There's quite a bit of evidence suggesting that the next BioShock - for now known as BioShock 4 - will be an open-world RPG. Cloud Chamber will be the new studio tackling the franchise. Since its foundation the studio has posted job listings asking for experience designing open worlds and branching dialogue systems which seem to suggest a big shift coming to the series.
Many fans will be divided about BioShock 4's possible RPG features, so it's worth discussing the potential pros and cons of BioShock's RPG turn.
The Pros
Making an open-world BioShock RPG could be exactly the adrenaline shot the series needs for a full-fledged comeback in the 2020s. The last BioShock released back in 2013, and in some ways the series is a victim of its own success. Once innovative storytelling devices like BioShock's audio tapes now seem dated, for example. Though Rapture and Columbia still feel large when players get a view of the skyline, the actual spaces they are able to explore in the old games may feel far more constrictive in a modern context if BioShock doesn't have an open world.
Giving players a lot of choice would also be an interesting divergence from the BioShock games so far. BioShock 1's twist revealed that the player had no free will and was in fact under mind control, commanded by the phrase "would you kindly." BioShock Infinite gave the player several arbitrary choices like Elizabeth's brooch, but in the end showed that those choices had very little effect when it revealed that the story was part of a multiverse where "there's always a lighthouse, there's always a man, there's always a city."
Not only would it make it a fresh change for BioShock 4 to explore free will in a genre that actually gives the player meaningful choices, but an open-world BioShock RPG could also help establish a new continuity distinct from the old games. The lighthouse-man-city formula established that BioShock 1 and BioShock Infinite were connected realities playing out the same rough events, and Cloud Chamber will need to be sure players go into BioShock 4 without expecting the same formula to play out again. Shifting towards the RPG genre has worked wonder for series like Assassin's Creed, so it could be just what BioShock 4 needs.
The Cons
There are some major potential downsides to this RPG turn, however. The BioShock games are known for their extremely well constructed, character-driven stories. These stories unflinchingly criticize philosophies from Ayn Rand's Objectivism in Andrew Ryan's Rapture to Comstock's American nationalism in Columbia. Players don't have a great deal of control over their player characters' backstories or even the events in the games, and there are a clear series of events that are central to each game's themes. Booker DeWitt, for example, was always present at the Battle of Wounded Knee, and Jack is always Ryan's son. When it comes to roleplaying freedom versus fixed plotpoints, something has got to give.
Giving players too much control over the story's direction could lead to the series' strong philosophical themes getting muddled. What if Jack didn't have to kill Andrew Ryan? What if BioShock Infinite didn't have to end with Booker being drowned? BioShock 4 will have to tread with extreme care if it's going to give players a non-linear story with meaningful choices in an open-world, and still tell the kind of tightly woven story that made the franchise famous to begin with.
Of course, Cloud Chamber's job listings don't necessarily indicate features which will be included in the game. For now, fans have no choice but to wait and see where BioShock 4 will be set, and what kind of story the series' new studio hopes to tell.
BioShock 4 is currently in development.