BioShock creator Ken Levine wanted developer Irrational Games to continue, and didn’t expect publisher Take-Two to shut it down.
In 2014 Levine announced he was “winding down” the studio to focus on a “different kind of game”, meaning all but 15 Irrational employees were laid off.
Now, in an interview with Edge Magazine (thanks GamesRadar), Levine has stated his intention was for Irrational to continue but the decision to close was “made at a corporate level”.
Levine discussed his time at Irrational following the release of BioShock Infinite and how this led to him parting ways with the studio.
“The closure of Irrational was complicated,” he said. “I felt out of my depth in the role. You’re this creative person, and all of a sudden, as your vision increases of what you want to do, you have to become a manager, in a way that you don’t necessarily have any training or skill in. My mental health was a mess during Infinite. I was stressed out, a lot of personal things were going on in my life at the time, and then my parents both died. I just couldn’t do it any more, and I didn’t think I had the team’s confidence.”
That’s when he left, leaving the studio in the hands of Take-Two.
“So my intention was to go and say, ‘Look, I just need to go start a new thing, and Irrational should continue’,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t maintain the name Irrational. I thought they were going to continue. But it wasn’t my company – I sold the company, so I worked for Take-Two, and the studio was theirs.