A new leak potentially revealed the location and release window of BioShock 4.
According to notable video game journalist Colin Moriarty on the Sacred Symbols podcast, the next mainline BioShock game takes place within a fictional city located in the frozen tundra of the Antarctic. The game will also be set during the 1960s and will have narrative links to previous titles in the beloved, critically-acclaimed series. "It takes place in a... city called Borealis,” said Moriarty. “[The game is] codenamed ‘Parkside’… I’ve been told that the development team has incredible latitude to get it right." VGC also reported that Moriarty's claims sound accurate, according to their own internal sources. BioShock 4 is currently targeting a 2022 release window.
Moriarty continued on to say, "Internally the game is very secret and apparently, totally locked up. Apparently the inclination there is that they understand full well that this game will be compared to what [BioShock creator] Ken Levine does. And by the way, [Take-Two] is also publishing Levine’s next game.” Levine is widely recognized for directing the original BioShock and one of its sequels, BioShock Infinite. Despite starting the iconic franchise, Levine is not working on the upcoming BioShock game, which is being developed by Cloud Chamber.
Beyond this leak, very little is known about the next BioShock game. A recent job listing pointed to the possibility that the game may feature an open world. The post in question revealed that Cloud Chamber was looking for a senior writer "who can weave impactful, character-driven stories in an open world setting." Neither the studio nor publisher 2K commented further on the listing.
BioShock is one of the most lauded modern video games, earning almost universal praise when it launched in 2007. The moody immersive sim placed players at the bottom of the ocean, in an underwater city named Rapture. Tasked with finding the fallen utopia's founder Andrew Ryan, protagonist Jack explores a variety of disturbing locales while fending off an army of enemies driven to desperation by the state of their surroundings and invasive gene splicing.
BioShock's most memorable enemy is undoubtedly the Big Daddy, hulking monsters in diving suits who lurk around Rapture while protecting Little Sisters who harvest a unique substance called A.D.A.M from corpses. These creatures have become synonymous with the IP, acting as the playable character in BioShock 2 and appearing again in BioShock Infinite.
Source: Sacred Symbols, via VGC