We've known that a new BioShock game has been coming for the better part of a year, but some new job listings have revealed some surprising details about what it might look like.
Exactly one year ago, 2K Games announced the formation of a new game development studio named Cloud Chamber. This new developer would be responsible for creating a new BioShock game. There haven't been many details revealed about this game just yet — it's still somewhat early in its development — but a new round of job listings can give us some ideas of where it might be headed.
What Could the New BioShock Game Look Like?
Industry analyst MauroNL has highlighted some of the more interesting tidbits of the new BioShock game job listings. Some bits of information are a little vague, but there are definitely some interesting things included in the mix.
The biggest item of note is in the Lead Systems Designer job listing which has the following tidbit of text:
Our ideal candidate has an innate sense of how game systems connect and enhance one another in an emergent sandbox world, as well as for the player-facing signs and feedback that are required for an intuitive player experience.
It's that "emergent sandbox world" portion that's the most interesting, and it's supplemented by the Game AI Programmer job listing:
Someone to push further the development of our AI Systems in a strong narrative and systemic game. We have high ambitions for tying AI and storytelling together and it will be your responsibility to crystalize that ambition around several AI systems. You will be in close collaboration with Design leadership to flesh out the designs and finalize the implementations for an urban crowd system and the systemic tribal ecology of a sometimes hostile AI.
With those two bits of text side-by-side, it looks like there's a case to be made that the next BioShock game will lean more heavily towards an open-world experience. Fans of the franchise know that previous games have been pretty "open" as it is, but the earlier games in the franchise were pretty desolate in terms of friendly or neutral NPCs. These changes may place players in some kind of city where they'll have to interact with friendly, neutral, and hostile NPCs.
A lighter, less substantial bit of information is also noted in the Senior Voice Designer job listing which is looking for someone to help design the "dialogue systems." This part is somewhat thinner, but it could be interpreted to mean that the game will have choices for the player to make in dialogue.
A word of caution, though: these job listings do not reveal the whole picture of what the game could be, and a planned design does not always come to life in the final product. We'll still likely be waiting 1–3 years before we even get our first look at this game, but these new details are certainly painting an interesting picture.
What do you think the new BioShock game will be like? Would you want to play a more open-world experience? Let us know in the comments below!
