Ken Levine’s next game, Judas, is shaping up to be a deliberate pushback against modern gaming trends. In a recent interview with Nightdive Studios’ Lawrence Sonntag, Levine made it clear that Judas will offer a fully self-contained experience. No online components, no live service, and no microtransactions. “You buy the game and you get the whole thing. There’s no online component, there’s no live service,” Levine said, emphasizing that everything is “in service of telling the story and transporting the player somewhere.”

Levine acknowledged the current industry climate, noting that many publishers lean on monetization tools to offset rising development costs. But he stressed that his team at Ghost Story Games, backed by Take-Two, has been given creative freedom. “We’re very fortunate to work at a company where … they’re not gonna push any of that stuff on you,” he explained.

That backing has allowed Levine to revive his long-standing “narrative LEGO” concept, originally conceived during BioShock Infinite. The idea is to create a modular storytelling system where player choices dynamically influence the narrative structure, encouraging replayability and branching outcomes. Although details remain light, Judas promises a sci-fi setting on the generational ship Mayflower, where human factions clash over the future of humanity.

Levine described the game as “very old-school” and traditional, a packed, premium experience that players own outright. “No subscriptions or season passes.” He cited recent single-player successes like Baldur’s Gate 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Witcher III to prove that these kinds of games still resonate with audiences. “I think the audience has rewarded those games, especially in the AAA space,” he noted.

What we know about Judas so far: it’s built in Unreal Engine, targets PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, and centers around a character who shares the same name as the title. There are other story elements that have been revealed, but for the most part it is silence surrounding the narrative.

The game was originally expected in March 2025, but that window has passed and no new release date has been offered. Levine remains upbeat, saying, “We’re working every day on it and I’m simultaneously exhausted and filled with excitement.”