BioShock 4 delay: Take-Two CEO admits “Deep disappointment”
2K Games’ BioShock Infinite, despite its hectic development timeline and cut content, was released nearly 13 years ago, in 2013. More than a decade later, gamers are still waiting to see what lies in store for the future of the series. Even publisher and parent company Take-Two Interactive’s CEO, Strauss Zelnick, has openly admitted that he’s “deeply disappointed” by the delay. However, he’s also somewhat confident about where things currently stand in terms of the series’ future.
"Chasing down some creative alleys that turned out to be dead ends."
Zelnick sat down with Stephen Totilo for the Game File newsletter and explained why the series’ progress has been so slow. He said, “Think about what ‘surprise’ implies. That’s like, one day, everything’s awesome, and the next day, I’m like, ‘Holy sh*t.’ And I don’t run the business that way. But I think if you’re saying ‘disappointed,’ yes. Deeply disappointed.”
He further explained the root cause of the delay behind the next BioShock game and said, “I think finding the right creative purchase was hard, as it turns out. I think we, in retrospect, wasted a lot of time and money chasing down some creative alleys that turned out to be dead ends.” Zelnick also linked the long wait for the next BioShock to the publisher’s emphasis on quality over quantity, similar to its approach with Grand Theft Auto VI, which is scheduled to release on November 19, 2026.
Currently, the next BioShock game is in development at Cloud Chamber, a studio 2K Games created specifically for the fourth installment. Considering it’s been almost 13 years, it’s safe to say that development hasn’t been exactly smooth.
An internal review failure with consequences
A Bloomberg report from last summer stated that the game failed an internal review and that executives were unhappy with the direction of the story, which could ultimately prove to be either a blessing or a curse.
Due to this review failure, nearly 80 people were laid off from Cloud Chamber. The studio’s leadership, including the director, was moved elsewhere, and Rod Fergusson, the producer who worked on the original BioShock Infinite, was brought in to spearhead the project. While there have been no leaks about the creative direction of the next BioShock game, the layoffs and leadership changes were clearly meant to get the project back on track.
Source(s)
Add as a preferred source on Google
