BioShock is considered by many to be one of gaming’s modern classics, but do you know that programmers at 2K Boston didn’t believe in the success of the game during its development? During a presentation at the Paris GDC, 2K Boston lead programmer Chris Kline revealed that considering the many setbacks the project went through, the shooter should not have been the hit it was.

“The very first failure was that we wanted to base this whole thing on System Shock 2,” said Kline. “Here was our idea: Let’s just make System Shock 2. This was easy because we’d already made System Shock 2. We knew it was a critical success, and we thought we knew all the things that kept it from being financially successful.”

He noted that the team, after a two year halt in development, carried over several elements from System Shock 2, but found that most of the basic aspects of BioShock needed fundamental changes.

Most interestingly, he noted that the game initially had not piqued the interest of the gamers. It grabbed everyone’s attention when 2K Games began selling it to the press as an exciting action game.

“What’s interesting is that even though it was the same game, when we presented it as a shooter people started getting more excited about it. Even the team.”

Kline also mentioned how delaying games can actually be good for it: “Some people think that constantly messing up, and pushing dates isn’t a good way to make a game, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the only way to make a good game.”