After its initial purchase in 2006, Irrational Games had its name changed to 2K Boston to coincide with the launch of a little game called Bioshock. A little over two years later, and the studio has returned to its roots, reverting back to its original moniker. According to Gameinformer, the company shifted in order to better tie back into its catalog of great IP like System Shock 2 and Freedom Force. Creative Director and President of the company, Ken Levine, spoke on the name re-change in his recent Joystiq interview.
“I think the name change is about community. I think the change in name, I think a lot of people here wanted to go back to the original name. I think the press, I’m not trying to be presumptuous here, but a lot of people would write about us as Irrational Games or ‘formerly known as Irrational Games,’ and we definitely got that from the fans as well. So, we kinda looked at ourselves and said, ‘Maybe we should go back to the old name?’ To Take-Two’s credit, they said ‘OK.’ So we wanted to make sure we had a forum to connect with everybody and given this is the year we’re going to start talking about our next product. It’s very important we have that connection.”