BioShock 2 Director Reveals He Logged 7,000 Hours in Path of Exile While Developing The Blackout Club

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

BioShock 2 director Jordan Thomas revealed he played Path of Exile for over 7,000 hours while co-developing horror game The Blackout Club.

🕹️ The Insane Grind Behind Development

Game development is notoriously demanding, but veteran designer Jordan Thomas took multitasking to a whole new level during the creation of the co-op horror title *The Blackout Club*. Best known for directing *BioShock 2* and working closely on immersive sims like *Thief* and *BioShock*, Thomas recently shared a jaw-dropping personal statistic. While building his indie studio's sophomore project, he managed to sink upwards of 7,000 hours into Grinding Gear Games' relentless action-RPG, Path of Exile.

"I was essentially awake all the time," Thomas admitted when reflecting on the grueling crunch and intense focus required to balance indie development with a debilitating ARPG addiction. For anyone trying to pull off similar marathon gaming sessions or manage heavy multitasking workflows, having reliable hardware like a high-performance Prebuilt Gaming PC Desktop,Intel Core i7 Business Office Tower Computers PC is practically a requirement to keep framerates stable.

🧠 Immersive Sims Meet ARPG Obsession

Balancing the psychological dread of *The Blackout Club*—a game centered around teenagers investigating a shadowy conspiracy where adults blackout and sleepwalk—while maintaining a high-tier endgame build in a notoriously complex loot-grinder sounds like a recipe for total burnout. Yet, Thomas treated the ARPG as a strange form of mental decompression.

Key Takeaways From Thomas's Marathon Run:

• Extreme Dedication: Logging over 7,000 hours equates to nearly an entire year of continuous playtime sandwiched between professional duties.
• Dual Creative Worlds: Transitioning from the narrative-driven, atmospheric storytelling of BioShock to the labyrinthine mechanics of Wraeclast highlights the diverse tastes of veteran industry creators.
• The Indie Crunch Reality: Highlights the grueling schedules often faced by developers working in lean indie studio environments.

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