Irrational Games, also called 2K Boston from 2007 to 2009, was an American video game company that began in 1997. It was created by three former employees of Looking Glass Studios: Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier. In 2006, Take-Two Interactive purchased the company. Irrational Games is most famous for creating two games in the BioShock series, as well as System Shock 2, Tribes: Vengeance, Freedom Force, and SWAT 4. In 2014, after the release of BioShock Infinite, Ken Levine wanted to leave the AAA game industry to focus on smaller, story-driven projects. He started a new studio within Take-Two called Ghost Story Games with some former Irrational employees. At the same time, Take-Two Interactive ended operations at Irrational Games.

History

忧
</think>

Irrational Games was formed in 1997 by Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier, who were former employees of Looking Glass Studios. They left on good terms to start their own game development company. At first, they worked with very little money, using Levine's apartment as their office. As a small studio, they relied on support from game publishers. Their first project was to create a single-player campaign for the game FireTeam, which was being published by Multitude, Inc. However, after only three weeks, Multitude decided to cancel the single-player campaign, leaving the three without a job.

They went back to Looking Glass Studios to look for other opportunities. Paul Neurath, the founder of Looking Glass, gave them a small budget, an office space within the studio, and the chance to work on a sequel to System Shock. System Shock 2 was released in 1999 and was well received by critics, but it did not meet sales goals. After the release of System Shock 2, Chey returned to Australia and Fermier went to Ensemble Studios. Irrational continued to work with Looking Glass on a project called Deep Cover, which was inspired by Thief: The Dark Project and set during the Cold War. However, this project was eventually cancelled around 2000.

Irrational then sought other projects from different publishers to become more independent from Looking Glass. They worked with Crave Entertainment and started developing a game called The Lost, which was a third-person action game inspired by Dante's Inferno and targeted for the PlayStation 2. Levine described several challenges in developing The Lost. One challenge was dealing with technical issues with the game engine. Initially, they planned to use the LithTech engine, but later switched to the Unreal Engine because of problems with making the game work on the PlayStation 2. Another issue was that Crave Entertainment faced financial difficulties and pushed Irrational to continue development with a smaller budget. Although Irrational completed most of the game, The Lost was eventually cancelled in 2002, and Irrational lost the time and effort invested in its development.

During the development of The Lost, Irrational started a second project with Crave called Freedom Force, a turn-based superhero-themed game. Chey, who was still in Australia, helped set up development offices in Australia in 2000, where most of the work on Freedom Force was completed. Crave's financial problems led to the game being published in 2002 by the EA Partners label of Electronic Arts. The game did reasonably well, but it did not provide Irrational with significant royalties.

Soon after The Lost was cancelled, Vivendi Games asked Irrational to develop a single-player campaign based on the Tribes series, which had previously been multiplayer shooters. This posed a challenge in creating a story for the game. This led to some problems with Vivendi, as Levine was briefly fired from the narrative position and replaced by two Hollywood writers, but he was later rehired to complete the story. Tribes: Vengeance was eventually released in 2004. Irrational continued to work with Vivendi on a sequel in the Police Quest series, SWAT 4, which was released in 2005.

Since the release of System Shock 2, Levine had tried to pitch a sequel to publishers without success. Around 2002, Levine led a small development team at Irrational to create BioShock, a game with a similar narrative and free-form approach as System Shock 2. The game involved the player navigating through three factions: drones that carried a valuable resource, protectors that defended the drones, and harvesters that tried to gain the resource from the drones. Irrational had difficulty selling this concept to publishers, as the idea of immersive sims like System Shock 2 was not seen as profitable. However, the company kept working on the idea, and as news about a new immersive sim from Irrational spread, interest grew. In 2004, Take-Two Interactive offered to publish the game based on the core drone/protector/harvester concept, and in 2006, Take-Two acquired Irrational Games under its 2K publishing label. Just before the release of BioShock in 2007, Irrational Games' Boston and Australian offices were rebranded as 2K Boston and 2K Australia. BioShock was released on August 21, 2007, and received wide critical acclaim and strong sales.

BioShock was released in August 2007 and was both a critical and financial success. The game won several awards, and by 2013, it had sold more than 4 million units. Because of the game's success, which was tied to the former Irrational Games name, both of their studios changed back to the original Irrational name in January 2010.

Soon after the release of BioShock, rumors spread that many of the staff who had worked on the game were leaving 2K Boston and 2K Australia. In 2007, five members of the 2K Boston team moved to a new 2K studio in Novato, California. Soon after, 2K announced the formation of 2K Marin in Novato.

Take-Two had encouraged Irrational to develop a BioShock sequel, but Levine was not interested and instead wanted to create a new XCOM game. Take-Two assigned 2K Marin to develop BioShock 2. By 2008, when Irrational's contract with Take-Two was being reviewed, Levine had lost interest in the XCOM project and instead negotiated to develop a new BioShock game. The XCOM project continued at 2K Marin and was released in 2013 as The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.

Development on BioShock Infinite, which would be Irrational's last game, started in 2008, about six months after the original BioShock was completed. After the game's public announcement in 2010, the company was pressured by 2K Games and gamers to make sure the game met the high expectations set by promotional materials. Irrational hired more staff and assigned work to additional studios to help with the game, but this only complicated matters. From interviews with Irrational staff after the game's release, Levine was constantly changing some of the core story elements, which led to major changes in the game's assets that had already been developed. Levine also admitted to having difficulty managing a larger team. Conflicts over leadership led to the departure of some high-level individuals in 2012. To get the game back on track for release, 2K hired industry professionals to help Levine manage the large team and focus the game's content, including eliminating planned multiplayer modes. BioShock Infinite was released in March 2013.

On February 18, 2014, Levine announced that most of the Irrational Games studio staff would be laid off, with all but fifteen members losing their jobs. Levine said he wanted to start "a smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor at Take-Two," explaining how much stress completing a large game like BioShock: Infinite had caused him. He 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." Levine had considered starting a new development studio for this, knowing that building the ideas would take several years before any game product could be made. However, Take-Two offered to let him keep the division within Take-Two, and Levine said they told him, "there was no better place to pursue this new chapter than within their walls." Take-Two considered this studio separate from Irrational Games, preventing Levine from using the name, and shutting down Irrational Games shortly after Levine made his decision in 2014. Around 15 developers continued with Levine at this new studio; the remaining 75 staff were laid off, though 2K offered a career fair to help the displaced developers find new jobs. According to Levine, in the years after the layoffs, several of the former Irrational staff found new opportunities.

Games developed

• Deep Cover
• Division 9
• Dungeon Duel
• Monster Island
• The Lost
• Freedom Force 3
• Untitled BioShock game for PlayStation Vita