Former Gears of War and Diablo head, Rod Fergusson, has joined 2K’s Cloud Chamber to oversee the BioShock franchise. This comes just weeks after Fergusson parted ways with Blizzard Entertainment, where he helped lead the Diablo franchise through the 2023 launch of Diablo 4 and its subsequent seasons. Prior to his time at Blizzard, Fergusson had a long and storied history with the Gears of War franchise, both at Epic Games and later, The Coalition. He’s now found a new home with BioShock.
BioShock fans have been waiting well over a decade for the next entry in the philosophical first-person shooter franchise that was once considered the crown jewel of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation. There have been a lot of changes since the 2013 release of BioShock Infinite. The series developer Irrational Games was turned into the much smaller Ghost Story Games, while the keys to the franchise were later given to an all-new studio, Cloud Chamber, created in 2019 and led by former Firaxis Games producer Kelley Gilmore. After many years of silence from Cloud Chamber, recent reports suggest major shifts have happened within the studio, including Gilmore’s departure, leading to massive setbacks regarding BioShock 4.
Just a few weeks after this disappointing BioShock 4 news broke, it seems Cloud Chamber has a new leader. Rod Fergusson took to Twitter to announce that he’s joined 2K and is stepping into Cloud Chamber as the new “Head of BioShock.” Fergusson’s arrival does come with some bad news, though, as it’s been confirmed that an unknown number of Cloud Chamber staff members have been laid off as part of the studio’s shake-ups. Like his Diablo role, it doesn’t seem like he’ll be directing games himself, but rather managing everything the franchise has in development, including “franchise extensions” like the BioShock Netflix movie, as mentioned in his tweet.
Rod Fergusson is no stranger to the BioShock series, as he joined Irrational Games back in 2012 to oversee BioShock Infinite‘s final months of development, which up to that point had reportedly been quite rocky. His short stint at Irrational bringing BioShock Infinite to the finish line helped give him the reputation of a “closer,” someone who comes in to set a troubled project on the right path toward release. With this in mind, it could be possible that BioShock 4 might also be close to its finish line, with Rod “The Closer” Fergusson just now coming in. However, if things had gone smoothly enough to near a release, these major shake-ups and layoffs at Cloud Chamber likely wouldn’t have happened.
While it’s disappointing to hear about even more industry layoffs, there’s still some excitement about an industry veteran like Rod Fergusson coming in to lead the BioShock franchise. Fans of BioShock should also keep an eye on Judas, a zany FPS from the original BioShock creator, Ken Levine, which is in development at the aforementioned Ghost Story Games. Judas showed off a look at its gameplay in early 2024, but nothing has been heard of it since. Hopefully, both Judas and BioShock 4 are now on the right track.
10/10
March 26, 2013
M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Mild Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco
Unreal Engine 3
BioShock
