The next BioShock from 2K's new studio Cloud Chamber

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

But... was system shock 2 really that deep? It's a great game (well the first half) but at its heart was a corridor shooter. It was neat to be able to choose what you were going to shoot down the corridor, but I think to call SS2 a masterpiece and to call bioshock a boring linear shooter isn't quite fair.

I'd argue that, while Bioshock had less boxed-in level design, it was much more linear in terms of level progression. You could revisit levels in Bioshock but there's practically no reason to do so, unless you missed a little sister and need more Adam. In SS2 there were much more meaningful reasons to revisit levels, such as finding appropriate chemicals to analyse materials or needing to unlock/deactivate something a few floors down in order to open a hatch in engineering (or something similar, it's been a while since I played it). The depth of System Shock 2 comes from how it embraces the idea that you're on a space ship; you're not just going from level A to B to C to D.

That being said, System Shock 1 blows 2 out of the water in terms of organic progression.

That's a good point, in SS2 it felt like a big continuous place, even though there were loading screens. You could always go back to the beginning, at least until you left the station. Bioshock was more linear in that way. In System shock 2 there wasn't usually an obvious "Forward" path, instead you were exploring an environment looking for the way to solve your current problem. If system shock 2 had objective markers it would have felt a lot smaller.

 

[mkultra]

Backtracking is overall very underrated in games. makes you feel connected to the place + it feels natural to visit something which is already familiar, very in-line with how we perceive reality... just going forward in a linear way is too gamey imo - the old idea of levels that you finish and only move forward to see and master the next.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

 

[Alphons]

Alright- we've had underwater city and sky city.
So this one is either underground or in a volcano.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

A Vernian inspired Victorian space station could be a neat setting. Too bad the gameplay and narrative are all but guaranteed to be awful.

 

[Spukrian]

Taking inspiration from The City and the City by Mieiville? ...interesting!



Hmm...

 

[vortex]

So this one is either underground or in a volcano.

This could be. An isolated island and underneath an active vulcano ready to blow.

 

[ciox]

So this one is either underground or in a volcano.

This could be. An isolated island and underneath an active vulcano ready to blow.

We finally doing this?

(old pitch from 2002)

 

[vortex]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...etting-and-time-period-detailed-in-new-report

As spotted by VGC, journalist Colin Moriarty relayed fresh details on 2K Games' next BioShock project, previously confirmed to be in development at new studio Cloud Chamber, as part of his latest Sacred Symbols video. In the video, Moriarty cites sources claiming Cloud Chamber's take on BioShock will unfold in a fictional Antarctic city sometime during the 1960s - which Eurogamer also understands to be true from its own sources. This, of course, would make its events approximately concurrent with those of BioShock 1 and 2, which dealt with the downfall of Andrew Ryan's underwater dystopia of Rapture. Moriarty believes the new BioShock city will be called Borealis and that the game's narrative will connect to previous series entries.

 

[Roguey]

Cryostasis but in a city instead of a ship, huh?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Cities and facilities in harsh snowy climates already exist IRL, you can make it more extreme for videogame purposes but as far as the Shock name goes that sounds really grounded. I'm personally fine with that setting, but there's nothing really unique you can get out of Antarctica from a narrative standpoint, especially compared to a space station, an underwater city and floating islands.

Zombie Penguins perhaps?

 

[vortex]

Cities and facilities in harsh snowy climates already exist IRL, you can make it more extreme for videogame purposes but as far as the Shock name goes that sounds really grounded. I'm personally fine with that setting, but there's nothing really unique you can get out of Antarctica from a narrative standpoint, especially compared to a space station, an underwater city and floating islands.

Maybe will be a 1960s expedition to Antarctica, but extreme cold will kill half the crew, only sudden will they discover the entrance to secret underwater city and will face the imprisonment from its inhabitants and its strange world.

 

[Dodo1610]

Level based linear FPS are a dead genre right?
Does that mean we can actually explore the city this time around?

 

[JDR13]

Maybe will be a 1960s expedition to Antarctica, but extreme cold will kill half the crew, only sudden will they discover the entrance to secret underwater city and will face the imprisonment from its inhabitants and its strange world.

Also, some of the inhabitants are actually an extraterrestrial life form that can mimic other life forms including humans and dogs. Paranoia begins to run rampant because no one knows who's human and who's alien.

 

[Infinitron]

Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, except the expedition somehow brought enough people to build a small city and tamed the shoggoths into Big Daddy-like protectors.

 

[vortex]

It could be In the oceans of madness. Rapture will become R'lyeh. Chtuhlu would want to use the lighthouse to invade other realities in Bioshock universe.

 

[Riskbreaker]

Or rather the story will reveal that we are only seeing the eldritch monstrosities as such due to our prejudiced, parochial anthropocentrism and the plot will revolve around the conflict between the forward thinking faction striving, it their openness, to creatively embrace the Other and become-Other, and the close-minded, repressed, authoritarian villains trying to preserve their humanity.

 

[Dayyālu]

Did they throw out Ken Levine or I forgot? Also, guys, this is the series that gave us gems of narratives as "Randian City collapses due to sea slug mutants" and "whatever the fuck was the plot of Infinite oh god what the fuck". Anything you say here is bound to be more interesting than the final product.

Level based linear FPS are a dead genre right?
Does that mean we can actually explore the city this time around?

You need designers for that. If Infinite taught me something, is that scatterbrained cutscenes and retarded PLOT take priority on half-baked gameplay, the end result of what Bioshock 1 was essentially.

 

[Infinitron]

Ken Levine is developing his own sekret project at Ghost Story Games: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...and-former-irrational-devs-new-studio.113824/

 

[Wunderbar]

Yeah this has a small chance of being good by virtue of not having Ken Levine on board.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Level based linear FPS are a dead genre right?
Does that mean we can actually explore the city this time around?

No, because modern games should have checkpoints.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Infinitron, are you dumb?

 

[ciox]

to be fair i think that is somewhat inaccurate, Bioshock 1 and Infinite autosave after each level transition, whether you're going forwards or backtracking, and there is one SMALL part in Bioshock Infinite where you can travel between a few streamed areas, and trigger the checkpoints/save icons/whatever repeatedly, if I'm not misremembering
the only one that doesn't quite work like this is Bioshock 2, as the doors lock permanently behind you after each level in that game

so, both Bioshock 1 and Infinite are built to support exploration with checkpoints, it's just not really used, the only odd one out is Bioshock 2 as they were not even trying to larp exploration or a simulation type experience with that one

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Level based linear FPS are a dead genre right?
Does that mean we can actually explore the city this time around?

No, because modern games should have checkpoints.

It’s been heavily rumored that it will be an open-world game.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

to be fair i think that is somewhat inaccurate, Bioshock 1 and Infinite autosave after each level transition, whether you're going forwards or backtracking, and there is one SMALL part in Bioshock Infinite where you can travel between a few streamed areas, and trigger the checkpoints/save icons/whatever repeatedly, if I'm not misremembering
the only one that doesn't quite work like this is Bioshock 2, as the doors lock permanently behind you after each level in that game

so, both Bioshock 1 and Infinite are built to support exploration with checkpoints, it's just not really used, the only odd one out is Bioshock 2 as they were not even trying to larp exploration or a simulation type experience with that one

I remember the exploration in Bioshock 1 to be heavily downplayed when compared to SS1 and SS2. Technically not a corridor shooter, but still... I will really (positively) be surprised to see a new game that features a non-linear exploration without checkpoints like in SS2.