BioShock 4 Should Continue to Roll the Dice After Apparent Changes
There's evidence that BioShock 4 will be making some interesting changes to the beloved franchise. Job listings on the website of developer Cloud Chamber request experience building open worlds and designing dialogue systems, hinting that the next game will have more RPG elements than previous installments.
Although BioShock 4 appears to be taking the franchise through some big changes, Cloud Chamber shouldn't stop with branching dialogue and open worlds. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that playing it safe and sticking to the franchise's formula could be even riskier than rolling the dice and making more changes to the series.
BioShock 4 is being tackled by a new studio, Cloud Chamber. The studio includes several developers who worked on previous BioShock games, but series creator Ken Levine is notably absent. This has led many fans to wonder about the direction BioShock 4 will go.
Cloud Chamber job listings hint at more RPG features like an open world and branching dialogue, a shift already seen in several long-running series like Assassin's Creed. An open world could certainly make exploring BioShock 4's setting more dynamic, challenging Cloud Chamber to tell a story through an environment that can be approached from any angle. Branching dialogue could also make for a nice change of pace from both BioShock and BioShock: Infinite, which gave the player very few choices that affected the story, but also specifically made the player's lack of free will or control a plot point. These shouldn't be the only changes that come to BioShock, however.
BioShock: Infinite had a great story, but it was a flawed game that released over eight years ago. There are many BioShock staples that likely won't hold up that well. Players might expect more dynamic, immersive storytelling devices than previous games' audio logs, for example, which often come across as convenient blocks of exposition.
BioShock: Infinite's combat also left much to be desired for some fans. Fights with more powerful enemies like the Handyman could become a slog, with combat more like a war of attrition against bullet-sponge enemies. That said, BioShock wasn't without flaws either.
The first game's combat could also become very repetitive at times. BioShock's final boss fight was so infamously underwhelming that Levine even apologized for it, and throughout the game players gained little from choosing to sacrifice the Little Sisters - the game's main moral decision.
BioShock's strengths have always been rich world design, a genuinely critical focus on different philosophies from Objectivism to American nationalism, and the games' big twists. Recreating the series' formula, warts and all, is unlikely to cut it nearly a decade after the release of the last game. Cloud Chamber may be treading carefully after the departure of Levine, but a fully-fledged BioShock revival is going to take ambition to exceed the original games, not just to live up to their legacy.
That's going to require some big risks, but with some RPG features already hinted at, it seems likely that fans hoping to get a 1-for-1 recreation of the original BioShock experience are going to be disappointed anyway. If the job listings do indicate features in the next game, then BioShock 4 has already embraced significant change. To take the series to the next level, that change needs to extend to combat, boss fights, and new methods of interactive storytelling that are as innovative in the 2020s as the first BioShock was back in 2007. Without those changes, the next game is at risk of been overshadowed by the series' legacy.
BioShock 4 is currently in development.
Post a Comment