Ken Levine says his next game will include characters with real motivations that can be manipulated by the player.

Speaking with Game Informer, Levine said the characters in his unannounced game will have "passions, wants and needs."

"The whole system that I came up with and that we’re developing is based upon the fact that to make an interesting character, you have to have a character who has a bunch of passions, wants, and needs," he said.

"The player now has the ability to facilitate those wants or needs or go against those wants or needs or ignore those wants or needs.

"The reason I think the system is going to work is because it’s a very organic way to look at a character. It’s a quite systemic game. The character’s feelings about you change, they go up and down. But the heart of a character is still wants and needs, and that makes it no different than anything I’ve ever written before.

"If you look at the characters and what they want and need, that’s the heart of what the characters are – not their skin color, religion, [or] their sex. It’s what they want, what they need, and what’s in their way. That’s a function of talking about who they are and how they got to this place. Sometimes it’s skin color, race, or gender gets them to that place. But that’s a story."

Early last year, Levine announced that he was handing control of the BioShock franchise to 2K and reducing Irrational Games to approximately 15 staff in order to tackle a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavour at Take-Two.

At GDC 2014, Levine added that the game will not feature a linear narrative as he believes these disincentivise repeat playings.

Instead, he said he wants to create a "narrative-driven experience where the narrative elements are non-linear and interact with each other." These narrative elements would be triggered by player actions.