 | |
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1997; 28 years ago (1997) |
| Founder |
|
| Defunct | February 23, 2017; 8 years ago (2017-02-23) |
| Fate | Rebranded |
| Successor | Ghost Story Games |
| Headquarters | , US |
Key people | Ken Levine (creative director) |
Number of employees | 15 (2014) |
| Parent | 2K (2006–2017) |
Irrational Games (known as2K Boston between 2007 and 2009) was an Americanvideo game developer founded in 1997 by three former employees ofLooking Glass Studios:Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier.Take-Two Interactive acquired the studio in 2006. The studio was best known for two of the games in theBioShock series, as well asSystem Shock 2,Freedom Force, andSWAT 4. In 2014, following the release ofBioShock Infinite, Levine opted to significantly restructure the studio from around 90 to 15 employees and focus more on narrative games. In February 2017, the studio announced that it had been rebranded asGhost Story Games and considered a fresh start from the original Irrational name, though still operating at the same business subsidiary under Take-Two.
Irrational Games was formed in 1997 byKen Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier, formerLooking Glass Studios employees that left on good terms to start their own game development firm.[1] They initially ran on a shoestring budget, running out of Levine's apartment.[2] At that time, as a small studio, they were dependent on publisher support; their first project was to develop a single-player campaign for the gameFireTeam, being published by Multitude, Inc., but within three weeks, Multitude decided to drop the single-player campaign, leaving the three without any job.[3][4]
They returned to Looking Glass looking for any opportunities. Looking Glass founderPaul Neurath agreed to give them a small budget, an office within their studio, and gave them the opportunity to work on a sequel toSystem Shock.System Shock 2 was released in 1999, and while a critical success, it did not reach sales expectations.[2] AfterSystem Shock 2 was released, Chey returned to Australia while Fermier went toEnsemble Studios.[4] Irrational continue to work with Looking Glass to createDeep Cover, a project inspired byThief: The Dark Project set during theCold War, though this was eventually cancelled around 2000.[5]
Irrational returned to seeking other projects from other publishers to be more independent from Looking Glass. They landed work withCrave Entertainment, from which they started work onThe Lost, a third-person action game inspired byDante's Inferno, that was targetting thePlayStation 2. Levine described multiple difficulties with developingThe Lost. One issue was handling technical issues with thegame engine, as inititially they had planned to use theLithTech engine, but later switched to theUnreal Engine due to difficulties with making the game work on the PlayStation 2. A second problem arose as Crave started to have their own financial problems, and pushed on Irrational to continue development with a reduced budget. While Irrational finished most of the game,The Lost was eventually cancelled by 2002, with Irrational taking the loss on its development time.[4]
During development ofThe Lost, Irrational started a second project with Crave, the turn-based superhero-themeFreedom Force. Chey, while still in Australia, returned to Irrational by setting up development offices in Australia in 2000,[6] where most of the work onFreedom Force was completed. Crave's monetary issues led the game to be published in 2002 by the EA Partners label ofElectronic Arts. The game performed moderately well, but failed to give Irrational any significant royalties.[4]
Shortly after the cancellation ofThe Lost,Vivendi Games tapped Irrational to develop a single-player campaign based on theTribes series, which had traditionally been multiplayer shooters in the past, and posed a challenge to craft a narrative around. This led to some difficulties with Vivendi, as at one point Levine was fired from the narrative position, replaced by two writers from Hollywood, only to be later rehired to complete the story.Tribes: Vengeance was eventually released in 2004.[4] Irrational continued to work with Vivendi on a sequel in thePolice Quest series,SWAT 4, released in 2005.[4]
Since the release ofSystem Shock 2, Levine had been trying to pitch a sequel to publishers without success. Starting around 2002, Levine led a small development team at Irrational to createBioShock, a game with a similar narrative approach and free-form approach asSystem Shock 2, using idea of having the player navigate through three factions, drones that carried a desirable resource, protectors that defended the drones, and harvesters that attempted to gain the resource from the drones.[7][8] Irrational had difficulties selling this concept to publishers, as the concept ofimmersive sims likeSystem Shock 2 was not considered profitable, but the company persisted and refined their ideas as word of a new immersive sim from Irrational began to spread in video game news coverage.[7] In 2004,Take-Two Interactive offered to publish the game based on the core drone/protector/harvester concept,[8] and then in 2006, acquired Irrational Games under its2K publishing label.[9] Just prior to the release ofBioShock in 2007, Irrational Games' Boston and Australian offices were rebranded as2K Boston and2K Australia.[10]BioShock released August 21 to wide critical acclaim and strong sales.
BioShock was released in August 2007, and was a critical and financial success. The game won several awards, and by 2013 had sold more than 4 million units.[2] Due to the success of the game, tied to the former Irrational Games name, both of their studios reverted to the original Irrational name in January 2010.[11]
Shortly afterBioShock was released, rumors arose that many of the staff who had worked on the game were leaving 2K Boston/Australia. In 2007, five members of the 2K Boston team moved to a new 2K studio inNovato, California.[12] Soon after, 2K announced the formation of2K Marin in Novato.[13]
Take-Two had pushed on Irrational to develop aBioShock sequel, but Levine was not interested, and instead initially saught to develop a newXCOM game. Take-Two assigned 2K Marin to developBioShock 2.[14] By 2008, when Irrational's contract with Take-Two was under review, Levine had lost interest in theXCOM project, and instead negotiated to develop a newBioShock game.[15]: 51–2 TheXCOM project work continued at 2K Marin, released in 2013 asThe Bureau: XCOM Declassified.[16]
Development onBioShock Infinite, what would be Irrational's last game, started in 2008, about half a year after completion of the originalBioShock. Following the game's public announcement in 2010, the company was pressured by 2K Games and the gaming consumers to make sure the title lived up to the expectations that the promotional material had set for it. Irrational hired more staff and allocated work to additional studios to help with the game, but this only served to complicate matters; from post-mortem interviews with Irrational staff, Levine was continually changing some of the core story beats for the game, which would dramatically change game assets that had already developed. Levine also admitted to difficulties in managing the larger staff. Conflicts over development leadership led to the departure of some high-level individuals in 2012. To bring the game back onto schedule for release, 2K hired industry professionals to assist Levine in managing the large team and focusing the game's content including eliminating planned multiplayer modes.BioShock Infinite was released by March 2013.[17]
On February 18, 2014, Levine announced that the vast majority of the Irrational Games studio staff would be laid off, with all but fifteen members of the staff losing their positions. Levine said that he wanted to start "a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two," speaking to how much stress completing a large game likeBioShock: Infinite had caused him.[18] Levine said, "I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers. In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience."[18] Levine had considered starting a new development studio for this, knowing that building the ideas would take several years before any game product would be made. Still, Take-Two offered to let him keep the division within Take-Two, with Levine saying that they told him, "there was no better place to pursue this new chapter than within their walls."[18] Take-Two considered this studio separate from Irrational Games, preventing Levine from using the name,[19] and shutting down Irrational Games shortly after Levine had made his decision in 2014.[20] Around 15 developers continued with Levine at this new studio;[19] the remaining 75 staff were laid off, though 2K offered a career fair to help find jobs for the displaced developers.[18][21] According to Levine, in the years after the layoffs, several of the former Irrational staff had rejoined Take-Two and 2K under the studios that were working on a newBioShock title, though Levine himself was not involved.[20]
By February 2017, Levine had announced the name of his new studio,Ghost Story Games, with the focus focus "to create immersive, story-driven games for people who love games that ask something of them".[22]
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