PROJECT SAKURA WARS
BIOSHOCK SHOULD EMBRACE CLIMATE POLITICS AND HAVE US RECAPTURE A DECAYING RAPTURE.
Though I loved BioShock: Infinite it was the dark confines of the original game that really caught my attention. It would be good for Cloud Chamber to take the series back to the claustrophobia of the original cramped corridors. Setting the game in the future, when climate change has drained the oceans and Rapture’s aged corpse has risen above the ocean, would offer a unique blend of nostalgia and political comment as the world’s powers seek answers in the doomed city, to save the world or save themselves from climate disaster. Politics in our games? It’s needed in a new BioShock.
I’M ALMOST HOPING CLOUD CHAMBER’S BIOSHOCK SNEAKS UP ON ME…
Infinite opened up worlds of possibility with its story but too often its gunplay felt overly familiar – even in 2013. BioShock has always shown us worlds rife with paranoia and hidden darkness so it would make sense for skulking in the shadows to come back in a big way. I’d want more than vents to crawl through and guards with incredibly short memories, but stealth could be the mechanical change of pace the series needs. All I ask is that it doesn’t go with the flow of the nostalgia cycle; a BioShock lampooning Reaganomics could be interesting, but there’s already a wearying deluge of alternate visions of the ’80s.
MAYBE IT’S TIME TO FULFIL THE PROMISE OF THINKING WITH YOUR PORTALS.
There was a lot to love about the skybound BioShock Infinite, but the finished result was different to the early builds that were shown off. Early on, there was much more emphasis on Elizabeth’s ability to open portals to other worlds in the gameplay, not just in scripted events or to summon in things like cover. It’d be great to use new tech to have the entirety of the new game take place in multiple environments, and have it so we feel like we move more seamlessly through Rapture, Columbia, and maybe one or two other new environments, such as a secret south pole Egyptian-style sci-fi city under an ice dome.
BIOSHOCK NEEDS TO EMBRACE THE ERA OF PEACE AND LOVE.
I found the alternate midcentury of the first two BioShock’s much more interesting than Infinite’s steampunk setting, so I’d like to see a return to that period. The first two games both ended with the Little Sisters on the surface – can you imagine Big Sister Eleanor Lamb in the early 1970s as some sort of hippie guru, taking on or possibly even becoming (depending on your choices) another Charles Manson or Reverend Jim Jones? The BioShock series has never shied away from exploring utopian and dystopian theories, and there’s plenty of room to develop plotlines based on both in that turbulent time period.