New setting means... space, I guess? You pretty much need somewhere free of government interference unless they're going to go for a completely different approach.



I'd somewhat defend Bioshock Infinite from the criticisms leveled at it. As an out and out game it isn't anything special at all, but then neither was Bioshock, and in many respects SS2 was worse in purely gameplay respects and was extraordinarily unbalanced (n.b. SS2 is perhaps my favourite game of all time. Of all time!).

So, gameplay wise it's not exactly groundbreaking in any respect, but at least it's also not actively poor either. As with other Levine games it's the other stuff that makes the game worthwhile. The plot is typical Levine fare, trying to deconstruct an -ism* through game plot is always ambitious given that most game plots are either vestigial, or hopelessly preachy/ inchoerent when trying to be deep; but has more or less worked every time Levine has done it even if just as a scaffold to hang a more standard plot on. The main problem is the same as with the Bioshock (1) meta plot, pointing out the inherent lack of actual choice in a game then doing nothing with that observation beside making it. At least in Infinite the -ism being deconstructed is literally determinism itself though, so still having to follow the plot with no choice makes philosophical sense.

It also helps if you know a bit of quantum theory since then it's pretty obvious that the Lutece's are not exactly biological twins from very early on; plus it goes through a lot of the arguments about time travel and whether you can change the past/ free choice vs inevitability etc. Indeed, most people would consider the also trademark Levine plot twist to be at the end of the game in Infinite instead of half way through, but the Constantine/ Polito/ Ryan half way twist is there, if you know to look for it.

*the ism list, for anyone interested is:
Thief 1: anarchism (pagans+ Trickster)
SS2: communism (The Many)
Bioshock: objectivism (Ryan)
Infinite: determinism (embodied by the quantum twin Luteces)

I loved Bioshock and adored Infinite (for me it was basically one of the best and most complex storys in any FPS or videogame ever). I also enjoyed Bioshock 2 but by far not as much as the other two. However I am sceptical if they should really add another part to this ... then again I was sceptical as well when i first read about infinite and the fact that it won't take place in rapture and as I said it has become my favorite. So maybe I should simply wait and see what they will come up with in the end.

I want to make joke about the next setting is on land but then I realized why not making a huge land with huge tracks so it's like land ship where the land pretty much just rolling around Sahara avoiding detection.

I like Bioshock 2 for its better combat and some neat areas, but overall I'm glad they'll be doing a different city again. Each game having a different wacko fantasy city works for me. I don't mind that they're all connected in some way though, I thought that was a cool twist in Infinite.

While none of them are real "immersive sims" really, I do hope 4 is more like the first two than the more linear and streamlined Infinite.

Exploration?:D this series is not about that Elmofongo
I liked infinite so nice setting ,story is not only good it is one of the best too , fighting is okayish

yeah 0 hype here, hype is for kids
probably it will be at least a year before it will come out anyway

I never understood the hatred BIoshock 2 gets. They improved the mechanics and the story, the choices led to more satisfying endings. People say that it had too many similarities, so what. I consider it to be the strongest title in the series.

Part of that was "game journalists" complaining at the time that "Bioshock 2 was too much like the original" (so were most other sequels that same people praised...) A big problem though is that it gained a bad reputation of "best avoided" due to it being originally released with Games For Windows Live + Securom + SecuROM PA (3x layers of DRM) that required online activation + involved activation limits). When Microsoft scrapped GFWL, the original retail release was made useless and had to be re-released on Steam (and a DRM-Free version as late as Dec 2018). By that time a lot of people who originally downvoted it / wrote bad reviews due to all the DRM had long moved on and hardly anyone ever goes back to change decade old reviews / voting scores.

To be fair if that game is released now with that kind of ridiculous DRM we GOG people that pretty much hate DRM to the bone will shit on it as well. Don't blame the people who dislike it because of stupid DRM, but blame the publisher who decided to use that DRM. If the game doesn't use that DRM a lot more people who actually play it can vouch for that game rather than letting game journalists having monopoly on its review.

Subjective opinion.
Don't you dare insult my Prey (2017) by comparing it to Bioshock:D

Never liked the series, the first game was just a generic shooter posing as a System Shock-like, and the sequels only went downhill from there. Also the fanbase is just awful, bunch of redditors who like to pretend that the series is really deep and mature when in reality it's just CoD with a few puzzles.

Wow, really? You may just as well go through the whole forum copy-pasting that in reply to every post.

Nah, just those which pretentiously call Bioshock: Infinite story pretentious, since it is, in my subjective opinion, only Bioshock game which happens to be slightly better than average.

B/c it was a re-hash and re-usage of a lot of assets. It's more of the same.
Bioshock 1 felt very fresh when it came out.
Bio2, not so much.

Bio2 felt more like an expansion pack than say a new true-blue sequel.

Don't get me wrong, I like the dual-wielding and the new enemies - but it felt like a stand-alone expansion pack, not a full new game. It was still good overall though, IMHO.

And honestly, I preferred Minvera's Den DLC over Bio2 base-game. I loved the Den DLC.

Given how Levine left Bioshock: Infinite w/ the set-up of infinite worlds, multiple worlds, time travel, different time lines, and other stuff of that - yeah, I think it makes tons of sense for all of these sequels to take place in different worlds...where stuff just goes wrong.

I also enjoyed Infinite and its DLC's tying into the classic BioShock world of Rapture and all too.

Overall, great series.

Loved 1, enjoyed 3 and lets see how 4 is when it drops.