Bioshock Finite

[mojovonio]

A Message From Ken Levine

When Jon Chey, Rob Fermier and I founded Irrational Games seventeen years ago, our mission was to make visually unique worlds and populate them with singular characters.
We built Rapture and Columbia, the Von Braun and The Rickenbacker, the Freedom Fortress and some of the nastiest basements a SWAT team ever set foot into. We created Booker and Elizabeth, the Big Daddy and the Little Sister, MidWives and ManBot. In that time, Irrational has grown larger and more successful than we could have conceived when we began our three-person studio in a living room in Cambridge, MA. It’s been the defining project of my professional life.

Now Irrational Games is about to roll out the last DLC for BioShock Infinite and people are understandably asking: What’s next?

Seventeen years is a long time to do any job, even the best one. And working with the incredible team at Irrational Games is indeed the best job I’ve ever had. While I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before. To meet the challenge ahead, 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.

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.

Besides financial support, the staff will have access to the studio for a period of time to say their goodbyes and put together their portfolios. Other Take-Two studios will be on hand to discuss opportunities within the company, and we’ll be hosting a recruiting day where we’ll be giving 3rd party studios and publishers a chance to hold interviews with departing Irrational staff.*

What’s next?

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.

When I first contemplated what I wanted to do, it became very clear to me that we were going to need a long period of design. Initially, I thought the only way to build this venture was with a classical startup model, a risk I was prepared to take. But when I talked to Take-Two about the idea, they convinced me that there was no better place to pursue this new chapter than within their walls. After all, they’re the ones who believed in and supported BioShock in the first place.

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.

We do our best to update an FAQ in this space as questions come in.

-Ken Levine
@iglevine

*If you’re a 3rd party interested in interviewing some of the best game developers in the world, please contact chris.bigelow@2k.com

http://www.irrationalgames.com/

[Yulwei]

holy shit

[Sho Nuff]

Well that's that

Feel bad for the retardedly talented people looking for work now. This sucks regardless of whether or not Ken was a nut, he kept people employed

[headwalk]

the console centric AAA model reaches out with its claws and steals another victim in its spastic death throes.

[Stoney Mason]

So it took 6 years to do infinite with the full team so we should be seeing this next game somewhere around 2040.

[Yulwei]

the console centric AAA model reaches out with its claws and steals another victim in its spastic death throes.

It really does sound like Infinite pushed him over the edge. Starting over with such a tiny team (in this day and age) is certainly going to be incredibly tough for them. I doubt we'll be hearing anything from them for a long, long time.

[headwalk]

the console centric AAA model reaches out with its claws and steals another victim in its spastic death throes.

It really does sound like Infinite pushed him over the edge. Starting over with such a tiny team (in this day and age) is certainly going to be incredibly tough for them. I doubt we'll be hearing anything from them for a long, long time.

nah, i think we'll be seeing a gone home-a-like first person walking simulator within 18 months or so.

[Great Rumbler]

"Bioshock Infinite cost 2K a ton of money, so I gotta fire a whole bunch of people and make some mobile games instead."

[Stoney Mason]

I think he realizes Infinite was a flawed game from the premise. Either do a story game or do a combat game. But trying to jury rig them together for no good reason doesn't really work.

[Eel O'Brian]

He's a screenwriter now

[brob]

They have mountains of assets. Why not just make telltale adventure games set in rapture/cloudcity or something?

[Stoney Mason]

They have mountains of assets. Why not just make telltale adventure games set in rapture/cloudcity or something?

I think that's the real issue. They were building these universes where your only meaningful interactions within the worlds was shooting people in the face.  In a real sense they weren't that different from COD. Especially Infinite which dropped most of the pretensions of being something more that the original Bioshock had.

Well that and the fact that Infinite probably cost a shitload and maybe didn't sell as much as they hoped/thought.

[brob]

wasn't one of the hype-points about the infinite dlc that the player doesn't get a gun for a long while? Isn't the sort of person who likes the bioshock franchise mostly in it for the narrative (and world building lore)? Isn't the most resource consuming part of development asset creation?

I feel like it would be very obviously a good move for them to move in a more tell tale like direction building on what they already have, but I thought that after bioshock came out of it's seven year dev cycle as well so wtf do I know...

[Raban]

[Eel O'Brian]

The first part is just Bioshock starring that racist dude from the clouds

[Stoney Mason]

wasn't one of the hype-points about the infinite dlc that the player doesn't get a gun for a long while? Isn't the sort of person who likes the bioshock franchise mostly in it for the narrative (and world building lore)? Isn't the most resource consuming part of development asset creation?

I feel like it would be very obviously a good move for them to move in a more tell tale like direction building on what they already have, but I thought that after bioshock came out of it's seven year dev cycle as well so wtf do I know...

They could has also moved in a more Deus Ex like direction and that would work too. But yeah I agree. The current path was not working so well for what the games were imo.

[Eel O'Brian]

So 2k owns Bioshock outright now?

Get ready for biOShock!

[Shaka Khan]

I think he realizes Infinite was a flawed game from the premise. Either do a story game or do a combat game. But trying to jury rig them together for no good reason doesn't really work.

Or he realizes the current model of skyrocketing costs and meager margins is unsustainable with little to no room of growth with a team and projects of that size. Gotta hit the reset button fast.

[Steve Youngblood]

I think he realizes Infinite was a flawed game from the premise. Either do a story game or do a combat game. But trying to jury rig them together for no good reason doesn't really work.

Or he realizes the current model of skyrocketing costs and meager margins is unsustainable with little to no room of growth with a team and projects of that size. Gotta hit the reset button fast.

Not to nitpick, but I would assume that Take-Two realized that for him.

[Stoney Mason]

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

2k always owned Bioshock.

and I'm kinda surprised that Levine is staying with his old publisher, after, you know, being forced to lay off damn near his whole studio.  You think if anybody could get outside funding for a small indie team it'd be that guy.

[Steve Youngblood]

2k always owned Bioshock.

and I'm kinda surprised that Levine is staying with his old publisher, after, you know, being forced to lay off damn near his whole studio.  You think if anybody could get outside funding for a small indie team it'd be that guy.

Well, another way of looking at it is that Take-Two employed him and his rather large team for all those years. I don't necessarily know if he'd be in a position to be indignant about this.

[hampster]

Sucks for everyone laid off but I do hope this leads to Shawn Elliot getting back into podcasting. Or at least streaming with Jeff Green

[Himu]

Does anyone have that image of the middle eastern leader holding his hands up for damage control? I need this image to prove to a friend that the industry is fucked.

[AdmiralViscen]

Baghdad bob

[benjipwns]

Finally, a third Freedom Force game.

[Himu]

Baghdad bob

thanks boo

[Rufus]

(Image removed from quote.)

Ah, Twitter. JP LeBreton has always sounded like a nice guy when he was on IdleThumbs. Guess we know why he left Irrational for 2K Marin and then went to Double Fine.

[Tasty]

my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before

mobile dystopia incoming

[Third]

I feel bad for the people who got laid off. Infinite was such a piece of shit.

[drew]

Bioshock in general always made me feel awful when I played it, and I didn't like the constant easter egg hunt/trash can looting.  This is nothing but good news (for me).

[Cerveza mas fina]

I could never get into Bioshock, always quit after an hour.

Guess ill give it another go now its free on ps+

Shrug about the closure

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I can't imagine the six year dev cycle between Bioshock and Infinite was something you could make back with one good selling game.

[StealthFan]

New SWAT and Freedom Force brehs.

[fizzel]

the console centric AAA model reaches out with its claws and steals another victim in its spastic death throes.

Barely in the new gen and it's already taken the scalp of a GOTY contender, EPIC is next.

[brob]

Polygon did a story about Ken Levine not that long ago that had this bit in it:

"In the past year, a number of high level employees quietly left Irrational for similar jobs at other studios. Levine acknowledges that, in some part, departures are a response to the company's abnormally intense iteration practices.

"I'm a bit of a slow chiseler, you know?" says Levine. "So it doesn't bother me that much. I think it's probably tougher for other people on the team. I think that's probably hard for some people."

Nate Wells, the art director of BioShock Infinite, and arguably the best known Irrational employee after Levine, was susceptible to massive creative gutting. This anecdote from a colleague of Wells gives an idea of what iteration, at its most extreme, was like in the office.

Levine and Wells had a blowout fight over Finkton. In BioShock Infinite, Finkton is the shantytown, home to the workers and outcasts of the floating city of Columbia.

The art team and level designers had been working on Finkton for a long time, with Wells directing the style. The inspiration was like the slums in Jamaica or Key West. All of the housing was wooden and colorful, as if painted by the residents to make the depressed quarters more livable. And each bright shack was stacked atop the next, climbing into the sky like an anthill, with the skyline piercing through it.

Ken had been in level reviews numerous times. Then one day, the Finkton team was doing a play test, when Ken decided the entire stage was wrong. It looked like the residents lived in garbage. It needed to be beautiful, because Columbia was designed so that even the poor lived beautifully.

It was all wrong. And it had to go.

Wells was furious. Levine had been looking at this for months. In August of this year, Wells announced his new role as art director at Naughty Dog Studios."

Hella auteurism, bro.

[cool breeze]

was finkton the place where you shot people?

[benjipwns]

Since the release of BioShock, Levine has come off to me in various instances like he views himself as this visionary philosopher enlightening us common people through his art. There was his bitching about online idiots ruining gaming by creating too much pressure on designers and Zach Braff and Veronica Mars ruining Kickstarter by stealing it from the common man. Plus his whole schtick about how BioShock/Infinite isn't this black/white morality universe but instead the realistic and complex consequences of extremism and choice and blah blah blah has always rubbed me the wrong way, not getting things hard down there at all.

I actually thought BioShock 2 did that better because it wasn't trying so hard.

[Great Rumbler]

was finkton the place where you shot people?

No, it was the place where you shot people a whole lot.

[Stoney Mason]

Since the release of BioShock, Levine has come off to me in various instances like he views himself as this visionary philosopher enlightening us common people through his art.

I've liked both Bioshock games to varying degrees but yeah I would agree. I think TLOU is also a flawed game but at least you don't tend to see them popping up everywhere telling you how deep the stuff is they are making. They just tend to let the work speak for itself.

[benjipwns]

I like his games a good amount, but it does feel and read to an extent like he's been getting trapped going down that rabbit hole and it's hurting his gameplay designing skill to whatever extent that existed prior. Like in that exchange Brobzoid posted, his goal isn't necessarily to create a game anymore that's just the medium he's in and knows.

[Mupepe]

I like his games a good amount, but it does feel and read to an extent like he's been getting trapped going down that rabbit hole and it's hurting his gameplay designing skill to whatever extent that existed prior. Like in that exchange Brobzoid posted, his goal isn't necessarily to create a game anymore that's just the medium he's in and knows.

Kojima complex

[brob]

Kojima and Levine probably aren't that far apart on the auteurism spectrum, though Konami seems to hold their leash more taut than 2K.

[magus]

so when it's going to be ubisoft turn so we can finaly get rid of ass-ass-in creed?

[Great Rumbler]

The next Bioshock will be a cover-shooter with QTEs.

[benjipwns]

BioShock themed match-three MOBA for phones.

[Himu]

You guys are acting like the bioshock franchise was good to begin with.

[Himu]

No, Rumbler and Benji are. Like it's some downgrade going from an on rails fps to a cover shooter.

[Stoney Mason]

No, Rumbler and Benji are. Like it's some downgrade going from an on rails fps to a cover shooter.

They are joking.

And a lot of people do like the Bioshock franchise. I'm more mixed on it, but I understand at least partially why they do.

[Himu]

No one brought up Shenmue.

[fizzel]

[The Sceneman]

lmao trying to get in on that Walking Dead money. Good luck shithead

[The Sceneman]

The next Bioshock will be a cover-shooter with QTEs.

Better than a dogshit FPS

[Himu]

[duckman2000]

I thought Bioshock and Infinite were really pretty, in a big way. The artists (and their directors) involved really knew how to create place. I have no idea how much of that Levine was directly or indirectly responsible for, but that's the first and lasting impression.

The games themselves were just cumbersome shooters. I guess the production values were just plain high, enough so to get me through the games.

[Mupepe]

I thought they were all pretty damn fun *shrug*  But I tend to like almost anything I play.  Whatevs

[Raban]

I thought Bioshock and Infinite were really pretty, in a big way. The artists (and their directors) involved really knew how to create place. I have no idea how much of that Levine was directly or indirectly responsible for, but that's the first and lasting impression.

The games themselves were just cumbersome shooters. I guess the production values were just plain high, enough so to get me through the games.

The scale and beauty of the environment work in those games (especially Infinite) kinda reminded me of the first time I saw the huge, stylized vistas of a Final Fantasy game on PS1. Sadly it wasn't enough for me to tolerate the boring, shallow gunplay.

[archie4208]

The next Bioshock will be a cover-shooter with QTEs.

Bioshock Infinite already came out.

[magus]

so when it's going to be ubisoft turn so we can finaly get rid of ass-ass-in creed?

we already had their version of this when patrice desilets left

oh wait.... do you think bioshock is going somewhere?  silly magoose.

better game have biten the dust, it's time to finaly see some AAA FPS do the same

join the whimsy revolution!

[benjipwns]

A libertarian miffed by Bioshock? You don't say!

A real free market utopia wouldn't be that linear!