, pencils down". I can't imagine how crushing that must have been for him. Glad to see him being genuinely passionate about a project again.

Such an inspiring person. I love his down to Earth attitude.

Ken needs to make a deal with Lady Gaga to use her song Judas for his Game Judas when it drops lol

If you squint, Ken Levine looks like David Duchovny.

What an interesting and genuine guy. I've worked with eccentric and traditionally 'different' characters throughout my graphic design career and they're always the most incredible people to learn from despite individual personality foibles. I have to say, I think Colin and Ken could do something interesting if they teamed up on a game since their synergy is palpable.

Ken's definitely a new industry favourite after this and I'm rooting for Judas to be a success. I'm there day 1 for sure.

Thanks for the video loved it!

i just wish if ken levine didnt have any problem in recent years so we can have now bioshock 4 and 5 and even 6 i mean its been 10 years since last bioshock

Ken Levine is a creative genius. That allowed him to create Bioshock, and that also seems to put all of his games into development hell at some point, because he's very hard to work for. I, for one, can't wait for Judas, the first game from Ken in over a decade, and I'm all about it, from what very little I've seen, it looks amazing.

Great conversation, thanks for this! Cant waait for Judas!