Take-Two Interactive, who owns major publishing labels, Rockstar Games and 2K, has a jam-packed resume full of massively successful games and franchises. We are talking about GTA, Borderlands, BioShock, Red Dead, and more. Keeping in mind that among these, Borderlands and Red Dead received new games in their respective franchises across multiple platforms over the last year, and GTA, which is touting massive success with its GTA Online service through GTAV, are all not likely to get new entries any time soon (although GTA could get something new sooner than later), leaving BioShock as the most probable franchise to get a sequel (prequel or spinoff) within the next year or two.
Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick spoke during a recent earnings call stating that TTI has the “strongest development pipeline in history” and that fans can expect “sequels from our biggest franchises as well as exciting new IP”. Zelnick added a bunch of speak about financial growth and expansion, and blah, blah, blah, The real meat here is that we will be getting “sequels” to their biggest franchises, which to us suggests that multiple franchises will be getting fresh new titles soon, further supporting that BioShock 3 (or whatever its called) will be announced within the next year or so (most likely during E3 2020).
Sure, this could all be conjecture, but what is even more interesting is that while this is hard evidence that sequels are in the works over in the Take-Two camp, a new job listing opened up at publisher 2K for an ‘End Game Design Lead’ with a job description containing curious bits like “Fantastic World” and “Incredible Story”, something that many fans would describe about any one of the BioShock games.
Additionally, it sounds like that whatever this game is, if it turns out to be a BioShock title, could end up being a live service title as it also describes the ‘End Game Design Lead’ position as having involvement in content beyond the main campaign. The exact description read as
“The world, by contrast, is something we are designing to be alive and engaging past the main narrative arc.”
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is for BioShock, but as usual, we should make sure to temper expectations and point out that none of this is entirely confirmed (obviously) and to take it with a grain of salt. We are here to provide you with insight into the industry and with news of what we hear ourselves, so it could be a new BioShock, or it could not be. However, we feel strongly that 2020 will give us a direct answer to that.