BioShock 4: Bringing the Series Back Full Circle

Official announcements about BioShock 4 have been few and far between for quite some time. Back in December 2019, publisher 2K finally confirmed that this new installment was being worked on by the fresh talent at Cloud Chamber. Since then, however, we’ve been met with silence, apart from a few job listings last year that only served to assure us that development is indeed ongoing.

While many details about BioShock 4 remain shrouded in mystery, there’s an optimistic vibe surrounding its development. Cloud Chamber, although a relatively new player in the field, boasts a team that includes familiar names from past BioShock projects. Among them is Hoagy de la Plante, who contributed as a lead environment artist on the first two BioShock games and is now steering BioShock 4’s creative vision. With this kind of pedigree, there’s hope that BioShock 4 won’t just offer a nostalgic nod to its predecessors but could potentially elevate the series to new heights and bring it full circle.

When we talk about the roots of BioShock, it’s important to remember the original game drew significant inspiration from immersive sim genres. Ken Levine, a pivotal figure in crafting the BioShock storylines, played a crucial role in building this legacy. Before diving into the world of BioShock, he cut his teeth at Looking Glass Studios in the mid-’90s. There, he worked on Thief: The Dark Project, a game celebrated for laying groundwork in what we now recognize as the immersive sim genre. Levine, along with Robert Fermier and Jonathan Chey, later formed Irrational Games. Their first big hit was System Shock 2, another benchmark of the immersive sim world. Given this background, it’s no surprise that when BioShock was conceptualized, it bore marks of these influences.

However, while BioShock embraced some elements of immersive sims, it never went all in, at least not by the standards of today’s gaming landscape. Sure, the hauntingly atmospheric city of Rapture drew players in, and the Plasmid system allowed for some creativity in gameplay, but the overall path was pretty linear. Players weren’t given much leeway to tackle objectives in various ways; more often than not, things boiled down to combat.

Now seems like the prime moment for BioShock 4 to dive deep into its immersive sim inspiration. Recent successes in the immersive sim genre, like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, demonstrate a growing audience’s appetite for expansive player freedom, intricate objectives, and richly detailed worlds. BioShock 4 has the opportunity to offer large, interconnected spaces where players can explore at their leisure, employ multiple strategies to achieve goals, and utilize a range of tools that champion personal expression. Achieving this would help transform BioShock 4 from a mere sequel to a worthy evolution of its storied franchise.