The next Bioshock game, dubbed Biosock 4, is set for release in the year 2028, based on the latest information.
According to the Art Station profile of Mack Sztaba, Senior Concept Artist at Cloud Chamber, Bioshock 4 is scheduled for release in 2028. He is working under Scott Sinclair, the Art Director of the original Bioshock as well as Bioshock Infinite. According to Sztaba’s Linkedin profile, he has been working on the project for around 6 months.
Not much is known about Bioshock 4, though prior rumors have suggested that the game is set in Antarctica, and is much larger than its predecessors in size and scale. According to Twitter user oopsleaks, it’s still a Bioshock game, with the same fundamental concepts. It doesn’t try to massively reinvent the basics of previous games. The release window will not be announced until the developers are able to commit to a concrete date to avoid any delays and to give the development staff enough time to polish all the nuances.
They mentioned that Bioshock 4 will feature an open world with a main story that has multiple endings. Allegedly, the game uses aggregate states of water as its underlying theme, and its principles play a huge role in the plot and lore which will be more extensively revealed in the game via side quests. Based on the information, the combat system will be diversified with various utilities and combinations of abilities. The terrain will also play a role in how the combat plays out. The game will feature alternate versions of familiar characters from previous games.
Later, the Twitter user also shared that Bioshock 4 was going through some developmental issues. They stated that, despite a complete shift in development leadership, the series continued to grapple with the haunting curse of problematic development. Based on what they stated, the project underwent its fourth reboot in the summer of 2022. As per the Twitter user, the consistent changes in development teams and concepts do not bode well for the Bioshock series’ future. While the setting is likely to remain the same, the game is currently undergoing extensive and drastic rewrites.
Earlier in 2019, 2K announced the founding of Cloud Chamber, the wholly owned game development studio under the Company’s publishing label. It had stated that the studio would build its development team at two locations, namely 2K’s San Francisco Bay Area headquarters in Novato, California, as well as in Montréal, Québec. In addition, 2K had announced that Cloud Chamber would work on the next iteration of the BioShock franchise.
