BioShock 4 is reported to be in development at Cloud Chamber, a new studio set up by 2K to take on the famous franchise and its dystopian worlds. Though few details about the next game have been released, there are already hints that fans could have something very different in store for them than the last game, BioShock Infinite.
There’s evidence to suggest that BioShock 4 will have more RPG elements that previous games in the series, including dialog options and a more open-ended world design. These elements could not only make BioShock 4 feel very different from Infinite, but it could also have huge implications for the story based on one key detail in BioShock Infinite.
Though Cloud Chamber has not confirmed these new features yet, there is strong evidence that BioShock 4 will add significant RPG elements to the shooter series. In December 2020, Cloud Chamber job listings were released for a Lead Systems Designer, Senior Voice Designer, and AI programmer. These listings came with descriptions of requirements which hint at what the studio is looking to develop in BioShock 4.
The listening for Senior Voice Designer specifically requested experience in RPG-style branching dialog systems, suggesting that players can expect a dialog system more in-line with a game like Mass Effect, Fallout, or the more recent Assassin’s Creed games. On top of this, the listing for the Systems Designer position requests experience creating an “emergent sandbox world,” which suggests BioShock 4 may be veering towards resembling an open-world RPG.
Naturally this has huge implications for gameplay, though it’s hard to tell exactly how open the next game’s world will be or how robust its dialog system will end up being. What’s interesting, however, is that by giving players the ability to choose what their player character says BioShock 4 is taking a hugely different approach to both the gameplay and the philosophy of BioShock Infinite.
BioShock Infinite’s Booker DeWitt speaks throughout the story, but players are only given options over his decisions at a few key moments. There are just four decisions in the game: choosing whether to throw a ball at an interracial couple during the Columbia Raffle or at the announcer, choosing whether Elizabeth should wear the bird brooch or the cage brooch, demanding tickets from the First Lady Airship ticket seller or drawing a weapon, and sparing or killing Cornelius Slate.
None of these decisions impact the arc of the game’s story. No matter who Booker chooses to throw the ball at a police officer catches his hand, noticing the mark of the False Shepherd and causing a fight to break out. Whether Elizabeth wears the bird or the cage brooch changes which one the Elizabeth at the end of the game is wearing, subtly indicating that she’s from one of the other realities. If Booker draws his weapon on the ticket seller a gunfight breaks out, and if he doesn’t the ticket seller stabs his hand before that same gunfight. Sparing Cornelius Slate only leads to finding him in a catatonic state later, having been tortured.
By the end of BioShock Infinite the reason these decisions make so little difference has been revealed. Elizabeth’s summary of the multiverse gets to the core of it: “there’s always a lighthouse, there’s always a man, there’s always a city.” BioShock Infinite’s decisions are a reminder both that Booker’s reality is out of his control but also that even the differences between Booker and Jack from BioShock 1 and Columbia and Rapture are as arbitrarily small in the greater scheme of things as which brooch Elizabeth wears.
The hints that BioShock 4 will have dialog options and a more open world takes a completely different approach than BioShock Infinite not just in terms of gameplay but in terms of philosophy. If players have the ability to direct their character’s fate in the next game, BioShock 4 could have just as interesting a take on free will as the last game, but from a totally different perspective.
In some ways BioShock 4 has the potential to reinforce the philosophy of BioShock Infinite. After all, there’s only so much freedom a player has even in a game like Fallout or Mass Effect with strong dialog systems – the story and setting hugely limit their opportunities and dialog options don’t have the same butterfly effect of cascading consequences as they would in the real world. It’s possible that BioShock 4 will push players to question just how much freedom they have by giving them all the tools that would suggest that they are free while demonstrating that ultimately their fate is still out of their control despite their actions having consequences.
If so, BioShock 4 could investigate something very interesting; the idea that freedom of choice is ultimately out of humanity’s grasp because although humans have the ability to act and react, they cannot know what the consequences of their actions will be before they’ve done them. If BioShock 4 goes down this path it could still ultimately confront players with the truth of the always a lighthouse/man/city theory put forward in Bioshock Infinite, revealing that it goes deeper than Infinite suggested and avoiding having to throw that structure to the wayside in favor of a new, less predictable story.
So far Cloud Chamber has yet to announce details about the setting or story of the next game, and it could be the case that BioShock is going down a very different path with the intent of differentiating itself from its predecessors, not reinforcing them. However, it’s also possible that despite the many changes that seem to be coming the franchise’s way, the series’ core philosophical insights could actually reinforce some of the things players learned about the BioShock multiverse in Infinite.
BioShock 4 is reportedly in development by Cloud Chamber Studio.
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