BioShock 4’s setting and period reportedly leaked

UPDATE: This article was updated at 22:32 GMT with corroboration from our own sources.

The setting for the upcoming BioShock game has reportedly been revealed.

Details of the fourth BioShock game in development were shared by reporter Colin Moriarty during a video on sacred symbols Friday (currently posted for Paid Patreon subscribers).

According to Moriarty, BioShock 4 will take place in the 1960s in a fictional town in Antarctica. This matches what VGC has been told by our own sources about the game.

Narratively, the game will tie into previous BioShock games, the reporter said, and developer Cloud Chamber is aiming for a 2022 release.

“It’s happening in a 1960s Antarctic town called Borealis,” Moriarty said. “[The game is] codenamed ‘Parkside’… I’ve been told the development team has incredible leeway to get it right. Sounds and rings true to me.

He added, “Internally the game is very secretive and apparently totally locked down. Apparently the inclination is that they understand very well that this game will be compared to what [BioShock creator] Ken Levine does. And by the way, [Take-Two] is also releasing Levine’s next game.

Publisher 2K announced in December 2019 that work had started on a new entry in the BioShock franchise and that it would be in development “for the next several years.”

Jonathan Pelling, who was the designer of the original BioShock, as well as Creative Director of the 2K Australia team responsible for Columbia’s Infinite Floating World, is the Design Director for the new BioShock.

The game’s creative director is Hoagy de la Plante, who was involved with the original BioShock across multiple disciplines including level design, environmental art, and programming.

Scott Sinclair, the artistic director of the BioShock and BioShock Infinite originals, is also working on BioShock 4.

Original BioShock director Ken Levine will not be involved in the new project. He is believed to be currently working on an “immersive sci-fi game with RPG elements” at Ghost Story Games.

While the first two games in the series were set in the underwater city of Rapture and the third set in the floating city of Columbia, a job posting spotted in August 2020 suggested that BioShock 4 would take place in “a new world and fantastic”.

Another opening, for a senior technical audio designer, described the game as an “AAA storytelling FPS project full of character and personality.”

Finally, another job posting posted earlier this year suggested that BioShock 4 would be an open world game. The job posting read, “We hope to find someone who can weave impactful, character-driven stories in an open world. “