Publishers 2K announced the founding of Cloud Chamber, a new video game studio. Firaxis veteran Kelley Gilmore will head the new studio, and its first project—a new BioShock game. “BioShock is one of the most beloved, critically praised and highest-rated franchises of the last console generation,” President of 2K David Ismailer said in a press release. “We can’t wait to see where its powerful narrative and iconic, first-person shooter gameplay head in the future with our new studio team at Cloud Chamber leading the charge.”
It is, indeed, probably a good thing that Ken Levine isn’t involved, but we’ll see what happens with this. I’m anticipating an extremely safe take that doesn’t try to evolve either the gameplay or the narrative storytelling approach of the series at all, but maybe that’s enough?
“Studio working on follow-up to popular game” is something that should be assumed, not newsworthy.
I also loved Bioshock 2 (and I didn’t even get around to playing Minerva’s Den). It sucks that I can’t buy its remaster standalone on consoles. But even if this was a project on par with Bioshock 2… why does it need to be a Bioshock game? The settings of those games, particularly their politics, are not rewarding to explore or novel in calendar year 2019 and beyond.
The newsworthy part is that this is a new studio working on the game, which also makes sense why they’re working on an existing IP. Risk mitigation and all that.
I mean in hindsight 2 was definitly the best of the group. The gameplay was more developed and fun than the first, while still being more crunchy than Infinite’s simplified direction. Ironic because Bioshock 2 was like the poster child “Who asked for this” direct sequel. The politics of each game ranges from muddled (1) to outright malicious (Infinite), but at least 2 exists in some middle ground where its easy to dismiss as stupid rambling. I haven’t play either of the first two games in years and years though, im half interested in how they hold up at least gameplay wise.
You know, I don’t think i’m gonna dismiss this one out of hand. Since Levine isn’t directing,
I hope it’s an ideology that centrist op ed columnists are always hand wringing about even though they have no chance of ever instantiating themselves in the world, like maybe Accelerationism.
Does anyone have a link to the collection of critical essays on Bioshock? I know the crew talked about it forever ago, but I’d like to share it with a few folks. Thanks in advance.
Damn, this news is…interesting? I mean there’s definitely a lot you can do do with Bioshock’s core premise and game play, although imo bioshock as a game lives and dies by its environmental design so hopefully they’ll put a lot of effort into that.
I’m a massive Bioshock fan, love the whole series - although I’m gonna have to break with the rest of the commenters and proclaim that I think the Irrational developed games are the best one. The first bioshock is straight up my favorite game, so I’m really invested in the series, but at the same time I’m actually glad it’s being handed over to another studio. The stories of the trilogy wrapped up in an extremely tight way, with pretty much no loose ends, and most creative leads who worked on it seem to have moved on to other projects.
So, I really hope this game finds its own identity within the franchise! I think a retread would do these games a disservice.
