BioShock Boss Says He’s “Disappointed” by the Long Road to BioShock 4

May 7, 2026, 11:44am

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says he’s been left “deeply disappointed” by how long it has taken for a new BioShock game to come about. Despite being one of the more popular franchises that is published under the 2K Games banner, BioShock has been on ice for over a decade at this point, as the last mainline release in the series was 2013’s BioShock Infinite. And while a new installment in the series is currently in the works (which most fans have dubbed BioShock 4), Zelnick has expressed unhappiness with some decisions that have resulted in this extensive gap between entries.

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Speaking to Game File, Zelnick opened up about this long road to BioShock 4 and what has happened behind the scenes. In short, Zelnick said that it was much more difficult for those at Take-Two and developer Cloud Chamber to settle on the right idea for what should be done with BioShock next. As a result, Zelnick said that quite a bit of time and money were “wasted” as some of the issues with past concepts that were in development didn’t become apparent until later in the creation process.

“I think finding the right creative purchase was hard, as it turns out,” he said. “I think we, in retrospect, wasted a lot of time and money chasing down some creative alleys that turned out to be dead ends.”

Despite these troubles, Zelnick went on to express confidence in where BioShock 4 is at right now. He pointed to last year’s move to hire longtime gaming producer Rod Fergusson as the new head of BioShock as a decision that won’t only benefit the ongoing creation of BioShock 4, but also the series as a whole moving forward.

“Right now, we have a good game, but we are committed to delivering a great one,” Zelnick continued. “We are working closely with leadership at the studio to define this path.”