Summary
- Recent leaks suggest BioShock 4 may have time-control mechanics & Plasmid abilities, but it's all still unconfirmed.
- An open world design could enhance world-building & exploration in BioShock 4, offering more opportunities for immersive storytelling.
- However, straying from the series' linear structure may risk losing the atmospheric momentum that defines BioShock's unique appeal.
It’s looking more and more like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:BioShock 4 could be revealed soon. Last week, the studio ⛦shared a variety of job postings indicating that production 🌸is ramping up, and we’ve also seen 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a possible in-game screenshot that shows us what the game’s UI looksℱ like. From recent leaks, it looks like the new BioShock game might have time-control mechanics, as well as the usual Plasmid abilities.
The unconfirmed leak tells us that the game is in active development, but there are still a lot of things that aren’t clear. We don’t know anything about the game, really, but 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:previous job postings tell us that at least at some point, BioShock 4 was meant to be an open world game. Games can change a lot in the development process – after all, was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a multiplayer title at some point, a decision that was merc♉ifully reversed – but these new leaks have me thinking again a♊bout how an open world BioShock could either be really good, or really bad.
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In Defence Of An Open-World BioShock 4
I bounced off the BioShock games pretty hard – they freaked me out, and I have a very low tolerance for horror in video games – but I’ve played enough of them to know what their strengths and weaknesses are. BioShock’s atmosphere, the very thing that scared me enough to uninstall the games, is one of its strongest traits. The series has always excelled at worldbuilding, and an open world design can, if done well, open up a lot of opportunities for deeper world-build𒐪ing and more exciting exploration.
For example, environmental storytelling could be very interesting in BioShock 4. Considering that the series has so🔯 much lore and that its worlds feel so detailed and lovingly-crafted, moving away from the constrained levels the series is known for and making more open, explorable areas could allow players to discover the world’s secrets more organically.
As BioShock stands, an open-world approach would shine most if combined with more immersive sim style gameplay. Right now, with its constrained levels, the game feels more like a straightforward FPS, and there are very limited ways in which to approach a situation or make builds that feel meaningfully different from each other. Treating an open world as being more dense as opposed to bigger could o🧔ffer more ways to appro🍃ach gameplay. Like Watch Dogs, but better.
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An Open-World BioShock 4 Could Strip It Of Its Best Parts
But the game I’m describing above isn’t what BioShock is known for, so I’m not sure it would even still be a BioShock game. The atmosphere and wor💯ld that the existing games have become known for were created exactly because they are structured and linear, and without momentum and tension to propel players forward, a lot of that atmosphere could be easily lost.
The closest thing we have to an open world BioShock right now is BioShock Infinite, because it has some more open areas, but it’s definitely not actually open world. Moving through the game𒆙 feels like you’re moving with intention through detailed, hand-crafted levels, and taking that intention and focus out of the game could go awfully awry.
And while I said earlier that an open-world format could technically give the game more room for environmental storytelling, it’s far more likely that it would fall into the same trap that most modern open world games do – too muc𒁃h to do, and none of it with substance. What makes BioShock a series worth returning to is that it’s not that. Getting side-tracked by fetch quests would stall momentum entirely, a death sentence for a series that’s so focused on atmosphe💎re and propulsion.
We don’t know anything about BioShock 4, and we definitely don’t know if it’s actually an open world game. But in a gaming landscape absolutely awash with open world RPGs that can feel more like chores than like fun, I’m hoping that in the wake of new leaks, BioShock 4 isn’t going to🎀 be what we think. I want it to stick to what it’s good at, not do what’s in trend.
