You talked about being influenced by a lot of old games, like Ultima Underworld, that were immersive, and you have what I'd consider a traditional PC gaming background. Can you talk about the culture of people who come from that background, who embrace those kinds of games?

KL: I think there's a great creative tension. We have a lot of guys here -- a lot of oldschool Looking Glass guys here. And when I came to Looking Glass, there was definitely a tension, even a transition, going on. I remember the arguments we had on Thief. When I was working on Thief, it was, "Well, should we have mouselook in the game?"

Because there were a lot of people that thought, "No, you don't have mouselook, and there should be inventory screens..." and Thief almost didn't have weapons equippable by the number keys, and almost didn't have mouselook, because there was certainly an oldschool/newschool thing going on.

And I was certainly involved in that creative tension there, of figuring that out. How do you keep that -- for all the things that made those games great? While making it something that an audience that's used to the standards of modern games is going to enjoy?

But I think if you don't read the classics, it's hard to write new classics. And, so, we read the classics here. There's no doubt that we read the classics. And I think, sometimes, the challenge, more, with some of the oldschool guys, is, "Hey, look at the new stuff as well!" But I think it's good, though, because we have a mix.

And we have a lot of younger guys coming in, newer guys coming in, who don't know the classics -- and the challenge for them is saying, "Go read the classics! Go play System Shock 1 or 2, or go play Deus Ex. Go play these classics." But then let's take the lessons we learn from those things, and bring them into the modern day.

Something that's really interesting to me is studio culture, and how that affects thegames that a studio makes. Obviously, you guys have a strong creative culture,and a culture of strong creative vision. This extends all the way back through Irrational, and before that. So, can you talk about how you form a studio culture, and what that contributes?

KL: Both the similarities and the mix established how we make games, how we think about games, and what kind of games we love. We all ended up at Looking Glass for a very particular reason. We all loved those kinds of games -- that they made real worlds to inhabit. Ultima Underworld, System Shock -- games I didn't work on, but games that, as a gamer, just spoke to all of us.

Rob did work on some of those games. Irrational was created to create games that would make compelling worlds for people to inhabit, and just experiences that people could have, that would have influences outside of the traditional typical sci-fi fantasy influences that I think you see in most games.

Ken Levine: a name synonymous with BS. And I'm not talking about BioShock.