It’s been over a decade since a new Bioshock game was released, far too long for one of the medium’s premiere franchises. The original trilogy was an ingenious blend of role-playing and first-person shooter action, and all three games are widely regarded as among the best games released on the last console generation.
Ever since publisher 2K Games confirmed the existence of BioShock 4 back in 2019, players have been waiting with bated breath for updates on the next game in the series. And finally, gamers’ wishes were granted earlier this month. The Montreal and San Francisco-based developers behind the next BioShock shared a small but reassuring update after five years of silence. But while it seems like 2K is finally getting serious about BioShock 4, some recent updates have us concerned that this influential game franchise may be chasing industry trends instead of sticking to the ideas that made it so important in the first place.
Bioshock 4 To increase
2013 Bioshock InfiniteIt was a polarizing entry in the series and was the final game in the long-running franchise.
2K Games
Development on the next Bioshock game is progressing well, according to a lead member of the development team, marking the first major update on the project since its announcement.
Jeff Spoonhower, senior cinematic designer at Cloud Chamber, has posted multiple job listings for the studio over the past month.
“The BioShock team at 2K Cloud Chamber is going strong!,” he wrote, “with many open positions across a variety of disciplines including art, animation, engineering, design, narrative, and production.”
It’ll likely be a few more years before BioShock 4 emerges from the depths of development, as the series has undergone some major changes behind the scenes, including the departure of franchise creator Ken Levin and the addition of several developers from 2K Games, including Certain Affinity, to the project.
Leaks have also provided unconfirmed but credible information about the mysterious project. The game is rumored to be set in the same fictional mid-20th century Antarctic city as the original BioShock. If true, the game would be a welcome addition to the BioShock universe and feel perfectly in line with previous games like Rapture and Columbia.
Should Bioshock 4 be an open-world game?
Bioshock games have historically been far from open world.
2K Games
Leaks have revealed that the game will feature an open-world structure, which would be a first for the series known for offering a guided, set-piece focused experience.
There have certainly been stranger franchises that have moved to an open-world structure. Jak and Daxter, Metal Gear Solid, and Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst Both took big risks by expanding a linear formula into a variety of different outcomes, but unlike those titles, BioShock has always emphasized its fantastical setting as one of the main reasons to play it, and it’s safe to say there’s a lot of untapped potential there if it exposes players to more of the exquisitely engineered dystopias that are the series’ hallmark.
But following this trend also runs the risk of diluting a big part of what made the first three games in the series so memorable: leaving the series’ signature environmental storytelling to the player’s desire to explore could relegate a defining pillar of Bioshock to an optional side element that some simply skim over.
Environmental storytelling has always been a key part of Bioshock’s identity, and going open-world could tarnish that pillar of the series.
The linear structure of past BioShock games meant that objectives and levels always felt focused and purposefully constructed. Bioshock Infinite Columbia is considerably smaller in scale thanks to its rapid-fire skyhooks, and these design choices cut down on wasted time, ensuring the game’s tight, concise storytelling is rarely interrupted by lackluster side content that bloats the runtime.
With so many games now being open-world, giving players the freedom to approach objectives and missions however they want, Bioshock could benefit from subverting this boring gaming formula. Perhaps 10 years ago, an open-world Bioshock game would have been the product of Andrew Ryan’s wild dreams. But today, the novelty of the genre wears off with each major game release, and a more focused Bioshock experience in the vein of the original could be an exciting breath of fresh air.
Of course, the cloud chambers could potentially ruin the open-world elements of the next BioShock game, as the series has a history of subverting negative expectations. Bioshock 2 A surprisingly fun multiplayer mode. But open world fatigue is real and very much present in the video game world today. Thirteen years have passed without a new Bioshock game, and it would be the worst thing for players to see such an influential franchise abandon some of its strongest features to chase a boring trend.
