1941

2K unveiled the name of their new Novato-based studio that’s helming the next Bioshock game, Cloud Chamber Studios. Apparently, there was an earlier effort underway at Certain Affinity a few years ago that ended up getting scrapped.

1942

So what are we thinking, underground this time around?

1943

What if they take a risk and go for the boring option of having it on the land? That fits nicely between the sea and the sky!

1944

I’m pretty sure it’s just gonna be Rapture again.

1945

Holy hell, yes! They should set it in the Cleveland suburbs! Shootouts at the Wal*mart!

1946

Just why? What even is a “Bioshock” game at this point? What’s the unifying theme? Mediocre gunplay + hamfisted philosophy?

1947

You play as yet another alternate universe Booker, cleaning the grease trap at a Burger King in Dalton Ohio, when the congealed oil and fat coalesces into a darkly shining pool, and at its center, a tower, capped by a point of light…

BIOSHOCK 4: HAVE IT YOUR WAY (Presented by the all new Whopper Supreme)

1948

Be interesting to see where this one takes place, the first 2 games are still my favorites.

1949

There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a man. There’s always a city.

And I love what those games do. To each their own.

1950

I found Bioshock 1 to be a dang-near perfect game, other than the last boss. Bio 2 had a lot of repetitive gameplay problems, and Bio Infinite was great worldbuilding but the game suffered.

1951

The thing is, sure, they could theoretically be creative, spin the franchise into some new weird dystopia full of philosophical extremes and dimension-fuckery and magic powers and whatnot. But also, it’s a new studio, the main people behind Bioshock and Infinite are long gone, and pretty much the only reason to trot out the IP again is to try and milk it for more money. So I sincerely believe it’ll just be Rapture again, just like the previous sequel that was farmed out to another 2K team was. (And hell, even Infinite was, in the DLC.)

Doing new stuff is a risk. Why bother?

1952

You could say that about lots of things, like the new Ghostbusters movie or the new Watchmen TV show. Thing is, if the team making it has a great vision and the drive to execute on it, a followup to a beloved franchise years later with a completely different team can be truly great.

1953

Oh no.

The job descriptions appear to confirm at least two things about the long-in-gestation project: that it’ll be open world, and that like most open world games, it’ll have both primary and secondary quests.

The description for the senior writer role is the most illuminating, apparently confirming both the open world and the quest format. “We’re hoping to find someone who can weave impactful, character-driven stories in an open world setting,” it reads, while later it specifies that the successful candidate will “brainstorm primary and secondary mission content with design.”

1954

In a hopeful mindset I would think that it could be a game like Prey, but being more seamless in how everything connects, with no loading times. That technically would be open world-ish?

But no, surely it’s going to be ‘one of those’.

1955

I hope it returns to an underwater setting.

1956

Honestly, my first impression was “oh, this could be really cool!” before I remembered we’re supposed to not like anything anymore. :)

1957

Replaying this on the XSX and I can agree with this statement. There’s just so much story in there if one is willing to explore. Case in point: I’m sure I missed Fontaine’s House for the Poor on my initial playthrough because back then, I was following the arrow like a slave! In subsequent playthroughs and also just this afternoon, I made a point to go over there. It ties up Diane McClintock’s (tragic) story nicely and the player would be none the wiser for just going straight to the next area like Tenenbaum tells you to.

1958

I actually read the Bioshock novel and it was quite entertaining (for a book based on a video game). It fleshes out the characters and backstories nicely.

It’s also a somewhat eye-rolling story when you realize how dumb Andrew Ryan was for allowing guns and dangerous drugs into a closed, underwater city.

Of course, eliminating those two things would have made for an awfully dull game. :)

1959

???

I had no idea this even existed:

https://www.amazon.com/BioShock-Rapture-John-Shirley/dp/0765367351

-Tom

1960

Every AAA videogame has a novelization or six. Some of them, like the Wing Commander series, are. . . better than they have any right to be. Some of them, like the Doom quadrilogy, are a once-in-a-lifetime journey into stark raving madness that I genuinely and with complete seriousness recommend to anyone who can get their hands on the books.