Today 2K Games officially announced another entry in the BioShock series was in the works at their new Novato-California-based studio, Cloud Chamber. The announcement made it sound like the founding of Cloud Chamber and the greenlighting of a new BioShock are relatively new developments, but according to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, 2K have been trying to make the game for quite some time now.
Per Kotaku’s report, development of a fourth BioShock actually kicked off in 2015, with Austin, Texas developer Certain Affinity in charge. Founded by a handful of ex-Bungie devs in 2007, Certain Affinity has largely worked in support roles on various multiplayer shooters, including most of the recent Halo games, Doom, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered.
Apparently, Certain Affinity didn’t have much of an affinity for BioShock, because 2K rebooted the project in 2017 and moved development to a new Novato-based studio partially staffed by former Hangar 13 (Mafia III) devs. Rumors about the Novato studio first leaked out back in 2018, and it’s assumed this team and Cloud Chamber are one and the same. So, just to clarify, BioShock 4 has been in development, in some form, since 2015, and the current version of the game in development at Cloud Chamber has been in existence since sometime in 2017.
Given that background, the fact that the next BioShock is said to still be “several years” away is somewhat concerning. It sounds like very little actual progress has been made over the course of four years and two developers. Personally, I honestly don’t see another BioShock coming to fruition unless series-creator Ken Levine comes back to make it. And even if something does get made, if Levine and Irrational Games aren’t involved, will it be worth playing? [Side-eyes BioShock 2].
What do you think? Are you looking forward to the next BioShock, or is this project already sunk?
