14 DAY TRIAL // Take Two recently announced that a new game called XCOM but based on the old X-Com franchise, is in development at 2L Marin, the same studio that also created this year's BioShock 2. This means previous speculation, which linked the XCOM videogame with the Irrational Games team, was wrong and players still do not know what Ken Levine, the man behind the gaming world System Shock 2, is currently working on. And it seems that the secrecy will go on for some time before an official announcement is made.
Speaking to the L.A. Times, Strauss Zelnick, the chairman of the board at publisher Take Two, said that the team at Irrational Games, formerly known as 2K Boston, was not involved in the BioShock 2 development process “in order to produce an original title that could become another franchise.”
It appears that Take Two is aware of the ability Levine's team has of creating new gaming universes that other studios can then develop, and plans to keep them putting out new content while allowing other teams to work on sequels.
Earlier in the year, Ken Levine himself talked about his new project and said that “This is the year we'll start talking about stuff, and we stop hiding behind the iron curtain of secrecy.” The developer also stated that the new videogame was “a big project,” which likely means it will only be launched at some point in 2011.
There were also rumors that the new Spec Ops game might be developed by Irrational but the game was unveiled as being assigned to Yager. Job listings offered by the development team point to another first person shooter being in development but the way BioShock turned out pretty much guarantees the project will have shooter mechanics but will aim for a wider audience.