14 DAY TRIAL // Irrational Games has announced that it will be holding an event on August 11 of this year in New York City, presumably in order to announce the new project on which the team is working. The invitation, which can be seen attached to this article, does not offer any information and does not even mention a new project but it's pretty clear that on August 11 players will finally have some more information on what Ken Levine is now working.
Ken Levine and the team at Irrational are well known for creating System Shock 2, one of the most talked about games of the 1990's, and its spiritual successor BioShock. The team did not work on the sequel to the Rapture set underwater adventure and recent rumors talked about a new video game which is only known as Project Icarus. It seems that Irrational Games is creating an entirely new universe and that it has worked on them for about three years.
Initial reports talked about Ken Levine taking on the challenge of updating the X-COM franchise so that it can appeal to the modern gamer but an official announcement was made that 2K Marin was working on the project, putting together a first person shooter that takes place during the '60's and involves an FBI agent fighting against an alien invasion that targets North America.
Both System Shock 2 and BioShock are complex video games, which aim to combine first person shooter mechanics with elements taken from role playing games and from stealth titles. Project Icarus will probably also combine different genres, taking the best elements they have to offer. Judging from the way the BioShock narrative developed fans can also expect a story which aims to tackle complex questions about humanity and the value of existence. More details will be known after the New York event on August 11.