This wasn't exactly secret, but 2K has officially announced the opening of its Bay Area game development studio, 2K Marin. Industry scuttlebutt holds that they'll be creating the next BioShock.
The BioShock connection was first mooted in a job posting, since redacted, that said that some of the game's creators were leaving 2K Boston and heading West to form the Marin studio.
Anything else you might hear is the stuff of industry rumors. Shacknews reported earlier this year that BioShock creative director Ken Levine's next project at 2K Boston will be a new entry in the X-Com series, an outer space strategy series that Take Two acquired from Atari.
Anonymous videogame rumormonger Surfer Girl repeats that rumor, and says that the 2K Marin defectors don't want to work with Levine again.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that Levine won't have any part in the next game. We heard in passing that the 2K Marin-BioShock rumor is solid, and that Levine may be involved with it,* * in addition to whatever it is he's doing in Boston.
Whetever the development situation, hopefully 2K Marin can figure out how to follow up on such an innovative game without just milking its success. It's a difficult task.
