Acquisition by Take-Two and the BioShock series (2006-2013)
Since the release of System 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 create BioShock, a game with a similar narrative approach and free-form approach as System 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 of immersive sims like System 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 its 2K publishing label.[9] Just prior to the release of BioShock in 2007, Irrational Games' Boston and Australian offices were rebranded as 2K Boston and 2K 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 after BioShock 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 in Novato, California.[12] Soon after, 2K announced the formation of 2K Marin in Novato.[13]
Take-Two had pushed on Irrational to develop a BioShock sequel, but Levine was not interested, and instead initially sought to develop a new XCOM game. Take-Two assigned 2K Marin to develop BioShock 2.[14] By 2008, when Irrational's contract with Take-Two was under review, Levine had lost interest in the XCOM project, and instead negotiated to develop a new BioShock game.[15] The XCOM project work continued at 2K Marin, released in 2013 as The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.[16]
Development on BioShock Infinite, what would be Irrational's last game, started in 2008, about half a year after completion of the original BioShock. 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]
