It’s been over five years since we’ve got any new BioShock content. The last time players ventured into that world, they traveled back to the underwater city of Rapture in BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea, the last DLC pack for that game. Since then, the only thing gamers have had to tide them over was a remastered re-release titled BioShock: The Collection.
When Burial at Sea was released way back in February of 2014, it was announced that it would be Irrational Games’ last game in the series, as the studio would be downsized and rebranded as Ghost Story Games. 2K Games, however, announced that the series would continue with another developer.
Fast forward five years and we still haven’t heard anything official about another sequel, but speculation has run rampant. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick recently told the company’s investors that their fans can expect “sequels from our biggest franchises.” Might BioShock be one of those franchises?
A new job listing on 2K’s website shows that their Novato, California-based studio, the studio behind the secret “Parkside” project that has long-since been believed to be BioShock-related, is looking for an “End Game Design Lead.” The listing asks for someone who can “built a post-narrative set of systems, quests, and player progression that gives our fanatic fangirls and fanboys more content to experience on an ongoing, live-service basis.”
The content mentioned could certainly point to a BioShock title, but the mention of a live-service suggests that the game could go the route of Destiny and other games that function as an ongoing service with continually fresh content.
Finally, a thread over on the BioShock subreddit lists all the know talent working at the 2K Novato location and there are more than a few people who have worked on past BioShock titles.
Nothing listed here is definitive proof that the series is rolling ahead, but when everything is taken into consideration, it definitely suggests that a new title could be in the works. It also sounds like it could be wildly different than previous games in the series, with the inclusion of live-service content.
With Sony’s Playstation 5 and Microsoft’s as-of-yet unnamed Xbox One successor both scheduled for release in 2020, it’s likely that the game, if it exists, will launch on next-generation consoles. Then again, every bit of this is speculation and could all be completely off the mark. Would you kindly take this information with a grain of salt?
