Ever since it began, all the way back in 2007, the BioShock series has cast a long shadow over the gaming landscape. Its innovative mix of in-depth narrative and exhilarating combat, along with some of the most fascinating settings in all of gaming, made it an instant classic.
With the announcement that a new iteration of the series is in the works, let’s take a look at a few features we would love to see in a new BioShock game.
A Fresh Setting
The first two games in the trilogy are set in the sunken city of Rapture. Rapture was once a proud utopian Objectivist state pulled straight from Ayn Rand’s psyche, but during the timeframe that the games are set in, it is now a leaking and nightmarish playground for the monstrous Splicers.
Infinite’s flying city of Columbia was a similarly intriguing setting. It exchanged the Libertarian values of Rapture for a hyper-Capitalist, not to mention uber-racist and ultra-nationalist, take on the turn of the century American values (complete with literal founder worship).
But, fascinating though these settings might be, I think I’ve seen enough of them. Rapture, in particular, seems thoroughly mined, as we even returned there during Infinite’s DLC.
And although Infinite’s cosmology has seemingly painted the series into a certain narrative conceit, (“There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a man, there’s always a city”), even within the confines of those parameters, there is still plenty of room to explore humanities worst excesses, something BioShock has been doing since the very beginning.
How about an underground Socialist paradise, or a Communist state floating freely in the stars? After all, it’s in the aftermath of grand ideals that these games take place.
A Recurring Antagonist
The Big Sister was introduced in BioShock 2, in stark contrast to the iconic Big Daddy that is often the series mascot. Lightning fast, deadly, and totally devoid of mercy, the Big Sister was, in many ways, the BioShock’s series take on Resident Evil’s Nemesis.
Throughout the course of the game, you would fight her multiple times in unscripted combat, and each encounter would push you and the resources you might have amassed to the absolute limit.
The Big Sister would announce her entrance into an area with an otherworldly scream, and if BioShock wasn’t a horror game, it becomes one for the rest of the encounter.
BioShock Infinite’s Songbird fulfilled a similar role, albeit in more of a narrative sense. While still intimidating, and cool as hell, Songbird never quite achieved the level of existential dread that the Big Sister inspired.
I would like to see a similar system in the new BioShock but further expanded and on a larger scale. More on that below…
Get Back to Basics…
Throughout the course of the series, many mechanical innovations were added to the BioShock games, with varying degrees of success.
Few would argue that the introduction of dual-wielding in Bioshock 2 was anything short of fantastic. The ability to fire off both plasmids and firearms at the same time was incredibly satisfying, and actually one of the reasons I find the original game harder to return to.
Less popular was the introduction of a rechargeable shield in the third iteration. It might seem innocuous enough at first glance but it fundamentally changes how the game is played.
Suddenly firefights were more reminiscent of Halo than of earlier BioShock games, and you could simply duck behind cover to recharge your shields, lessening the importance of resource management.
This makes encounters far less engaging and takes away some of the elation you would feel when finding that all-important restorative item after or during a big fight. Immersive sim games can be hard to define, but few would disagree that scrounging through bins and cupboards are an important and essential aspect of them.
…While Moving the Series Forward
Rapture itself was founded so that great minds could further mankind freely, without moral impediment or fear of the intervention of church or state.
So too should the new BioShock push boundaries, and seek to expand what the series can be. While it might seem trite, I think this can be achieved by adopting some of the better trends of recent years.
A lot of games these days incorporate some kind of RPG-lite system to deepen the gameplay, and BioShock games have always straddled the line between RPG and shooter. The BioShock trilogy already offers a sort of build variety, with the plasmids and tonics you have equipped defining your “class.”
I would like to see this explored upon, and expanded manifold. The classic fighter/mage/rogue trinity could easily be adapted, with characters focusing on firearms, plasmids or gadgets/hacking respectively.
And while it might be a little overplayed at this point, I can’t imagine a series that would be better served by some Souls-like elements. Increase the difficulty to up the tension and make gear choice more meaningful, and introduce some more fearsome mini-boss encounters, like the aforementioned Big Sister adaptation, and I think you could have something truly special.
Make it Open World
This one just seems so obvious. It’s amazing to think that even Infinite was released before the gaming industry was smothered by open-world games.
Rapture and Columbia both would have felt more cohesive if they weren’t divided up into zones and separated by loading screens, and I don’t think many would disagree.
Columbia’s Sky-hook would have been a fantastic way to link the city together, and similarly, bathyspheres could have allowed for rapid transport between Rapture’s districts.
Just imagine what could be done in a new BioShock, supported by next-gen hardware and tech. Imagine having to fight your way across a ruined city the size of Red Dead Redemption 2’s map, or being hunted through it by something like a Big Sister.
Imagine the emergent gameplay that could come of the systems already in place, writ large. When you had locked down an area in BioShock by hacking turrets and cameras, you felt like you were in control. The problem was that you would then move to a new area, and need to start again.
Now imagine you have locked down a major thoroughfare in an open and persistent world, where enemies need to pass through *your* territory regularly. One can dream, right?
We won’t find out what Cloud Chamber’s vision for the next BioShock will look like for quite some time yet, it’s already fast becoming one of our most anticipated titles. These games are very special, and I look forward to their next iteration.
If anyone from Cloud Chamber is reading this, would you kindly incorporate some of the above ideas?
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