It’s been nearly three years of silence from Irrational Games since their last release. It was a little title called BioShock. Oh, you’ve heard of it? Not only has Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine and company left fans with nothing new to play, but they haven’t even given any indication as to what their follow up to the groundbreaking underwater adventure might be. However, the wait is over, and we will have some answers very soon. Like next week soon. August 11^th and 12^th will be exciting days indeed. Let’s see how we got here.

After sending out a vague “save the date” announcement that foretold of a mysterious event being held on August 11^th in New York, the interwebs lit up in a frenzy of anticipation and predictions on what this event might have in store for us. Would it be a new game announcement? Would we get to see it? Is it BioShock 3?

In addition to the cryptic invitation, an equally perplexing teaser website appeared under the title of What Is Icarus. While the website doesn’t really show much, and by that I mean that it shows more or less nothing, we do know that Project Icarus is the codename for Irrational’s new secret project.  We also know that the nameservers point back to Take-Two, Irrational's parent company, and oddly Rockstar Games.

Jump ahead to the newest episode of Irrational’s podcast, Irrational Behavior, and the company has now confirmed that in addition to having the curtain pulled back for us at the press event next week with a live demo of their new game, but they will also be unveiling a CG trailer on August 12^th.

Now with a pedigree like System Shock 2 and BioShock behind them, gamers can be relatively sure that Irrational hasn’t spent the last three years working on a Rapture based pet-grooming-diner-sim. But… actually Mr. Levine seems like a pretty out-there guy, and I bet I’m not the only one that would drop some cash for a Splicer virtual pet. So who knows? Whatever it is, Irrational Games has our attention.

With just over a week to get your final guesses in, what do you think Project Icarus is going to be? Is it just a fancy codename for BioShock 3? Will it have something to do with the famed, winged character who flew too close to the sun? The actual real-life Icarus Project is a movement whose mission is to get people to view certain mental illnesses as gifts. That could certainly be worked into a game, even into BioShock. Make your final predictions soon because Irrational Games will reveal all on August 11^th and 12^th.

Source: Kotaku