BioShock 4 studio Cloud Chamber has been impacted by a significant restructure that will reportedly see 30% of staff being laid off. The news was first reported by Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier, who had reported on turmoil at the company earlier in the month, including that staff had feared impending layoffs after a failed publisher review.
Now, Schreier has reported these fears were founded, and additionally, that former Diablo boss Rod Fergusson has been hired to reshape the Cloud Chamber team, and drive BioShock 4 to release. As Schreier noted, Fergusson did the same for BioShock Infinite, which faced similar challenges.
In a statement to Eurogamer, publisher 2K Games has confirmed these movements, and that Cloud Chamber is being reduced as ‘certain aspects’ of BioShock 4 need reworking.
2K confirms BioShock 4 layoffs
‘BioShock is woven deeply into the fabric of 2K,’ David Ismailer, president of 2K said in an internal memo. ‘It’s one of our most beloved franchises and respecting its legacy and meeting our fans’ expectations is critical to its future success.’
‘Work on the next BioShock game has been underway for several years. While we’re excited about the foundational gameplay elements of the project, we’ve made the decision with studio leadership to rework certain aspects that are core to a BioShock game, and in doing so are reducing the size of the development team to focus on this work and give the game more time in development.’
Read: BioShock 4 gets leadership change due to development challenges
The core in this statement is that BioShock 4 will be delayed as a result of these layoffs, with fewer hands to actually work on its impending overhaul. It appears the thinking is that a more focussed approach, with fewer developers, may result in a more cohesive game – although this will stretch out the game’s development timeline even further, and likely put increased pressure on remaining staff.
Appointing Rod Fergusson to oversee development does seem a more logical choice, at least. Beyond Fergusson’s own history with the BioShock series, he recently departed Blizzard, where he steered the long-gestating Diablo 4 to release. Over his many years in the games industry, Fergusson has earned the nickname ‘The Closer’ as he’s worked on righting many troubled projects.
In a statement, Fergusson expressed great excitement about joining the Cloud Chamber team, although this was tempered by the overall mood and sourness around the company’s restructuring and layoffs.
‘While I’m excited to get started in the coming weeks, I recognise the studio restructuring is a difficult time for the team,’ Fergusson said on X. ‘I’m deeply grateful for the work done so far, and I’m committed to building a BioShock game we’ll be proud of and that our players will love. For now, the firehose of onboarding awaits, and I look forward to sharing more when I can.’
As noted by 2K Games, those departing Cloud Chamber will be offered severance, career services, and support resources. As always, our thoughts are with those folks now departing, who enter a depleted jobs market, in an incredibly difficult time for the games industry, as well as the wider global economy.
Also on ScreenHub: Screen NSW calls for responses to Digital Games Industry Survey
Screen NSW has released its Digital Games Industry Survey, which is designed to help shape the dedicated NSW Digital Games Strategy for the next three years. While the survey will take between 7-10 minutes to complete, that’s down to its complexity – it aims to ask deep questions about the needs of developers, to better shape the support provided by Screen NSW in future.
