Ironically, its second job was a contract deal for its former employer, Looking Glass, to make a new game based on the "Dark" engine-the graphics engine that was being used to develop the 1998 game Thief: The Dark Project.ĭespite the fact that the three founders of Irrational had basically moved into a back office at their old workplace as contractors (and suffered more than a few dirty looks), the Irrational group decided, without hesitation, to work on a follow-up to the 1994 cult classic, first-person role-playing game System Shock. This meant that Irrational was out of its first job. The studio's first contract was to create a single-player component for Multitude, Inc.'s PC shooter FireTeam, whose multiplayer game was so good that the single-player game got canceled. Irrational's start was bumpy, to say the least.
But it all started with three guys in a living room. Irrational's first game pitted you against the diabolical computer entity SHODAN.
But the System Shock 2 that Irrational started on some seven years ago was a bit different. The game emphasized careful exploration, and it contained very strong horror elements-both of which resulted in great acclaim from the press and from a group of loyal fans. The System Shock 2 we know was the 1999 cult classic a hybrid role-playing game that let you create a character with varying skills in marksmanship, stealth, computer hacking, and even psionic powers, to investigate a starship stranded in space and loaded with corpses. (Here's a hint: it will likely please fans of System Shock 2.) According to general manager Ken Levine, the studio began its life in his living room in 1997, when he and fellow employees Jonathan Chey and Rob Fermier of now-defunct Looking Glass Entertainment decided to leave their employer to form their own company, which would go on to develop a game called System Shock 2-a game we'll take a retrospective look at in anticipation of Irrational's next project, which we'll reveal to you exclusively tomorrow. The developer itself isn't really all that small, considering that it has two full studios (one in Boston and one in Canberra, Australia).
You may find it hard to believe that the offices of Irrational Games, which are quietly nestled in a small corner of Boston, Massachusetts, gave rise to such highly acclaimed games as Tribes: Vengeance and Freedom Force.
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