division-9 posts

Yesterday during the debut episode of the Irrational Games' podcast, the development team revealed they had once worked on a zombie strategic shooter called Division 9. Now Game Informer has released an actual trailer showing off gameplay from the now canceled title which was being made in the mid-2000s

The Game Informer article goes into more detail on Division 9 and how it would have combined shooting with strategic elements like base building. The game was about to be bought by Vivendi Games but unfortunately for us Irrational then got bought by Take Two Interactive who apparently didn't want to take on the game which makes us the biggest loser. Irrational Games' head man Ken Levine states at the start of the trailer that Division 9 is the one game among the ones they created and canceled that they wish they had made. You can check out the nearly 5 minute trailer on the Game Informer web page.

As part of the Irrational Games relaunch, they also launched the first episode of their official podcast called Irrational Behavior. The first episode talks about ideas for games that died and during the podcast Irrational team members revealed plans for a zombie tactical shooter that ultimately was never made.

The game was called Division 9 and was first pitched in the early 2000s to the now defunct Vivendi Games as a possible new direction for the SWAT series (Irrational had developed the fourth game in the series from the publisher). The game was prototyped as a kind of shooter with some strategic elements. While Vivendi passed on the game, Irrational head man Ken Levine said they actually sold Division 9 to an unnamed publisher. However, for reasons that were not entirely made clear in the podcast, the game was canceled. Irrational went on to be bought by Take Two Interactive and of course made the original BioShock. The web site plans to reveal assets from Division 9 on January 22.

By the way, the podcast is definitely NSFW so listen with headphones. Perhaps while playing Darksiders or Line Rider if that floats your boat.