As of late I have been in a state of perpetual hype due to the impending announcement of the Resident Evil 3 remake. I positively adored the RE2:Remake, ship it for Ultimate game of the year, and am fully ready to commit to this next game before I've even seen a trailer. I'm so enamoured with the concept, in fact, that I'm not even too annoyed to find out that we will likely not be seeing it debut at the Game Awards like we originally thought, but will instead have to wait until 'Jump Festa 2020', which is a couple of days before Christmas. (I can still make the 'early Christmas' joke.) And I'm only slightly aggrieved at how that change of plans will likely mean that the first reveal we get of that game will be purely in Japanese, meaning we won't get to hear Jill's new voice actor until the international re-release. Or the fact that I had an entire slate of blogs planned dependant on my RE:3 coverage which I expected to start next week. (I'm not bitter I swear.)
Although, from disappointment spawns opportunity as it would appear that one of my deepest desires has been answered in the from of a rumor that was officially confirmed by 2K yesterday via surprise tweet. "Today, 2K announced the founding of Cloud Chamber, its newest development studio. This team of storytellers has begun work on the next iteration of the acclaimed Bioshock franchise, which will be in development for the next several years." Oh yeah, that's right. After all these years, rumor upon rumor have finally crumbled away to reveal once and for all that the Bioshock franchise is not, in fact, as dead as we were all once led to believe. And now I have two unbelievably exciting series revivals to live for whereas last month I had none, ain't life grand?
For those who never had the pleasure, Bioshock is one of the franchises that absolutely took the gaming landscape by storm when it landed back in 2007. Irrational Games' FPS survival horror-esque hybrid seemed to defy everyone's initial expectation and prove to be a timeless video game classic. Acting as a spiritual successor to 1999's 'System Shock 2', Bioshock borrowed the one-to-one perspective, haunting atmosphere and twisting narrative of that title and polished it to a mirror shine masterpiece. Bioshock introduced everyone to the underwater world of Rapture, an art-deco objectivist paradise locked under the Atlantic ocean and doomed to become a watery tomb for it's inhabitants. The player is thrust into this world and expected to navigate it's depths, surviving the scavengers that feed off the city's bones and uncovering it's secrets until they discover the real truth behind it all.
Bioshock was a game that dragged people in with mystery, philosophy and style, just as Andrew Ryan himself would have, before punching players in the gut with one of the most poignant questions ever asked in a video game narrative, one that still rings to this day. Ever since then the series has stood for lofty ideas and incredible imagination as the scope of the vision has shifted throughout the years. Bioshock 2 bought players back to the City of Rapture but from a predominately different perspective, from the eyes of the working class that made the city run. Perhaps that game didn't have as much to say, but it was still as evocative and stunning as this series always, inexplicably, is. Bioshock Infinite bought that series screaming out of the Atlantic ocean and into the sky to the city of Columbia, through a project that was dripping in ambition. (Some would argue more ambition then the team could handle.) But whatever your opinions on the execution of that particular game, or the way it made concessions on some of it's core themes in order to remain feasible-to-make, it was still a brilliant entry that introduced one of the most iconic video game characters of all time.
After Infinite's 'Burial at Sea' DLC, however, things seemed to go south for the Bioshock brand. Irrational Games ended up shuttering their doors and Ken Levine, the visionary director credited with bringing much of Bioshock to life, moved on from gaming in order to try his hands at other entertainment pursuits. Since then the only real news we heard about this series was a few years back when a group of ex-Irrational developers banded together to form a studio and create a game which looked to be some sort of spiritual successor to Bioshock. That ended up fizzling out, however, and since then the franchise has appeared to be well and truly dead. But appearances, it seems, can be deceiving.
As soon as this announcement was made, Kotaku's Jason Schrier put together an 'I told you so' article wherein he laid out the fact that this title isn't exactly news, and in fact it was in development for a number of years. (I suppose now 2K are liking what they see enough to come out and formally announce the project.) Apparently, before this new studio 'Cloud Chamber' was officially unveiled today to be heading this project, 2K had been outsourcing the bulk of Bioshock 4 (codenamed: Parkside) to a studio called 'Certain Affinity', who are best known for providing additional support for Call of Duty and Halo development teams.
This was quite the break for Certain Affinity, as their jobs had entirely been on contracting up until now, but it seems that 2K either didn't like the rate of progress or wanted to put more effort behind the title, as they bought it in-house and rebooted the title in the process. This was in 2016, and since then the project has been quietly picking up folk from various 2K projects, including a few who worked in 'Hanger 13', the team that put out Mafia 3. (Let's hope that game isn't any indication as to their talent.) Parkside's team has been operating in heavy secrecy ever since and, despite getting outed in a report in April 2018, managed to avoid officially announcing the project until the press release yesterday.
If 2K are prepared to announce that the next Bioshock game is alive and under active development, even if it's not due for 'several years', it means that they are ready to go into full production, and that is exciting. Bioshock has never been a name that's stood for low-effort releases at any point in time, this has been a franchise that has been defined my ambition, innovation, and even a little bit of envelope-pushing when needed. And in a gaming age that is slowly beginning to welcome back many of it's storied FPS franchises for triumphant returns, (See: Deus Ex, Doom and Wolfenstien) I think there couldn't be a better time for the grandfather of the heartstopping plot-twist to make a return finally after all these years.
That being said, today's announcement was just that: an announcement and nothing more. So far we have no vestige of an idea of where this title will go in regards to story, themes, setting or even genre. (This could be a tactical resource management game for all we know.) We also have no idea who 2K has got manning this project from a creative angle, which is an important position to fill considering how influential Ken Levine was to the creation of both Rapture and Colombia, two of gaming's most iconic locations. Similarly, we cannot be sure whether or not this title will attempt to continue the 'A tower, a city, and a girl' formula of the first three games or go somewhere completely different with it all. (Personally I find myself desperately torn between the desire for something different and eagerness to see what can be done with the fertile land that has already been tilled.)
Whatever ends up happening I can speak to one truth, fans are absolutely ecstatic about the proposition of a new Bioshock and will likely happily digest anything that 2K decide to throw their way. (Unless it ends up being a live-service, guys, we may be desperate but we still have principles!) I cannot accurately convey how much the Bioshock franchise means to me, there are only two other games that have truly touched/effected me more and I'm so happy to hear that we might get a chance to see it again someday. Now we just have to see if the 2K of today can assemble a team with what it takes to do the title justice, and how the concept will evolve and morph to fit the mold of modern game development. "Constants and variables", as she says.
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