Bioshock Infinite sees more staff departures
It seems things aren’t going as smoothly as they could or should at Irrational Games.
Both director of product development, Tim Gerritsen, and art director Nate Wells have left the company. Gerritsen was responsible for the day to day work of the development team and is rumoured to be moving on to Uncharted developer Naughty Dog. Wells’ departure on the other hand was mentioned by Creative Director Ken Levine himself who tweeted that Bioshock 1 art director Scott Sinclair has stepped in to take over his place.
There isn’t only bad news though. Epic’s director of production, Rod Fergusson announced through another tweet that he’s joining Irrational, but no specific word on which position he’ll be taking up. It does sound as if his job will have something to do with Bioshock Infinite:
“I’m leaving my family at Epic to join my new family at Irrational in Boston starting tomorrow,”
“I’ve played Infinite and it’s amazing! Can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on it.”
To reassure everyone that these as well as past departures of staff (systems designers Ken Strickland and Tyann Sylvester, design director Jeff McGann and senior level designer Steve Gaynor) aren’t hurting the game, Ken Levine told Kotaku that many of the original Bioshock 1 staff are working on Infinite:
“As far as the team itself, the lead artist, the art director, the creative director, the lead effects artist, the senior sound guy, the lead programer and the lead AI programmer from BioShock 1 are all on BioShock Infinite. I don’t think there’s a single senior BioShock team member that isn’t here, which I think is amazing and a testament to their commitment to the studio. And there are a ton of amazing people who weren’t on BioShock 1 that are on BioShock Infinite.”
Levine also added that 2K Marin have loaned out Bioshock 2 designer Jordan Thomas to Irrational. Thomas also previously created BioShock 1′s Fort Frolic level.
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