BioShock 4 is Alive! (But Take-Two's CEO is Speaking in Tongues About 'Great' Being The 'New Great')
AI Gaming News Author · Rock Paper Shotgun ·
Take-Two's CEO confirms *BioShock 4* is definitely coming despite development troubles, but then launches into a baffling speech about 'good being the new bad' and 'great being the new great,' proving that corporate speak can bend reality (and language) itself.
Right, so gather 'round, mates, because I’ve been tinkering with some news that's wilder than a rogue spell in a wizard's pocket. We're talking about the mythical beast known as *BioShock 4*, and whether it's actually going to see the light of day. Good news on that front, apparently! But then things get…philosophical, in that uniquely corporate way that makes you wonder if you've accidentally stepped into a parallel dimension where words have lost all meaning.
Before we dive into the linguistic labyrinth, let's get the core intel out there, as initially reported by Bloomberg and further explored by Rock Paper Shotgun. There've been whispers, dark and unsettling, about *BioShock 4* hitting a rough patch. Reports of internal progress checks being failed, the story needing a complete overhaul (ouch), and some poor devs being reassigned to other projects. Not exactly the kind of news you want to hear about a game with a legacy as revered as *BioShock*.
But here’s Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, stepping into the spotlight like a wizard reassuring us his conjuring trick didn't just summon a grumpy badger. When IGN pressed him on whether *BioShock 4* was in danger of getting canned, he pretty much threw his hands up and declared, “It’s going to come out. That I can say hand on heart, without question.” Phew! Good to know the cosmic horror and objectivist dystopia will continue. He did admit to "ups and downs" and "changes in studio leadership" – which, let's be fair, is corporate-speak for "yeah, we've had a bit of a nightmare getting this one off the ground." You know, like when your potion explodes and you're left with green smoke and no eyebrows.
Now, here’s where Zelnick started to… well, spin a yarn. He spoke about the immense pressure of living up to the 'legacy' of Ken Levine (fair dinkum, that’s a big ask) and the previous games. He wants *BioShock 4* to be "true to the BioShock DNA on the one hand, and a massive step forward on the other hand." Totally get that. We all want that impossible balance. But then he veered off into a philosophical treatise on game development cycles, and that's where my wizard hat nearly fell off.
According to Zelnick, games are taking longer to make because "consumers seek quality and everyone realises that the consumer is highly demanding and properly so." Okay, fine. Makes sense. We *do* want quality, especially after some of the…less-than-stellar launches we've seen lately. He went on to say that Take-Two's strategy has always been to make "the best entertainment, not necessarily the most entertainment." Again, a noble goal, though some might argue they've stumbled a "precious few times" (cough, *GTA Online* monetization, cough).
But then, the words started to perform a bizarre interpretive dance. Zelnick dropped this gem: "Good is the new bad, great is the new great. And our goal here is to make everything exceptional."
Bloody hell, mate. 'Good is the new bad'? I can almost wrap my head around that, in a weird, hyper-saturated market kind of way. Like, if a game is just 'good', it gets lost in the noise of a million other 'good' games, and only 'great' truly stands out. It's the digital equivalent of every other kid on the block suddenly being a child prodigy, so 'prodigy' becomes the new 'average'.
But then… 'great is the new great'? What in the name of Eldritch horrors does that even mean? Is it a tautology? A declaration that greatness is still great? It’s like saying 'water is the new water'. It just…is. How can something be the 'new' version of itself? Perhaps Zelnick accidentally cast a 'confuse language' spell and forgot the counter-charm. It’s the kind of statement that makes you scratch your head and wonder if he's trying to redefine the dictionary or just had too much marketing jargon for breakfast.
And then, to top it all off, the grand finale: "make everything exceptional." Now, I'm all for high standards. But 'exceptional' by definition means standing out, being an exception. If *everything* is exceptional, then nothing is. It's like trying to make every single star in the sky the brightest. You just end up with an unmanageably dazzling, indistinguishable mess. He's clearly run out of superlatives beyond 'great' and 'exceptional', desperately trying to communicate a level of ambition that the English language simply wasn't built for. It’s a bit like trying to fit a universe into a thimble.
Look, I get it. CEOs talk in a certain way. They're trying to project confidence, set high bars, and appease investors. But when the pursuit of unfathomable profits and the pressure to deliver 'blockbusters' pushes corporate speak to the point of breaking the language itself, it reveals a deeper issue. It hints at the absurd expectations heaped upon games these days. If 'good' isn't good enough, and 'great' is just the new baseline, what happens when we run out of words for truly groundbreaking, mind-blowing experiences? Are we going to start calling them 'super-mega-fantastic-uber-masterpieces' that are also somehow 'one-of-a-kind' even though all their games are like that?
It makes you wonder, doesn't it? Is this the cost of chasing impossible levels of success in an increasingly demanding market? By all means, aim to make the best possible game. We, the players, absolutely want that. But when the metric for success requires verbal acrobatics that defy logic, it makes me cautiously optimistic about *BioShock 4* actually releasing, but also gently skeptical about the industry's ability to maintain a realistic perspective on what 'quality' truly means when every single thing has to be 'exceptional.' Still, *BioShock 4* is coming. And that, mate, is pretty great… even if 'great' is the new 'great'.
Tags: Gaming Industry, BioShock 4, Game Development, Corporate Culture, AAA Games
Original article: Rock Paper Shotgun