Cloud Chamber, which is developing a new game in the BioShock series, has lost nearly a third of its staff due to layoffs at Take-Two Interactive. At the same time, the company has hired Rod Ferguson, who once helped finish development on BioShock Infinite, as the studio's head, Bloomberg reports.
Cloud Chamber has offices in the U.S. and Canada and had about 250 employees before the layoffs. 2K Games, which is responsible for publishing BioShock, confirmed that the studio is undergoing layoffs, but did not specify the exact number of people. At the same time, Bloomberg sources say that they have affected about 80 people.
"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," said a letter that 2K Games president David Ismailer sent to employees.
Due to layoffs and management changes, the release of the new BioShock, scheduled for late 2026 - early 2027, has been postponed. This will further delay the development, which has been ongoing since 2014, after the release of BioShock Infinite. No new release dates have been announced yet.
In general, the development of the fourth part of BioShock has a difficult history. After the author of the series Ken Levine refused to continue working on it to found Ghost Story Games and work on Judas, 2K Games began looking for new developers. At first, the project was entrusted to Certain Affinity, known for Halo and Call of Duty. But after three years, the publisher decided to take everything under its control and created its own studio Cloud Chamber, to which it transferred BioShock.
For several years, Cloud Chamber built a studio and worked on the game in parallel, even showing a demo that the management liked. But the project was made on Unreal Engine 4, which became a problem. Later, they decided to switch to UE5, and this took a lot of time and resources, adding several more years to the protracted development.
A few years later, Cloud Chamber released a second demo, which was again approved by 2K executives. But within the studio, the typical industry problems remained, from technical difficulties to a lack of a clear vision for the final game.
The studio grew rapidly and went through several management changes, which eventually led to its current situation: the reduction of almost a third of the team and the appointment of a new head. This was Rod Ferguson, known in the industry as a "closer" - the person who brings projects to release. He was the one who helped complete BioShock Infinite when he joined Irrational Games in 2012.
The new BioShock is still far from finished. Internal reviews in 2025 found the game to be good, but not great. This increases the pressure on the team, who feel they are being blamed for management's miscalculations.