It's been a tough six months for developer Irrational Games and its latest game, Bioshock Infinite. In May, publisher Take-Two announced that the game was being pushed back beyond its scheduled October release date to arrive on February 26, 2013 instead. Then, in August, a number of the team's top development staff began leaving the company. First were director of product development Tim Gerritsen and art director Nate Wells, then combat design director Clint Bundrick and artificial intelligence lead Don Norbury headed to Microsoft in October.

　　Bioshock Infinite will be arriving next year, but without multiplayer.

　　One rumour to emerge from the disruption was that Bioshock Infinite's multiplayer modes had been axed. Today, the game's creative director confirmed that this was indeed the case. Answering a question from a Twitter user spotted by Kotaku, Ken Levine said: "RT @tha_don_101: @IGLevine can you clear up whether or not Bioshock Infinite will have multiplayer modes? ---Nope." Shortly after he answered another user looking for greater clarity on the situation by saying: "RT @wolverine11111: @IGLevine Does that mean nope it won't or nope you can't clear that issue up? --No multi."

　　Multiplayer was first introduced to the Bioshock series in 2010's Bioshock 2--an addition that GameSpot called "fun and engaging" at the time. More recently, another development studio working for publisher Take-Two, Yager Development, said that multiplayer for Spec Ops: The Line "should not exist". In an interview with website Polygon, the independent studio said that, "the publisher was determined to have it anyway," and that, "it was literally a check box that the financial predictions said we needed, and 2K was relentless in making sure that it happened."

　　Bioshock Infinite is set for release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on 26 February 2013 worldwide. A Vita version is slated to follow.