It's been twelve and a half years since Irrational Games launched BioShock Infinite, the last installment in the immersive single player first-person shooter franchise. Franchise creator Ken Levine notoriously decided to disband the studio and form the much smaller Ghost Story Games, which is now working on Judas. Levine recently stated that Judas shares some similarities with the BioShock franchise, but it is also different in many ways.
Meanwhile, Take-Two's publishing label 2K announced in late 2019 that a brand new studio called Cloud Chamber, headquartered in Novato, California, would take stewardship of the BioShock IP. Cloud Chamber had its own fair share of troubles, rebooting the project in 2023 and suffering a big round of layoffs (affecting around 80 employees) as recently as this August, which delayed the new BioShock to the latter half of 2027, according to credible sources.
The former Studio Head, Kelley Gilmore, was also replaced by industry veteran Rod Fergusson, who previously worked at Epic Games, The Coalition, and Blizzard, among others. Fergusson is known to be well-versed in taking over and focusing a studio's resources toward the successful completion of a game, and that's precisely what's needed here. Indeed, speaking during Take-Two's Q2 2026 earnings call (the same one that announced the delay of GTA VI), CEO Strauss Zelnick said the game is now on a great track to take the franchise to the next level. Here's the quote:
We’re very excited that we brought Rod on to lead Cloud Chamber. He is the new head of the BioShock franchise. He’s obviously an incredible industry veteran. He’s got history with the BioShock franchise, specifically with Infinite. He’s also been involved with Gears of War and Diablo. We’re just so grateful that he’s come to work with us at Cloud Chamber. BioShock is a very important franchise for us. It’s one of our biggest franchises. We’re very excited about the release of the next BioShock. We’ve made some changes in the organization. We’re shifting some things around. Right now, we feel that the game is on a great track for us to deliver something that’s going to exceed consumers’ expectations. Not much more to update other than the fact that the next BioShock is going to take the franchise to the next level, which is always our ambition with all of our franchises.
It may take a while, as mentioned above, but franchise fans will be able to tide themselves over with Judas (which is 'coming up', according to Zelnick, and is likely to be ready before the BioShock game) and the BioShock Netflix film adaptation, which will be directed by The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence and should begin production after Lawrence finishes shooting the next movie in that franchise (Sunrise on the Reaping).
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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