Next to nothing is known about the next BioShock game – which has been in development since at least 2019 – but developer Cloud Chamber is apparently still hard at work on it, and last summer’s creative reshuffle led to former Diablo boss and Irrational Games veteran Rod Fergusson taking over as new studio head. Now, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has expressed both disappointment – and hope – when asked about the project.
As part of his recent chat with Stephen Totilo on Game File (hat tip to VGC) Zelnick didn’t mince words when asked if he was surprised by the fact the next BioShock – which has no official title yet – was taking so long to get made: “Think about what ‘surprise’ implies… That’s like, one day, everything’s awesome, and the next day, I’m like, ‘Holy shit’. And I don’t run the business that way. But I think if you’re saying ‘disappointed’, yes. Deeply disappointed.”
His answer implies there hasn’t been a lack of attention from the publisher to the game’s slow progress at Cloud Chamber. Instead, it might have run into creative hurdles or simply failed to clear a high bar. In fact, last year’s reports suggested exactly the latter. It’s hard to understate the extremely high expectations surrounding a new BioShock, so everyone involved taking their time to get it right sounds logical.
Still, it’s been 13 years since BioShock Infinite‘s release, and the world is patiently waiting for updates on the series’ fate. While Zelnick didn’t have any teases to share, he said he was “feeling a lot better” about the project now: “I think finding the right creative purchase was hard, as it turns out… I think we, in retrospect, wasted a lot of time and money chasing down some creative alleys that turned out to be dead ends.”
Zelnick also added such projects take time – echoing his comments about GTA 6 – and “you can’t necessarily tell how it’s going to be until it all comes together”. That last bit implies at least one major creative reset happened at some point. “Right now, we have a good game, but we are committed to delivering a great one. We are working closely with leadership at the studio to define this path”, he concluded.
