BioShock 4 is on the way from Cloud Chamber, and based on several job listings, it will integrate more RPG features than the series has been known for in the past. This has left fans with huge questions about the future of the franchise.

The BioShock games are beloved, but they are not without their limitations. The combat across the series has been criticized, for example, and could be particularly repetitive in BioShock Infinite. The original BioShock's final boss fight was so infamous that series creator Ken Levine apologized for it over a decade later. Although BioShock 4's RPG features could bring big change, there are also some ways they might help overcome one of the series' most notable shortcomings.

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The BioShock games have famously strong stories and dive into philosophical and political themes without pulling punches, but the stories are also very fixed for an interactive medium. Although players can find BioShock's audio logs throughout the series' settings that reveal more about the background of the world and certain characters, there are very few ways for the player to affect the story or to use the knowledge they uncover to change the course of the plot. The audio logs simply offer the player greater understanding of the broader, fixed narrative they are watching play out.

The audio logs act as nuggets of exposition that the player can find throughout the world, but while they help build a better idea of Rapture and Columbia those worlds aren't being interacted with directly. There are other games which explore philosophical themes like free will and determinism through the interactivity and freedom of choice gaming offers, most notably games like The Stanley Parable.

In contrast, the largely fixed nature of BioShock's stories is one of the reasons that some fans have remained so hopeful that a BioShock movie may one day be made. Under the surface, the series' stories are not particularly reliant upon being told through an interactive medium.

Previous BioShock games have integrated the player's lack of freedom into their themes. BioShock 1's twist revealed that the player character had been under the effects of mind control activated by the phrase "would you kindly," which their supposed ally Atlas had been using over radio throughout the game. BioShock Infinite presented players with arbitrary choices like Elizabeth's brooch.

Even life-or-death decisions like whether or not to kill or spare Cornelius Slate didn't impact much. Slate can be found in the world if spared, but killing him doesn't change the arc of events or the game's ending. In fact, the twist in BioShock Infinite reveals that the plot is taking place in just one of many alternate realities, in some of which Slate was presumably killed.

In this sense, both BioShock 1 and BioShock Infinite explore the confines of gaming as a storytelling medium. BioShock 1 played on the fact that most players would unquestioningly complete the objectives sent to them by Atlas as they'd complete the missions in any other game to progress through the story. BioShock Infinite played with the idea of each playthrough and their slight variances representing different realities.

It has been hinted, however, that BioShock 4 will not take the same determinist approach. Job listings on the Cloud Chamber website have hinted that BioShock 4 will have an open world and a branching, Fallout-like dialogue system. This would imply that players will be able to approach the story from a greater number of angles, and will be able to affect the outcome of events far more than in previous games.

This could be a huge boon for BioShock. Giving players the opportunity to change events in the story could allow the next game to explore a totally new perspective on some familiar BioShock themes like free will. At the same time, introducing RPG elements like branching storylines and cascading consequences could decrease the series' reliance on expository narrative devices like audio logs. It could also help BioShock 4's storyline to explore how the medium has developed.

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The first BioShock explored the idea that players would unquestioningly complete the game's instructions, and played on the assumptions of the limits of gaming as a storytelling medium in 2007. In the 2020s, however, Cloud Chamber has a very different set of expectations to play with and integrate into its narrative's themes. After a decade packed with high-profile RPGs, including some series like Assassin's Creed incorporating more RPG elements, players now expect to have a greater influence on games' story than before.

BioShock 4's RPG elements could help exploit the expectations of modern gamers just as the original did during its own time. The previous games told stories about the player's lack of choice through relatively linear narratives. Cloud Chamber has the opportunity to tell a story which explores free will by giving players a far greater number of choices than any past BioShock game, from the order in which they explore the areas of the world to their dialogue options when talking to NPCs.

Ultimately the extent to which BioShock 4 will incorporate RPG features remains to be seen. While multiple job listings have mentioned open worlds, for example, they are only requesting past experience and don't necessarily point to features which will be included in the next game. BioShock Infinite established that there is "there's always a lighthouse. There's always a man. There's always a city." Incorporating far more choices into BioShock 4 could be a great way to subvert the expectation among some fans that BioShock 4 will be another version of the story told in BioShock 1 and Infinite, just in another parallel reality.

If nothing else, incorporating elements like dialogue options while attempting to tell a story with the same philosophical focus as past BioShock games could be a great way for the series to continue pushing the boundaries of interactive storytelling. Whether or not Cloud Chamber will be able to pull of the story without series' creator Ken Levine remains to be seen.

BioShock 4 is currently in development.

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