According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the next new Bioshock game is undergoing a change in leadership following a publisher review that saw 2K senior executives unhappy with the state of the game. Anonymous sources in the article have said that the story, in particular, was a problem area and would be “revamped” in the near future.
The changes in leadership seem to be focused on studio head Kelley Gilmore, who has apparently been let go, and creative director Hogarth de la Plante, who posted on LinkedIn over a month ago that he was moving to the 2K publishing wing as franchise creative director. Schreier says that the development team at Cloud Chamber was told they need to be “more agile and efficient,” making some think that a new swath of layoffs will be announced.
Is the New Bioshock in Development Hell?
Plain and simple, this is disheartening news for a massive Bioshock fan. Apparently, this new game has been in the works for over a decade, which was unknown to us. Considering it was announced in 2019 on social media and not talked about since, we just assumed that the development would have started around then. With Bioshock Infinite being the last entry in the series in 2013, it’s at least nice to know that 2K always had it on their mind, but it definitely is a worrying trend for the future.
Also included in Schreier’s report is that a remake of the original game was canceled earlier this year. While it would have been interesting to see Rapture redone and the story retold, the biggest draw for this project would have been if the remake would let players have improved gameplay mechanics seen in the later games like the ability to use a gun and plasmids at the same time.
Overall, we are very sad to hear that things aren’t looking that great on the next new Bioshock game right now. Hopefully, development will get turned around and we can start hearing more about the game in a more exciting light soon, but if the story is being reworked now, we can’t imagine it is anywhere close to being released.
