Irrational Games Shutting Down, Levine to Craft Smaller Studio

This is big.

In a message on the Irrational Games website, studio co-founder and Bioshock Creative Director Ken Levine said that he is "winding down" IG to focus on a, "...smaller, more entrepreneurial endeavor..." The reins of the Bioshock series will be left to 2K Games as Levine's new team will stay with publisher Take-Two. However, the shutter will leave all but fifteen members of the Irrational squad unemployed.

In the post, Levine said that he needed 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 audience." Said games are going to be narrative-driven and highly replayable, according to Levine.

After hearing that the second chapter of Burial at Sea would be the last DLC for Infinite, I was wondering what was going to come next afterwards. I wasn't expecting this. Infinite was my GOTY last year, so I am interested in seeing what's next for Levine and Co., and what that small studio is going to bring. As for the folks that were let go, Levine did mention that Take-Two would talk to them about moving to other studios under their banner, and that Irrational would be holding a recruiting day featuring "third-party" studios and pubs. Good on them to not leave those guys out in the cold.

-- A Message from Ken Levine

Mountaineer Games' First Review Is - Bravely Default!

So folks, you know that brief and amazingly boring tagline at the top of the blog page that I've been meaning to change but conveniently keep forgetting? "News, Reviews, and the Latest in eSports?" We've got news ...relatively down, Julian has been handling eSports...but we don't have any damn reviews.

That changes today - well, this coming week. Bravely Default has been on my radar since it was announced that it was coming to the states, besides the weird name and slight, yet unnecessary pay-to-win model. That aside, BD will be the first review for the site, with more to follow! The demo that hit the eShop a few weeks ago locked down my choice, and I'm really excited to put hands to keyboard once I finish up the game.

This is probably the best place to tell you how I'll be handling reviews here on Mountaineer Games. First off - it's more than likely you'll see reviews hit after the game's been released, but I'll try to push them out as much as possible. We're nowhere near the stage where we can mail up a publisher and ask for a review copy (although I haven't tried it yet), so give us some time.  Whether it's a big title or something from the indie scene, we'll try to let you know what the next review will be ahead of time. I'd like to shoot for three reviews each month to start. May seem small, but MG is run by a crack team of two students. The classwork is always going to have to come first I'm afraid, but the commitment is there.

Secondly - Reviews won't have any numbers or stars or any ratings attached to the end. I'm a big believer in understanding how someone feels about a game through their writing. This isn't to knock on other sites using numbers - it's a preference for a lot of folks. But with all the battles and comments over numbers and scores, I'd rather have a conversation/argument over the review itself, rather than a mere argument over a score.

All that said - look out for our review of Bravely Default, coming soon.