Even though no new BioShock games have been announced, the franchise remains “really important” to publisher 2K games, the parent company behind Take-Two Interactive. Speaking during the Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York, CEO Strauss Zelnick said that the BioShock franchise over all has sold more than 25 million copies, and Infinite alone sold 11 million.
“It’s a really important intellectual property for the company, and while I don’t have any announcements to make, yes, it’s a really important franchise for us.” This is great news, especially for people like me who are HUGE fans of the series. It’s one of the only series I can claim I fell in love with every part of, especially everything around Rapture. This is also good news because of Irrational Games effectively closing in February of 2014, it means that there is a chance for a new game even though how good and how loyal it will be to older games (and hopefully more to the first two, no hatred to Infinite, but my love for creepy dark and Gothic makes that my much favored part of the series) is up for debate.
“I think there’s a lot of upside in that franchise. It hasn’t necessarily been realized yet. And the question for the future, assuming we decide to answer the question, would be ‘How do you stay true to that creatively?’; ‘How do you do something exciting?’; and ‘How do you expand the market?’. That would be the natural drill. We’re starting from a good point on it. And certainly it’s been a great piece of business for us; it’s been a profitable piece of business.” Zelnick said about BioShock at the time.
This is happy news, but how it is used and what game that will take us to is still at the wait and see part. I’m hoping for more creepy dystopian Rapture-styled places, but I think I will always have a special place in my heart for those first two games, even if the newest (hopeful) game is nowhere near them.