The Game Awards concluded with dozens of announcements and trailers for soon-to-be and already-released games. One of the most anticipated, yet somewhat unexpected, was the reveal trailer for Judas. With the game's creator being Ken Levine, the same mind behind the iconic BioShock series, it's safe to assume there would be at least a few similarities between the games. While Levine has said he's looking to make more of an immersive sim game than a traditional linear FPS or RPG, Judas looks to have even more in common with the iconic BioShock series than initially expected.
The reveal trailer for Judas begins with the line, "From the creator of BioShock" and cuts to a shot that immediately resembles one of the most iconic scenes in gaming. In BioShock, the first time the player takes control of the character is after an opening cutscene where their plane crashes in the Atlantic Ocean, and they must swim to a nearby lighthouse surrounded by wreckage and flames from the crash. Judas looks to potentially have a similar opening, as the camera peeks through a broken window to see a female protagonist surrounded by debris, flames, and bodies.
Judas and BioShock's Shared Mind of Ken Levine
The rest of the trailer looks straight out of BioShock in several ways, starting with the designs of some of the NPCs players will come across. The voiceover in the trailer also hints that these characters may serve a larger purpose than those seen in BioShock. Although BioShock's characters like Fontaine, Dr. Tenenbaum, and Sander Cohen are all unique and play their own roles in the story, it looks as though the characters in Judas will play a more significant role. As footage later in the trailer suggests, the player may even fight alongside these characters, and they might be more like companions in this game as opposed to characters gamers only speak to over the radio and through cutscenes.
As the trailer continues, we see glimpses of repeated "biopunk" enemies, propaganda, and a dystopian world reminiscent of the BioShock games. Some of the enemy designs in Judas have similar characteristics to Big Daddies with their metallic nature and bright red eyes, and one is a small robot with a big lightning bolt on its body, which the player explodes with a shocking effect. Judas shows a few more animalistic origins to its designs, with horse-head enemies and a large mechanical dog that looks to be this game's means of travel within the world, similar to the Bathyspheres in BioShock.
Regarding gameplay, the trailer shows first-person action with a mix of gunplay and supernatural abilities that look to be this game's version of Plasmids. These abilities appear to be less organic and more mechanical in nature, with the player seemingly swapping or recharging the device inside their hand before demonstrating a fire ability, similar to Incinerate from BioShock. Visible from the trailer is what looks to be a revolver and a crossbow, which were weapons present in BioShock, and there are even turrets that one of the NPCs jumps on top of to hack and aim at an enemy. The protagonist is also wielding a hammer instead of a wrench, but fans of BioShock will be pleased to see that the player retains a trusty melee weapon to deliver a classic one-two combo.
Judas is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.
