Whats next for Bioshock?

[Guy from the 80's]

I enjoyed Infinite but I'm starting to grow tired of the Bioshock formula. Play as some mysterious person, play linear path to bad guy that talks to you via radio, "talk" to plot characters you cant interact with, finish game without any choices what so ever.

Infinite opened up for there being an infinite worlds with infinite Comstock's, if Bioshock continues without renewing itself, will you loose interest?

 

[Pink Gregory]

If Bioshock doesn't continue, I'd be happier; and that's coming from someone who loves all of them.

It's reached it's logical conclusion with Infinite; I find it hard to believe that Irrational wouldn't have another IP in them.

 

[Reynaert]

Maybe they shouldn't make another Bioshock game and leave it at this. They can however make a new start of sorts if they make a new '-shock' game. They wouldn't have to carry the burden of the lore from previous iterations but can make a new game in this genre and have the name recognition. Maybe we can see 'Techshock' or 'Spaceshock' in stores in the near future.

 

[RJ 17]

I enjoyed Infinite but I'm starting to grow tired of the Bioshock formula. Play as some mysterious person, play linear path to bad guy that talks to you via radio, "talk" to plot characters you cant interact with, finish game without any choices what so ever.

That's actually kinda why there CAN'T be another Bioshock, or at least there shouldn't be one. And not just from a gameplay/mechanical standpoint.

They've let the cat out of the bag with the ending to Infinite. "There will always be a man, a city, and a lighthouse". That implies that the general story has been told in many different ways. When you think about it, the stories of Infinite and BS2 are VERY similar from plotpoint to plotpoint. Delta = Booker, Eleanor = Elizabeth, Lamb = Comstock. Delta and Booker are both father-figures trying to get their daughters (in one case figurative, in the other literal) back. The daughters have been kidnapped by power-mad leaders that literally have a cultish/religious following (the people in Rapture worship Lamb just as the people of Columbia worship Comstock). Said leaders are wanting to use the power of the girls to utterly change the world which they believe is overgrown with filth (Comstock wants to have Elizabeth go on to lead a fiery purge of destruction on the world below while Lamb wants Eleanor to go and establish a new world order as the smartest, most powerful being on the planet...or something like that ).

The point is that they actually made the Bioshock formula kinda part of the story itself. In worlds in which Comstock never rose to power because Booker never went through with the baptism, that allowed for Andrew Ryan to rise to power and create Rapture. From this point on, every game would essentially follow the exact same formula: "A man (deranged leader), a city (in an extremely unlikely place), and a lighthouse (the symbol that connects them all)."

Beyond that where would they build the next city, hmm? They've gone under the sea, into the sky...there's not really that many "impossible to build there/fantastical location" places left. Unless they'd like to say that steampunk early 1900's technology had already reached into outer space.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Well, 2K said they hope to get the franchise up to six games if they can keep coming up with new ideas for it (this was after the release of the first game). Given that they've laid out the formula for the series, it seems like they are simply letting people know what will remain consistent and what might change over the course of the next few games, provided that they get to the six games 2K wants.

Personally, I'll be wary of the next BioShock game. Infinite really killed a lot of what I loved of the first game, fixed very few problems, and added a whole bevy of new problems. There's still some things to love, and the BioShock games are still more interesting than most FPS games, but I find it hard to really look forward to the next game when all the franchise has going for it now is a really good game released six years ago that the developers only use as minor inspiration at this point.

 

[Glongpre]

I don't think they will make another bioshock, most likely they will create a different "shock" game maybe System Shock 3 .

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Well, Irrational Games is probably going to keep Infinite alive for around another year with DLCs.

I don't see a logical next step it could take. I didn't see the logical next step it could've taken after Bioshock 1 & 2 either, but I ended up loving Infinite (despite the last half hour of the game). If they go for Infinite's amazing liveliness or Bioshock's wonderful decadence, so be it, I've loved both of them so far.

I wish they'd make a return of some of the stuff that Infinite didn't use. Upgrading weapons changing their appearance, upgrading your character, having a reward to fighting some bosses other than being forced to (The Big Daddies in Bioshock 1 & 2 were avoidable, but you did it for the upgrades), no weapon limitations, and returning most of the RPG elements.

I'd still get another Bioshock, and I'm probably going to get the Infinite DLCs. So, I'd like more.

And if they go to space in the sequel, I don't think it'd be much of a Bioshock game--but I said the same thing about going in the air.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

I'd prefer that they made another System Shock, but after 14 years it's unlikely and it might end up as a linear shooter like Infinite.

 

[roushutsu]

Considering how well the series is received, I highly doubt we'll be seeing the end of Bioshock anytime soon. That being said, I would love to see them change things up in the formula. You can still have the man, city, and lighthouse gimmick, but everything else you can go crazy with. I've always thought it was be interesting to play as the crazy man and the game is all about building up your paradise at the expense of morality and the people. That could be an interesting take on the formula.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Maybe they shouldn't make another Bioshock game and leave it at this. They can however make a new start of sorts if they make a new '-shock' game. They wouldn't have to carry the burden of the lore from previous iterations but can make a new game in this genre and have the name recognition. Maybe we can see 'Techshock' or 'Spaceshock' in stores in the near future.

'Tech' and... 'space' shock...

Oh... you mean Systemshock. They've already been there.

OT:

Yeah, they need to move on. Have Ken Levine do something without 'shock' in the title maybe.

 

[Olas]

There's too much money to be had for them to just drop the series. I'll bet anyone here a hundred bucks there'll be another game with "Bioshock" in it's title somewhere. Not just "shock" but "bioshock" specifically. Where there's money, there's a way.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Maybe a Bioshock game with decent shooting mechanics.

The first Bioshock already had terrible gunplay, and in the past 6 years Irrational Games apparently hasn't learned a damn thing. The guns in Infinite are as flacid as ever, and the game's even greater dependance on shooting makes it stick out even more than in Bioshock. It's so bad I just stopped playing it, so I can't say much about the story or the ending. Except that it continues the same storytelling through exposition audio loges, which is a lazy and ineffective means of conveying a story.

So maybe Ken Levine should just make a Bioshock game that's NOT AN FPS.

 

[balladbird]

"talk" to plot characters you cant interact with, finish game without any choices what so ever.

Hey now, there were choices in earlier bioshock games! you could choose whether to heal the little girls of their ailments, or to tear out their spines to harvest their tasty sea slugs! I like to call it the "angel or demon" choice, because nothing about it resembled anything like human morality. XD

I'm on the fence regarding another bioshock, for now. I'd swore after 2 that there was likely no merit to continuing the franchise, but infinite surely did shut me the hell up, so while I can't see where else they would go from here (maybe a city at the center of a black hole? A utopia inside Detroit?) I won't immediately declare that they shouldn't try, if they're sufficiently inspired.

one thing I WILL say, even though I loved Infinite is this: I'm not sure how the ending of a future bioshock game could possibly be anymore self-congratulatory and smug than the ending of infinite, so maybe they did already peak in that regard.

 

[MHR]

I agree. If they can make another "shock" game maybe it would work if they could shock us by adding some more gameplay.

 

[Reynaert]

'Tech' and... 'space' shock...

Oh... you mean Systemshock. They've already been there.

OT:

Yeah, they need to move on. Have Ken Levine do something without 'shock' in the title maybe.

I am aware of System shock. It is the reason I think they might walk this shock-route. We don't want our developers to be too innovative, do we? Anyways, as long as the games are enjoyable I won't complain.

 

[GabeZhul]

Mars. Or at least the moon. Not a space station or spaceship though, that is SystemShock territory.
Or maybe some mythical place, like Atlantis? I mean, something like a time-travel story where a guy gets pulled into the ancient world by technologically advanced Atlanteans thanks to their experimentation with the rift-technology introduced in Infinite, then the protagonist wrecks everything around him while he tries his best to get back home (make the protagonist a young man who just got married and has a pregnant wife he wants to get back to at all cost for additional emotional appeal) and actually manages to get back. Then we have a twist where the world he returns to is a perfect utopia filled with even more ridiculously advanced Atlantean technology since in this continuity Atlantis didn't sink, so the protagonist faces the dilemma of going back and destroying this utopia by sinking Atlantis or not doing anything and never seeing his family again. Bam, there you go.

 

[Guy from the 80's]

I agree with everyone to be honest but, the last thing I would want to see is something steampunk. I would much rader see as someone mentioned a new shock game. Or at least something in the future. And something with stealth. The first Bioshock with proper stealth and 5 times the difficulty would have been legendary.