BioShock 4 in development for next-gen consoles

A new BioShock game is officially in development for release on next-gen consoles at a brand new wholly-owned studio, 2K Games today confirmed.

We've known for a while now that a new BioShock game was on the way, but 2K has been notoriously tight-lipped on the franchise. Now 2K Games finally confirmed the project's existence with a maddeningly vague announcement.

2K Games formed a new studio called Cloud Chamber specifically to work on the next BioShock game. The studio consists of two branches--one in Montreal, Quebec and the other in Novato, California--that will collaborate on the project. The press release makes it sound like BioShock 4 has been rebooted, as is customary for the franchise: "2K announced that Cloud Chamber has started to work on the next iteration of the globally acclaimed BioShock franchise."

BioShock 4 won't be ready for at least a few years, so expect it to be optimized to leverage the power of next-gen PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett consoles.

This news isn't exactly surprising. Not only did we know a new BioShock was coming, Take-Two Interactive has repeatedly teased sequels in its biggest franchises. R&D spending has spiked at the company, and key execs say the publisher's new pipeline of games is its largest ever.

"We have the strongest development pipeline in our history, including sequels from our biggest franchises, along with exciting new IP," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said in a FY2019 earnings call.

"We're not just investing to invest for years and years and years without actually getting the releases coming out. You will expect to see these investments coming to fruition over the next few years," Take-Two Interactive President Karl Slatoff said in the earnings call.

"I can tell you that there's certainly a lot of titles in the pipeline."

2K Games also started up a new studio with ex-Call of Duty developer Michael Condrey at the helm. The studio is working on a new multiplayer live game.