Shawn Elliott was a key level designer on the Irrational Games development team that released Bioshock Infinite nearly five years ago. Since that time, Elliott moved to Arkane Studios in Austin, Texas to work on the 2017 edition of Prey. According to a job change on his LinkedIn page, it seems like Elliott’s future is now once again tied to 2K Games.
Elliott now lists himself as a Principle Combat Designer at a new 2K Games studio located in Novato, California. 2K Games already has Hangar 13, the developer of Mafia III, in Novato, but this new wing of 2K that Elliott is now working at currently hasn’t been revealed.
Of course, the easiest conclusion to draw here is that Elliott could potentially be working on the next game in the Bioshock franchise. Despite Irrational Games — developer of both Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite — shrinking in size and moving on to new projects, 2K Games remains the license holder of the Bioshock IP. There’s absolutely no guarantee that Elliott and the team at the unannounced 2K Novato studio will be working on a Bioshock game, but bringing in one of the franchise’s former key designers definitely raises some interesting questions.
Still, it’s important to state that we likely won’t know what this new game is for quite some time, as this studio in Novato is just getting off the ground. Only after the studio has hired all of its new employees will they likely begin full development on whatever this project could be.
The Bioshock franchise is far too popular and Infinite sold too well for 2K Games to let the series remain dormant forever. Even if Elliott and the rest of the team in Novato aren’t working on the next iteration of Bioshock, it seems like only a matter of time until the newest installment in the franchise is revealed.