BioShock 3 Confirmed Despite Lack of BioShock 2

The opposable thumbs blog is reporting that despite a lack of BioShock 2, a third installment of the BioShock universe has been confirmed. "Take Two's Chairman Strauss Zelnick let the news slip during a conference call to investors. The third installment will apparently be strongly linked to the also recently-announced BioShock movie. 'Its unlikely the picture would be released coincident with BioShock 2,' Strauss said of the upcoming film. 'It's more likely it would be released coincident with BioShock 3.'"

Verb Tense is Your Friend.

[Bieeanda]

'It's more likely it would be released coincident with BioShock 3.'

The operative word here is WOULD. Not WILL, but WOULD.

The only implication here is that the movie will take roughly two game development cycles to produce.

Re:Verb Tense is Your Friend.

[IthnkImParanoid]

If verb tense is your friend it's likely unique in that regard. :)

Re:

[Hambone_dot_exe]

It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.

Which are exactly the two concepts that shouldn't be next to each other in a sentence, like, ever.

Re:

[Enlightenment]

I abandoned Ayn Rand in favor of crumpled porno?

Re:

[Mozk]

I think it's more conditional mood than subjunctive mood.

Doesn't quite sound like a confirmation to me

[Gat0r30y]

Sounds more like BioShock 2 will come out well before the movie, and so if a game release was coincident with the movie release it wouldn't be BioShock2.

Re:

[SQLGuru]

I'd like to think of it as the solution to the Star Trek movie problem......if only the odd ones are good, skip the even ones, conversely, if only the even ones are good, skip the odd.

Layne

Re:

[Garganus]

Yeah, this is like a programmer muttering that Spore'll hit shelves right after Duke Nukem Forever, which is going GM right after the end of World War III.
"Insider Sources: WWIII CONFIRMED!"

Re:

[MaXMC]

"Insider Sources: WWIII CONFIRMED!"

WWIII is that the next console from Nintendo? ;)

Re:

[IthnkImParanoid]

SHODAN was a great nemesis, sure, but doesn't it get old and predictable fighting the same enemy ad nauseum? (You'll be sorry when she becomes a farce and joins Bowser on a cart racing game.)

System Shock 2 was awesome largely because you didn't know it was SHODAN until halfway through.

Re:HOW ABOUT A SPOILER ALERT, YOU IGNORANT FUCKSTI

[Jor-Al]

He...He's not going to say fuck stick in front of the children, is he?

Re:HOW ABOUT A SPOILER ALERT, YOU IGNORANT FUCKSTI

[navygeek]

Yes, let's put up a spoiler alert for a game that's 9 years old. Good call hoss. Your attempt at being ironic, at least I hope this is what you were going for, fails on many, many levels.

Sonny Bono was the ignorant fsckutick

[tepples]

Yes, let's put up a spoiler alert for a game that's 9 years old.

It's only 9 years old. That's an order of magnitude less than the age for it being universally acceptable to post a spoiler of a given work. That time comes once the work has been published 95 years ago and the creative leads have been dead for 70.

Re:

[Hatta]

Just because it's old doesn't mean everyone's played it yet. System Shock 1 & 2 were on my queue to get played soon, I may have to put them off for a couple years now so I can forget what I just read.

Re:HOW ABOUT A SPOILER ALERT, YOU IGNORANT F

[Culture20]

Don't worry, the plot was obvious to anyone paying attention.

Re:

[somersault]

System Shock 2 was awesome largely because you didn't know it was SHODAN until halfway through.

Well, there's one interesting but fucking scary/tense game demo that I never need to play the full game of.. :p

Re:

[triso]

[...]
System Shock 2 was awesome largely because you didn't know it was SHODAN until halfway through.

Don't worry 'bout spoilers 'cause no one is going to be playing SS2 anytime soon. It doesn't run under NT, XP, Wine--nothing but Windows 95/98 thanks to a crappy 32-bit library that doesn't work with 32-bit systems (NT and above).

kinda weak

[ILuvRamen]

Yeah and then he added "If there's was a Bioshock 3 but really it's just going to be too late for Bioshock 2 and I just said it would be at the same time as 3 so you'd know it was after 2 but we're not necessarrily making 3" That's how I read it lol.

Re:

[curmudgeous]

Booger, shut up.

"It's been swell but the swelling's gone down."

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

In other words:

[Volatar]

Has there ever been a skipped number in a series of games? If there is going to be a 3, there is going to be a 2.

Prove me wrong.

Re:

[khellendros1984]

Just for you, Volatar, I'll become a major game developer and produce a series that only has a first game and a third one.

Re:

[Volatar]

You would? I am honored :D

Re:

[JebusIsLord]

In the US at least: Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3 then 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12...

of course 2 and 3 were actually 4 and 6 in Japan, so we really skipped 2, 3 and 5.

Re:

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Yeah, but Square eventually translated and released the ones it didn't bother to when they were new.

Re:

[Jor-Al]

That's a completely different situation. The person was asking if the developers ever skipped over a number when doing a series of games which did not happen in Final Fantasy.

Re:

[notamisfit]

Al Lowe in the "Leisure Suit Larry" series.

Re:

[hedwards]

Asian companies will do it sometimes when the number would be offensive to the local culture. While not strictly software, Canon skipped from G3 to G5 because of a resemblance between the character for 4 and the one for death. Or something very similar to that.

Which is a bit odd considering they then went on to name their lower end DSLRs rebels.

Re:In other words:

[Nephilium]

Yep. Leisure Suit Larry made a 3 and a 5, but never made 4.

Nephilium

Re:

[4D6963]

Yep. Leisure Suit Larry made a 3 and a 5, but never made 4.

Nephilium

Argh you bastard you beat me to it! That was quite an ingenuous device plot though (to pretend LSL 4 happened but that Larry couldn't remember a thing)

Re:

[Alpha Whisky]

Ha, that's nothing, Windows went from version 3.11 straight to 95.

Re:

[captjc]

Ah, My favorite game...LSL 4: The Case of the Missing Floppies

Something about a bottle of tequila and a long night in Tijuana.

Re:

[hampton]

It was because Larry doesn't believe in "four"play.

Re:

[mixmatch]

I'm not sure how that merits skipping a version. If the desired effect is to create separation with the previous junk program, wouldn't it be a better idea to rename it? Or maybe you are trying to say that 1-3 were junk partly because your organization is not too big on logic? Finally, it is possible that you are somehow trying to say you work for Nullsoft without getting in trouble...

Re:

[bhtooefr]

Not a game, but Netscape skipped version 5.

Of course, that's partially because 5 was already in development when the decision was made to go with Gecko instead.

Re:In other words:

[Drooling Iguana]

Super Mario 64.

Re:

[LandDolphin]

I feel a little sad inside thinking about how much I laughed at this.

1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 64

[tepples]

And not only did Super Mario skip everything from 5 through 63 (SMW was 4), but it also had two 2's. SMB2: The Lost Levels was a level hack of SMB1, while SMB2: Mario Madness was a graphics hack of Doki Doki Panic.

Re:

[Culture20]

Don't forget SMB -1 and 0 (Donkey Kong and [non-super] Mario Brothers)

Re:

[TheLoneDanger]

According to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Mario appeared in 53 games before Super Mario 64. So, 64 really isn't that far off. There might be some other brief Mario cameos in other games, or games that were killed in development that had Mario as well.

Re:

[Caboosian]

Marathon 2 -> Marathon Infinity.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Has there ever been a skipped number in a series of games? If there is going to be a 3, there is going to be a 2.

Prove me wrong.

The Leisure Suit Larry series. Al Lowe said there would never be a 4th game. So it went from game 3 to game 5 so he would still keep his word on that.

Re:

[Taibhsear]

Actually LSL4 was in production and almost finished IIRC. The disks were lost in the office or stolen. I'm at work right now though so I'm afraid to look for citations... But it's out there. Google it.

Re:

[Hatta]

Not quite. "The missing floppies" was a joke title. Here [allowe.com](and here [allowe.com]) is the real story from Al Lowe himself.

Re:

[Taibhsear]

Hmm. It appears I fell for the joke then all those years ago... Maybe I just really wanted it to be true so we could one day read a slashdot article about someone finding the long lost larry 4 disks.

Re:

[Alzheimers]

Maybe not in Games, but certainly in Movies:

Witness: House IV [imdb.com]

Re:

[Qetu]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283123/ [imdb.com]

Re:

[Shipwack]

Don't forget the "Madness of King George III"

Re:

[Alzheimers]

Umm, also:

Episode IV: A New Hope [imdb.com]

Re:

[Volatar]

That was not named IV until I happened.

Re:

[Pope]

Incorrect. It was always "Episode IV", as a nod to the old serials Lucas loved as a kid (and was supposed to make the audience feel like they were dropped in the middle of something). The subtitle "A New Hope" was added for re-release prints when "Empire Strikes Back" was confirmed for production.

Re:

[AdamThor]

I think it would perhaps be interesting to skip game 2. Game 3 would pretend to presume you had knowledge of Game 2, and you-the-player would have a strong knowledge dissonance with you-the-charecter. I think of one of my favorite moments in TV - watching the Cowboy Bebob episode in the casino, having missed the first 5 min of the show (and it being ~2nd episode of it I had ever seen). Figuring out WTF was going on only as the show progressed really made the plot elements *snap* as they fell into place.

B

Re:

[JCSoRocks]

Dr. Evil skipped straight to H for his release - Our early attempts at a tractor beam went through several preparations. Preparations A through G were a complete failure. But now, ladies and gentlemen, we finally have a working tractor beam, which we shall call... Preparation H.

Re:

[donscarletti]

Yes, the Battlefield series skipped 2140 version numbers between the third and fourth instalments after going backwards 1940 versions between the first and third (the second wasn't numbered).

Re:

[Tuidjy]

Lazy Larry skipped a number. It's been a while, so I do not remember which.
Probably four, as I am drawing a blank for the plot. Yes, I'm that pathetic,
I remember Lazy Larry's plots :-)

Surprised?

[hansamurai]

Is anyone really surprised at this? Bioshock was very successful late last year and has been heralded as having one of the best stories in recent memory. If you would have told me there were going to be less than three games I would have been surprised, writes love trilogies, and so do consumers.

Re:

[Volatar]

I am also not surprised. It does not take much praise to make a sequel, and Bioshock won several GOTY awards.

Personally though, I though the game's story was rubbish.

Best story?

[antdude]

I think not. System Shock 2 [wikipedia.org] had a better story and game.

Re:

[hansamurai]

Actually I had System Shock 2 in mind when I wrote my original post, which is why I specifically said "in recent memory." Nine years is nearly a lifetime in terms of video games. But yeah, I agree.

Re:

[antdude]

Has it been nine years? Wow. SHODAN needs to return. Unfortuantely, she can't at this time. :(

This just in...

[Jor-Al]

ScuttleMonkey is confirmed to be the worst editor of stories on Slashdot.

Re:

[moderatorrater]

I wonder if they take turns purposely misreading the story and making a summary that's deliberately misleading. KDawson, Zonk, and now ScuttleMonkey. I understand occasionally making mistakes, but it seems like some editors seem to post story after story that's pure bullshit. This is at least the third from ScuttleMonkey in the past weeks where I feel like he's completely missed the point.

Sequels?!

[EricR86]

Of a successful game?! NO WAY. This is going to really change how games are made...

It is a theoretical construct

[joeflies]

Much like at the end of Rush Hour 2's bloopers, Chris Tucker ad-libs upon the death of a bad guy "He's not going to appear in Rush Hour 3". That was in no way a confirmation that Rush Hour 3 was going to be produced, in fact it was a long way off from it. It was use of the language to simply show that an arbitrary point of time would coincide with a possible future event, of which a sequel fits the definition of a future event.

Spaceballs

[dazedNconfuzed]

Bioshock 3: The Search for Bioshock 2

Re:

[jdinkel]

Dangeresque 3: Dangeresque, too?

Don't worry

[Alzheimers]

Aren't the 3rd episodes always the ones where they go into space?

Mmm, Bioshock in Space...imagine how awesome that would be!

Re:

[Spatial]

For those that don't get the joke. [wikipedia.org]

Prequals are easy

[psyque]

SimRapture anyone?

Overt Wish Fulfillment and Underpants Gnomes

[Hambone_dot_exe]

No, no, no, I totally get what Zelnick's doing here.

BioShock 1: BioShock, you know, One.
BioShock 2: null
BioShock 3: Profit!

Different characters, same city? (Spoilers)

[JSBiff]

IIRC (it's been like six months since I played it), the first game didn't end with the destruction of the city, leaving open the possibility for someone to come in and assume power. Maybe the german scientist lady, or someone else. I thought the ending rather didn't tie up a lot of loose ends. Also, just because it shows the player character growing old, doesn't mean there aren't further adventures in the character's life between when you leave rapture the first time, and when you grow old.

Some additional thoughts

[JSBiff]

I thought about this more and, sci-fi has a long history of bringing back 'dead' antagonists. There's no reason why the Bioshock writer's couldn't potentially bring up some cliche, cheezy thing like Tony Fountain had a clone of himself that was activated after you defeated him, or Ryan might have had a trick like that up his sleeve. I mean, we *are* talking about a game centered around genetic engineering sci fi, which already stretches the theoretical potential of genetic engineering from the plausible to

Aww, man. . .

[JSBiff]

Now I gotta go play the dern game again, lol. I can't honestly remember. I do seem to remember there was some definite choice, almost a suicide aspect, to his death. I'm still not sure Fountain couldn't have popped out of a vita-chamber; he rather seemed to want to live.

Re:

[JCSoRocks]

There are always prequels... I agree that aside from doing something ridiculous like taking the game to some completely different location where you happen to have the same types of powers available to you there wasn't much left that you could build a chronological sequel off of. I could see a game based on Rapture before you got there in BioShock 1 though.

Bioshock 2... does exist?

[TheSambassador]

The opposable thumbs blog is reporting that despite a lack of BioShock 2

Did people not see this? [arstechnica.com]

Re:

[Jor-Al]

You have to realize that the summary was written by ScuttleMonkey. That means you are getting something written inaccurately by a moron.