BioShock 4 developer Cloud Chamber has reportedly appointed former Diablo boss Rod Fergusson as studio head and laid off an “unspecified number of staff.”
Firaxis veteran Kelley Gilmore departed earlier this month after Take-Two Interactive reportedly overhauled parts of the upcoming BioShock and reshuffled its leadership team following a failed internal review by publisher 2K Games.
At the time, “people familiar with the situation” claimed the next entry in the BioShock series “recently failed a review by executives at 2K Games,” with the game’s narrative highlighted as needing improvement.
Now, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reports layoffs at the BioShock 4 developer as Rod Fergusson takes over as Cloud Chamber’s new studio head.
Fergusson announced his departure from Blizzard on August 8. While there’s been no formal confirmation that he has joined the BioShock production, he was similarly parachuted in to lead the troubled BioShock Infinite project, staying at Irrational just eight months before moving on.
The fourth mainline entry in the BioShock series was confirmed to be in development at 2K Games-owned studio, Cloud Chamber, back in 2019. This upcoming entry will be the series’s first new entry since BioShock Infinite’s release in 2013.
