"Bioshock 4" is currently in development at Cloud Chamber, a multi-site studio established by publisher 2K specifically for the series, a Seattle studio led by Ken Levine, who developed Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, While it is too much of an overstatement to call it the successor to Irrational, Cloud Chamber has a number of veterans of the series who have been involved from the beginning, including the game's design director, Jonathan Pelling, and the industry's most renowned creative director: Hoagy de la Plante.

Cloud Chamber currently has dozens of new job postings (first spotted by VGC) and is "furiously recruiting game developers in two great locations" in San Francisco and Montreal. 29 positions are available in production, design, other skill sets and As for Bioshock 4, it's not widely known, but it's worth noting that there is no mention of multiplayer (Bioshock 2 had a middling multiplayer mode, and Infinite was conceived as a multiplayer title but was abandoned mid-development). Not much is known about it, but it seems certain to be a single-player shooter

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The studio's description of the "next Bioshock" is fairly formulaic - "the thrill and responsibility of creating the next iteration of such a beloved game" - but the Combat Designer's job description of what Cloud Chamber is aiming for, It goes into a bit more detail. Descriptions like "immersive sandbox worlds" are pretty much what you'd expect, but the list is more expansive: "We are looking for a designer who can be creative: design encounters that go beyond direct conflict, accommodate different play styles, and allow for player ingenuity to resolve . that can be resolved by the player's ingenuity," and more expansively, "We're looking for a designer who can...

Sounds great, but in my first "BioShock" I basically zapped everything with electricity and shotgunned my face. Hey, it worked!

Bioshock 4 was officially announced by 2K in December 2019, and since then the publisher has been tight-lipped about the project. The only details so far have come from leaked information, most notably from Youtuber Colin Moriarty, who claims that the game "takes place in the 1960s Antarctic city of Borealis. [The game's] codename is "Parkside." ...... I'm told the development team has incredible freedom."

While an extremely cold research station is certainly a fitting atmosphere for "BioShock," the above should definitely be taken with a shaker full of salt. At this point, more than a decade has passed since 2013's "BioShock Infinite," and 2K clearly sees this series as having the potential to last a long time if this one does well. While "Infinite" itself sold well enough, it has not been looked back on as favorably as "Bioshock" or "Bioshock 2," so "Bioshock 4" should not only continue that legacy, but also reintroduce the series to a whole new generation of players.

There is one obvious factor that perhaps should be mentioned: the lack of involvement of Ken Levine, the creative director of "Bioshock" and "Infinite." After Irrational's closure, Levine, along with 2K, founded Ghost Story Games and is currently working on the very BioShock-esque looking "Judas" instead.

A long look at the Cloud Chamber website might give you a clue. There is a logo for the previous three works, followed by a placeholder logo with "Next" written on it, where a murky outline can be seen. There is a pipe that spits out a vapor cloud. And in the middle is a simple, elegant illustration reminiscent of the parting shot of Infinite: "There will always be a lighthouse, there will always be people, there will always be a city."