14 DAY TRIAL // Have you seen the 2K Boston job posting yesterday? And if yes, then do you know why there's a job posting up on Gamasutra in the first place? Well, 2K and Irrational Games have managed to roll out BioShock without firing or killing someone in the process, but who would have imagined that it was Ken Levine himself, the game's lead designer, who got half the staff running away from a second BioShock under the man's lead?
Surfer Girl points out the following, according to Destructoid: "2K Boston is still recovering - a good chunk of the BioShock team did not want to work with Ken ever again, and 2K definitely understood the sentiment and let them set up a new studio so that they can make Bioshock 2, leaving Ken with Project X. A good chunk of the other senior 2K Boston people who were sick of Ken but didn't move to San Francisco ended up scattering to other AAA developers instead. In Quincy, they're essentially rebuilding a team from almost scratch again."
Oh and, as for the job description itself, 2K may just want you, if you're good with "clay." That, and if you have experience with the Unreal Engine:
If you enlisted the help of all the neighborhood kids to help you build sets for you 5th-grade claymation project, managed to not throw a tantrum when little Henry Gillmore fell off his skateboard onto the shoebox containing all your finished clay characters and, in the end, pulled out all the stops to make the best animated clay monster flick your class had ever seen, you might be on the right track for a position at 2K Games, says the job posting introduction.
Required Skills include "Highly experienced character animator" and "Experience with motion-captured animation data," while the "Extra Credit" section says that you need the above-mentioned experience with Epic's Unreal Engine (not the latest in particular), fine art background and it would be good if you also knew a little something about 2D animation.
One more thing and we're outta here. Although these are just rumors for now, if you're scared that BioShock 2 won't make it because of the trouble 2K Boston is having right now, don't be. The game screams for a sequel, while lead animators aren't exactly a species going extinct.