BioShock 4 job listings hint at open world bonanza

As Cloud Chamber, the 2K Games studio in charge of the latest BioShock, lists a bounty of new developer positions online, it’s time for some investigation and speculation about what this means for the next BioShock title. 

The as-yet-untitled BioShock 4 is plain to see as an open-world game thanks to the job listing for a Senior Writer position on their website. “We’re hoping to find someone who can weave impactful, character-driven stories in an open world setting” the listing reads, as a concrete indicator of the game to come.

As part of this Senior Writer position, Cloud Chamber is looking for someone who can “brainstorm primary and secondary mission content” alongside the design team. Secondary mission content sounds a fair bit like some kind of side quests, an obvious feature in open-world games. It’s entirely possible however that they’re just looking for some optional mission objectives for the open world’s missions. 

There’s also talk of wanting to make “ the game world feel alive, encouraging players to stay and explore” as seen on the new job listing for the Senior World Designer.

This position is also looking for someone who can create “emerging AI behavior to create a “living” world that offers players variety at every step of the game” which sounds like a continuation of the “meaningful AI urban crowd system” that we’ve seen in previous job listings. 

With BioShock 4 still a long way off, there’s no telling what the final product might look like, but we’ll be keeping an eye out to see how these job listings translate into the final game when we know more.