Out of the Ashes of Irrational Games

Back in February Irrational Games announced that it will be closing its doors. The news was sad on two levels for me just being a fan of the games Irrational has made over the years and being a former employee, I had many friends who were still working there upon it being closed. It is always a sad day when a studio closes in the game industry, but this one was especially hard. Even with the terrible news, the one positive thing is that all these amazingly talented people would be looking for work. Some landed at places like Blizzard, Arkane Studios, Sledgehammer Games, 343 Industries, Ubisoft, Certain Affinity, and others and I'm sure the people who landed at those studios will make a huge impact. What I am really excited about are the studios created out of closure, and we are on the verge of some of those projects being shown for the first time.

As of right now, there are three studios that have started to talk publicly.

Question. This is the new studio formed by Jordan Thomas and Stephan Alexander. Thomas has a long history working as a designer on Thief: Deadly Shadows, BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite. Even though Alexander might not be a household name in gaming, he worked on BioShock and BioShock Infinite. Though he had the title of Senior/Lead FX Artist, his contributions to the BioShock franchise are profound. Together they create a solid core and everyone should pay attention to whatever comes out of their studio.

Day for Night Games. This group is still a little in the dark. They recently started tweeting out a couple images on their Twitter account, all coming from former concept artist Robb Waters. Even with the teaser images, it is exciting to see what another group of former Irrational employees will come out with.

CodeBeast. While this group might not be creating games, they will sure contribute to some in the future. CodeBeast is pretty much the core technology team from Irrational Games for BioShock Infinite. Before Irrational this group worked at Midway on games like Psi-Ops, Stranglehold, and some games that were later canceled due to Midway falling apart. These guys are geniuses and they are super fun to drink with! Serious amount of talent in this group and whatever they touch will become instantly better.

While it is sad when a studio closes, especially one with the history of Irrational Games, it is exciting to see what all that talent will create next. Hopefully in the coming months we will start to see what these and other groups have been creating!