According to Gamasutra's sources, a few key personnel from Irrational Games has left the studio. Irrational is, of course, the studio behind the criitically-acclaimed BioShock and the upcoming BioShock Infinite.
Among the key staff that have left are design lead Jeff McGann, principal systems designer Kenneth Strickland, director of product dev Tim Gerritsen and art director Nate Wells. Out of these four departures, Wells is the one that raises the most eyebrows since he has been with the studio close to 13 years now.
Wells confirmed his departure via his Twitter, where he changed his profile bio to "New Job…Details to follow." Although he has since changed it due to NeoGAF members speculating about his sudden career shift and what it might mean to the game.
What makes it more interesting is Wells' LinkedIn profile listed Naughty Dog as one of his employers in 2012. In saying that, it gives us the idea that Wells moved to the Sony-exclusive studio. However, that bit of info has since been removed, so there's that.
Ken Levine, Irrational Games president, acknowledged Wells' departure on his official Twitter saying, "Scott Sinclair, art director of Bio1, back in the art director's chair for Infinite to bring it home. Can't wait to show you what's cooking."
So what does this all mean? Pretty much nothing for now. This doesn't necessarily mean that there's trouble brewing at Irrational or that people are leaving the studio in droves. This could be an innocent career shift from a bunch of people that coincided with the game's development process.
BioShock Infinite is scheduled to be out in February of next year, but Levine has gone on the record to say that the next time we se the game, it will be close to being finished.
What do you make of this? Conspiracy theorists will no doubt tie this in to the game and think that BioShock Infinite is in trouble…do you agree?
