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For more than a decade, the future of BioShock has been a story of false starts, studio shakeups, and a struggle to meet the expectations tied to one of gaming’s most celebrated franchises.
The project, first pitched in 2014, has dragged into one of the lengthiest and most chaotic productions in gaming.
The latest blow came in 2025, when Take-Two cut nearly a third of Cloud Chamber, the studio tasked with reviving the series, leaving more than 80 developers without jobs and pushing the release date further into the distance.
Why Has Development Been Stuck for So Long?
BioShock’s journey after Infinite has been anything but smooth, beginning at Certain Affinity before Take-Two cut the project and formed Cloud Chamber in 2017.
Even then, development was unstable as promising early demos were undone by constant design changes, leadership turnover, and the disruptive move from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.
The technical change led to rewrites and asset reworks that stretched the schedule for years.
Internal reviews further complicated matters, with executives calling the game “good, but not good enough,” pointing directly at weaknesses in its story.
How Bad Are the Cuts at Cloud Chamber?
Trouble showed itself most visibly through layoffs, which saw Cloud Chamber drop about a third of its 250 employees.
Take-Two framed the decision as a need to “rework aspects that are core to BioShock,” a roundabout way of saying the project was falling short.
To stabilize the situation, the publisher brought in Rod Fergusson, an industry veteran known for stepping into crisis projects.
Fergusson helped finish BioShock Infinite during its own troubled development and later played a similar role with Diablo IV.
His new role as head of both Cloud Chamber and the BioShock franchise suggests the company hopes he can once again drag a struggling game over the finish line.
Why Are Fans Losing Faith?
The sense that BioShock is “dead on arrival” comes not from a single bad decision, but from a long series of them.
Over the years, the project has gone through multiple reboots, experimented with different gameplay structures, and cycled through leadership teams without ever locking into a clear vision.
Fans argue that an open-world approach could undercut the tightly crafted and atmospheric style that defined the earlier games.
Others point out that the loss of Ken Levine and many original creatives means this new installment risks being BioShock in name only.
Comparisons to Duke Nukem Forever and Dead Island 2 have become common, with people fearing this game will either collapse completely or limp across the finish line as a compromised product.
Take-Two keeps saying the game is alive, with CEO Strauss Zelnick insisting, “It’s going to come out,” but layoffs, story rewrites, and delays make that claim hard to trust.
The timeline, once rumored for late 2026 or early 2027, is now indefinite.
Whether Fergusson can pull off another rescue remains to be seen, but the project’s long and messy history has eroded much of the optimism that once surrounded it.
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