BioShock 4 is being developed at a new studio set up by 2K just to tackle the project. Cloud Chamber has several BioShock veterans onboard, but notably lacks series creator Ken Levine. Several job listings for the studio even indicate that the design of the next BioShock may diverge significantly from previous installments in the series.
In fact, BioShock 4 is beginning to look like some of the more recent Assassin's Creed titles. Here are some of the ways BioShock 4 can take a different road from Assassin's Creed, despite seemingly heading down the same path.
The Assassin's Creed RPGs
Ever since Assassin's Creed Origins, Ubisoft's series has increasingly added elements from RPGs. While older games in the franchise told totally on-rails narratives in segmented explorable sandboxes, the last three games have prioritized player choice, consequences, and more expansive open worlds.
In Origins, Odyssey, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla players have more choices from the get-go. They can choose their player character's gender, even though Ubisoft has confirmed certain options to be canon, like female Eivor in Valhalla. Player choices in-game also have an affect on the arc of the story in a way they never would have in previous Assassin's Creed games. Eivor's relationship with their brother Sigurd in Valhalla is based on a few key decisions throughout the game. These choices ultimately determine the end to Sigurd's story, and by extension the tone of Eivor's ending.
Across the last three Assassin's Creed games, players have had multiple dialogue options, different romance options, and ultimately far more agency within the story than the preset plots of Assassin's Creed's past. There's evidence that BioShock 4 may mark a similar turn in the dystopian sci-fi series' design. Job listings on the Cloud Chamber website for the positions of Senior Voice Designer and Systems Designer included requests for experience that hint at some of the features that may be included. These listings asked for experience designing RPG-style dialogue systems and sandbox worlds respectively.
Just last week a Cloud Chamber job-listing for a Senior Writer position requested "someone who can weave impactful, character-driven stories in an open world setting," supporting the evidence that BioShock 4 will be open world. There are some key ways, however, that BioShock 4's apparent turn to a branching dialogue system and a more open world can distinguish itself from Assassin's Creed's.
BioShock And The Theme Of Freedom
Players have more of an effect on the world of Assassin's Creed than ever before, but the impact they're able to have is done in a deceptively unimpactful way. Sigurd's ending in Assassin's Creed Valhalla certainly impacts the final note of the historical fiction plotline. Nonetheless, Sigurd and Eivor always trap Basim inside the Grey, which means that no matter the player's decisions, Basim is always able to emerge from the Grey in Valhalla's modern-day storyline. The areas that players are able to affect are never those which have a significant impact on the overarching strokes of the plot, they're only able to change smaller details within that plot.
This might sound appealing to Cloud Chamber at first. After all, BioShock games are known for their strong narratives. Giving players too much ability to affect the overarching plot could detract from some of the character-driven storytelling and well-executed twists the other games are known for. If BioShock 4 is going to remain true to the spirit of the previous games, while integrating RPG features like branching dialogue and an open world, it should go in a totally different direction from Assassin's Creed.
The BioShock games have always been deeply invested in the idea of choice and free will. In BioShock 1, the player famously discovers that the player character Jack is under the influence of mind control. What the player assumed was just them completing video game objectives was actually Jack following orders from Frank Fontaine, using the code phrase "would you kindly." This comes to a head when Rapture's founder Andrew Ryan demands Jack beat him to death using the same phrase, while espousing his Objectivist philosophy and claiming that "a man chooses, a slave obeys."
BioShock Infinite is very interested in exploring the player's lack of choice and agency within the story as well. Booker DeWitt is faced with several choices throughout the game, but they often have little to no effect on the turn of events at all. Towards the start of the game, for example, Booker finds himself at a fair in Columbia where he is handed a baseball and told to throw it at an interracial couple who have been arrested and put on display as an attraction. The player can choose to throw the ball at the couple or the announcer, but before they can do either the mark on their hand is noticed and a fire fight breaks out.
Later in Infinite, the Lutece twins reinforce the game's seemingly determinist philosophy. The player is asked to flip a coin, which lands heads. It is then revealed that the coin has landed on heads every single time it has been flipped. If BioShock 4 is going to give players more freedom and choice than ever before, it needs to give them far more freedom to affect the plot than Assassin's Creed does. BioShock 4 then needs to use that freedom to explore anti-determinism with the same thematic focus as the linear plots of previous Bioshock games.
If BioShock 4's player suddenly has a huge amount of choice and freedom, the story and its different branching possibilities need to be united by a focus on the meaning of choice itself. BioShock 1 and BioShock Infinite made their lack of true choice a significantly important part of the story and its themes. If BioShock 4 is going to take an RPG turn, these new mechanics need to be reflected in the philosophy the game is exploring. If Cloud Chamber does that, BioShock 4 could stay true to the spirit of BioShock despite the changes that appear to be taking place in the series.
BioShock 4Â is currently in development.