Irrational Games shutting down

Most of the staff laid off, founder Ken Levine will lead a small group under 2K Games

Posted on Feb 18, 2014 - 1:40pm EST

Studio founder Ken Levine has announced that Irrational Games will be dissolved.

The man himself is starting up a small entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two with 15 remaining IG members, while the rest will be laid off. There are no exact numbers, but over 100 people could be affected with today's cuts.

"I am winding down Irrational Games as you know it. I'll be starting a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two. That is going to mean parting ways with all but about fifteen members of the Irrational team. There's no great way to lay people off, and our first concern is to make sure that the people who are leaving have as much support as we can give them during this transition," Ken Levine stated.

"In time we will announce a new endeavor with a new goal: To make narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable. To foster the most direct relationship with our fans possible, we will focus exclusively on content delivered digitally."

The future of the Bioshock franchise is unknown. The franchise has earned a huge fan following and saw its latest chapter (Bioshock Infinite) release just last year, with the last piece of DLC still to be released.

"Thanks to Irrational and 2K's passion in developing the games, and the fans who believe in it, BioShock has generated retail revenues of over a half billion dollars and secured an iconic place in gaming. I'm handing the reins of our creation, the BioShock universe, to 2K so our new venture can focus entirely on replayable narrative. If we're lucky, we'll build something half as memorable as BioShock."

Irrational Games (known briefly as 2K Boston, Inc./2K Australia Pty. Ltd.) was founded in 1997 by three former employees of Looking Glass Studios: Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier as Irrational Games. On January 9, 2006, Take-Two Interactive announced that they had purchased Irrational, and would publish their games under the 2K Games label.

The studio is also known for working on SWAT 4, Tribes: Vengeance, Freedom Force, and System Shock 2.