In an utterly perplexing development, Irrational Games, the studio which has given us classics like BioShock and SWAT 4 has been announced to have closed down. The company is ‘winding down’ its business, and will in the process be laying off all but 15 of its employees. This remaining workforce will team up with Ken Levine to work on a ‘smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor’ revolving around completely new gaming experience. They will be backed by Take-Two of course.
Irrational Games came into being seventeen years ago, and has been responsible for some of the most innovative games the industry has ever seen. The likes of System Shock 2, Tribes: Vengeance, SWAT 4 and of course, the two main entries to the legendary BioShock series have all been blessed with universal acclaim. The latest big project from the company was the extremely well received, BioShock: Infinite, and its new DLC Burial at Sea – Episode 2 will be the final goodbye from the studio.
But what does it mean for future games from the creative genius, Ken Levine? He has announced through a post on the Irrational Games blog that his attention will now be focused on the new studio which will work on ‘narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable.’ It has also been revealed that this possible offering will be digital-only. That much information leaves the project to be highly ambiguous at the moment, but we’ll try and find out more about it.
Levine has assured that those Irrational Games employees who are being laid off will indeed receive financial support, and will be granted access to a recruiting day attended by third party studios and publishers who’ll hold interviews with them. The reigns of the BioShock franchise remain with Take-Two by the way, and it’ll be interesting to see which studio is given the development duties of the next game.