Tag Archives: 2K boston

In Internet Time, it’s been infinity years since we last saw Levine’s second BioShock. Has it been worth the wait? We ventured to LA to find out. New screens inside.

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Ken Levine has explained why going back to the Irrational name was so important for its community, and reveals that Take-Two was supportive of the developer’s decision.
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Mr Levine must be pleased. As you can see from IrrationalGames.com, 2K Boston’s breathed its last.

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Oh job listings, you just keep making our job easier.

According to a job listing over at 2K Boston, the original big daddies of BioShock are currently working on an “unannounced shooter.”

Big Bioshock, we know, but it’s still nice to at least have a tiny morsel of concrete info on the game.

Click the link for the full listing.

Ken Levine has said that he and his team at 2K Boston are hard at work on a new project that’s “more ambitious than anything we’ve ever done.”

“I think that when we think about a project now… When we thought about this project, we accounted for the fact that hiring the staff that we needed to hire would take some time,” he told Gamasutra. “And when we thought about the shipping date of the project… We needed a certain kind of length for the title, because we had a scope and ambition in mind which is more ambitious than anything we’ve ever done.

“Even more, substantially more ambitious than BioShock. And we knew that was not going to happen overnight.”

No word on what this new project is just yet.

More through the link.

According to 2K Boston head Ken Levine, hiring the right people for your studio creates not only stability, but does away the need to hire loads of employees to finish a job, only to let them go afterward.

“We’ve never had a layoff in the history of our company, and I’m very proud of that,” he told Gamasutra. “When we were a private company, and now that we’re part of a public company. And, you know, I can’t make predictions for the future, but I think culturally we’ve always felt it was very important to hire the right people — and not hire too many people so things get out of control — and think about a plan.

“One of the reasons, I think, that you see a lot of layoffs in this industry is that you have these huge products, and you don’t have a plan for what you do afterward. So the product ends, and — you see this day after day, you know — teams get cut in half or shut down after the product ships, because there’s no plan to move on for the future.

“We’ve fortunately planned well. And that was very tricky when we were a private company, but it was very important to me. And, frankly, I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve always been relatively small. It’s because, if you get a huge staff, that makes you feel good, and you sit out there, and you go, “Oh, look at my domain, here. I’ve got 200 people working on this product.”

“But that’s a tough number to carry at the end of a project.”

More through the link.

2K Marin creative director Jordan Thomas has claimed there are no weak links in his BioShock 2 team. You’d kind of hope so.

“We started to very slowly, and through a very stringent interview process, bring in the top talent in the Bay Area, and cherry pick, essentially,” he told Gamespot, talking of the process of setting up the studio with a seed team from 2K Boston.

“I’m now very proud of the group we put together. There’s really no dead weight, and I’m consistently surprised by their talent, and their passion for BioShock.”

Thomas added: “The minds that shaped the 2K Australia studio and 2K Marin were kind of a child that came out of 2K Boston and beyond, and 2K as a whole, frankly.”

There’s some on-screen dev stuff of BioShock 2 in the movie after the break, if textureless models of large-nosed men do it for you.

There’s also talk of 4.00am videoconferencing with 2K’s Australian studio. It’s tough at the top, bucko. Watch and see after the break, but be warned: there’s a few BioShock 1 spoilers in there.

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2K Boston may be changing its moniker to Irrational Boston.

This speculatory information is thanks to both a trademark filed by Take-Two,and t-shirts sported by GDC attendees plastered with “jobs@irrationalboston.com” on the back.

Joystiq contacted 2K Boston for verification earlier today and the official response was “no comment” with more to be revealed “very soon.”

BioShock legend Ken Levine’s said there won’t be a sniff of his new, super-secret project for a while yet.

“Our new project is something we’re champing at the bit to talk about,” he told Gamespot.

“But we’re not showing it to anybody and won’t be for some time. In fact, the only way to get a look at it is to interview for a job with us.”

Levine did expand a little on the game, giving out the most detail on the title so far.

“Boston is focused on our next project, which will probably come as a huge surprise to our audience and yet at the same time will make total sense once they see it. I will say that we’re clicking on all cylinders,” he said.

“Besides delivering on the narrative experience we’re known for, it will include a type of gameplay that is completely new to us–something the BioShock team has never really explored in depth before. In all areas (art, design, and programming), we spend half our day being totally psyched, and half our day wondering what we’ve gotten ourselves into. We’re kind of humbled by the challenge.

“We’ve been in a huge recruiting frenzy to staff up for it. We’ve got a gaggle of Boston folks going to GDC next week to show the colors and press the flesh. In a world where world-class, brilliant developers like Ensemble no longer exist, I’m pleased to say we’re hiring. Maybe some of the industry’s brilliant refugees will seek out our staffers in their ‘Be big in Boston’ shirts at GDC. You know, ‘Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled experts in C++.’”

Expect more titbits from GDC next week.

According to a job listing posted on Gamasutra, 2K Boston’s next game will be a huge departure from its single player-focused descent into madness, BioShock. Pulling a complete 180, the game will instead be an “action-packed AAA multiplayer title.”

“The BioShock team is betting big on multiplayer and plans to stay at the top of the charts– we’re careful about the problems we tackle, innovative in our approach, solid in our implementation, and we polish the heck out of everything we do,” reads the listing.

“Right now we’re looking for an exceptional individual to direct the development of this multiplayer experience through a combination of leadership, design, coding, and daily problem solving on the gameplay networking and backend server components.”

As of now, three platforms can barely be seen amongst a forest of question marks: PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Not surprising, since the title runs on a version of Epic’s Unreal Engine 3.

Somehow, we doubt 2K will have much trouble filling this position.

By Nathan Grayson

Update: EG’s given it a 10.

Update 2: PSM3, via CVG, has given it 9.3/10.

IGN’s BioShock PS3 review is up, and it’s glowing. The 9.4/10 score says “buy it”: the closing comments say, “Buy it if you haven’t played it before.” See:

If you never experienced the halls of Rapture and have been waiting for its appearance on the PS3, there really is no discussion to be had. Go out and get your hands on BioShock — you will thoroughly enjoy exploring the incredible story and the excellent action that the game is known for. However, if you’ve played the game before, or are expecting this to be the definitive version, that’s not fully found here. Sure, the full trophy support and Survivor mode are great, and the Challenge Rooms could add a ton to the replayability (whenever it’s implemented). However, old glitches that should’ve been fixed in the PS3 development hold this version back from being completely realized.

Game’s out Friday. Full thing through the link. The site’s video review is after the break.

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After the break. Despite a bunch of ignorable whinging to the contrary in the past few days, there’s nothing shabby about the PS3 port of Ken Levine’s flawed masterpiece as far as we can see. Now you can see too. The new version’s out on Friday, and if you haven’t played it already you really should do yourselves a favour.

Take a look.

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According to this press release, the PS3 version of BioShock is now gold, and the game’s demo will release on Thursday.

That’s it. It’s out in the US on October 21 and “elsewhere” on October 17.

Here. This really is a piece of work. It’s a kind of rip off of the game itself that works in your browser. We were impressed, anyway.

BioShock’s PS3 version is out on October 21 in the US.

Ken Levine’s revealed that the security measures for the PC version of BioShock got him into very hot water with some of the more avid gamers in the audience.

“When we had the copy protection issues come out, I was out there talking about the product, I didn’t run away from that. And frankly I got some nasty fucking threats,” Levine told PC Zone.

“I think it’s important that somebody takes responsibility, and at the end of the day my job as creative director is to sort of be the arbiter of taste.

“With great power comes great responsibility, right?”

The protection on the game meant an internet connection was required to play, and only two installs were allowed per copy.

More through the link.

Gamespot’s posted up a hands-on with the PS3 version of BioShock, out on October 24. Snip:

Outside of the proper single-player experience, we had a chance to try the Survivor mode, which offers a greater level of challenge that forces you to be smarter about how you play the game. Enemy behavior has been tweaked, and the damage you cause has been modified, so you won’t be sailing through the mode even if you’re familiar with the original game.

There are three new movies after the break, including footage of the new Survivor mode and Trophy options.

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2K Boston’s Ken Levine has told VG247 that he “loves” the world of System Shock and would be interested in a third game in the EA-owned series if the opportunity arose.

“Would I turn my nose up at another round with Shodan? No,” he said.

When asked specifically if he would ever make System Shock 3, Levine said: “Life is long. Who knows. But right now, certainly, I’m engaged with my employer, Take-Two, who doesn’t have ownership of that franchise.”

He added: “I love Shodan, I love the world.”

System Shock has been dead for almost ten years now, with System Shock 2 releasing in 1999.

Levine is currently working on a secret project at Take-Two, while BioShock 2 is being built primarily at 2K Marin in California.

After the break. Watching it genuinely did want to make us play it again. We may even finish it this time. Game’s out later this year.

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Big-shot Hollywood film guy Gore Verbinski “gets” the BioShock franchise. Ken Levine told us so last week. So don’t expect pretty blondes with unsmudged make-up impaling themselves on muscle-bound dunderheads in the screen adaptation of the 2K Boston game.

“You’re always going to be worried that in that first meeting they’re going to be, like, ‘OK, it’s Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey on a desert island hunting for pirate treasure,’ but it’s not going to go that way,” said Levine, talking to VG247 at Develop.

“My expectation at this time, from everything that I’ve heard, is that it will very much honour the dramatic and thematic elements of the game… They certainly understand the material and are able to provide a stamp of their own.”

While Levine said there’s only been talking up to this point and he hasn’t actually seen anything of the film itself, it sounds as though Verbinski and script writer John Logan are now actively involved in the project.

“I think they’re a little generous with their time,” Levine said of the pair.

“It’s hard, just in the fact it’s a movie. You have to walk that line between the fact that it’s a property you love, and honouring that property, and realising it’s a game. We’ve sat down a couple of times and had conversations, and we’ve talked with John who’s working on stuff.”

The movie isn’t slated for release until 2010, but Levine told us that Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has been careful about the deal he struck for the venture, despite dogged interest in the rights.

“There was a lot of interest early on, and at some points it became so intense that I thought it may at least get optioned,” he said when asked if he knew BioShock would be made into a film from the start.

“The movie industry’s strange. A lot of things get optioned. In the movie industry you can option very cheaply, and so it really came down to what Take-Two did. Strauss [Zelnick, Take-Two's chairman - Ed] was very particular about making sure it got made. There’s no point in tying up the rights and having all the complications unless it got made in the right way.

“They did a really good deal, not in terms of the financials, but in terms of the people he chose to work with, and how it’s going to impact on the franchise… there are a lot of smart people involved.”

See it here. Big Daddy plus Little Sister is good enough for us. The PS3 version should be a good excuse to go back and look at this again. Game’s out at the end of October.