Questions about when 2K’s beloved BioShock series will return have been asked time and time again over the years, and recently, the published confirmed that a fourth game in the series is in development at their newly formed studio Cloud Chamber. And though 2K says the game won’t be out for several years, it seems BioShock 4 – or whatever Cloud Chamber end up calling it – has actually been in development for a while now.
As per a report on Kotaku, who have spoken to “four people familiar with the project”, a fourth BioShock game – internally codenamed Parkside – has been in development in some form or the other for four years now. The project was reportedly outsourced to Austin-based studio Certain Affinity – who’ve worked in a supporting role on multiple Halo games, multiple Call of Duty games, Left 4 Dead, and more – in 2015.
However, development on the project was halted in 2016 for reasons unknown, with 2K deciding to reboot the project and move work on it in-house. By 2017, 2K started setting up a new team to work on the game, hiring people from multiple studios (including Mafia 3 developers Hangar 13). The game entered early pre-production that very year.
That BioShock 4 still won’t be out for several years yet would suggest that the game moved past pre-production and entered proper development very recently, but that the developers are taking their time with the project and have been in the pre-production stages since 2017 is an encouraging sign.