With BioShock 4 in development, many fans are devouring any details they can find about the follow-up to some of the most highly regarded games ever made. Rumors have been circulating, with some strong evidence backing, that the game will be designed in an open-world format. While this definitely could work for the franchise, certain aspects of what made BioShock so popular need to be handled with care. A large part of what made its world seem so fleshed out was the slow but steady crawl of backstory revealed with audio recordings and the like.
The long dormant BioShock's return is long overdue. Based on job listings online BioShock 4 is reportedly being developed in an open-world setting. The cramped corridors of Rapture and the open air streets of Columbia were teeming with character. Even the more literally open city of Columbia was still full of narrow passageways and claustrophobic locations that felt more expansive but still contained. Moving into a fully open world will likely prove more difficult to truly capture the same level of immersion, and there are certain pitfalls that need to be avoided for the game to garner the high praise of its predecessors.
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One of the most engaging facets of the first BioShock titles was the way players uncovered more of its history. Recordings of both events that spurred the downfall of Rapture and the personal musings of the people who built Columbia serve to build a world that felt cohesive and lived in.
Crafting BioShock 4 as an open-world game will have its own hurdles and emulating this feeling of life will certainly be one. More often than not, open-world games become cluttered with a variety of different collectibles and small side quests. It's too easy to imagine the audio recordings, journals, and other records becoming diluted as just another item to pick up on the way to one-hundred percent completion. The backstory of a new BioShock needs to feel more like piecing together a puzzle and less like collecting flags in the original Assassin's Creed.
Maintaining the mystery of whatever new game world is being developed for BioShock 4 will be a balancing act of giving players reasons to explore the world, while not muddling the experience of piecing together its lore. BioShock has inspired many games since its inception that it will now be judged against. But on the same coin, inspiration from more modern titles could go a long way for BioShock.
Open-world games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Ghost of Tsushima have shown that the balance between sheer volume and quality of content is possible. Both of those games do a good job of revealing more about its world through dialogue with NPCs, small journals and notes, and actually seeing those events.
BioShock 4 already has its work cut out for it, the originals are some of the most critically-acclaimed games. Handling things like collectible lore will be another challenge for the game to achieve. Other titles have shown that it is possible, but BioShock 4 will need to toe the line carefully. But with so much story to work with between BioShock and BioShock: Infinite the new game will have plenty of places from which to pull inspiration.
BioShock 4 is currently in development.