IGNPC: Right after hearing about BioShock, some avid fans of Shock history started to worry that it may be the Invisible War to the System Shock series. We're also incredibly lucky to have Robb Waters at Irrational, who not only created the look of Freedom Force, but was also the man who did the concept art for System Shock 1 and Terra Nova. When Looking Glass went out of business (RIP, man, that place rocked the world and never got the credit they deserved), we were able to hire Eric Brosius (sound guru who created the sound for both Shock 2 and the entire Thief series), Dorian Hart (design on Shock 2, Thief and Terra Nova), Shawn Robertson (art), Darren Lafreniere (programming) and Sara Verrilli (design on Thief). This group includes me, Jon Chey (project lead), Steve Kimura (Art), Mauricio Tejerina (art), Nate Wells (art), Ian Vogel (design), and Alexx Kay (design). BioShock is also being created by the majority of the team who created System Shock 2 and many of the games which helped inspire it. Irrational is dedicated to maintaining that tradition. However, it is inspired by the open-ended design principles pioneered by Looking Glass. IGNPC: Is Bio a true sequel or prequel to System Shock 2, or is it a spiritual successor? Ken Levine: BioShock has absolutely no relation to the System Shock series in terms of the intellectual property, characters, settings etc. It has always had a feeling of inevitability about it…this is the game staffers at IG were determined to make happen. We were pretty crazy busy making other games, but there was so much internal enthusiasm about making a game in this genre, we just couldn't stop people from working on it. We first started internal brainstorming sessions around three years ago. IGNPC: Why is the game now called BioShock? Ken Levine: The game was always called BioShock.

System shock prequel to bioshock