Skip to main content

That 'Bioshock' update for iOS is never happening, game removed from App Store

Bioshock iOS Gameplay Launch Trailer
For gamers wanting to return to the underwater city of Rapture on their five-inch iPhone screens, there’s some bad news: Bioshock will not be getting the update necessary to run on new Apple software, meaning the game is officially dead.

The news comes from former Touch Arcade forum mod, Killercow, who noticed that 2K Games had updated its iOS Bioshock support page stating that the game will no longer be supported.

Recommended Videos

Not a real surprise but 2K stealthily edited its message on Bioshock's iOS9 compatibility, it's never coming back:https://t.co/iNGbOinYpe pic.twitter.com/zj2lDujWMf

— Killercow (@killercow) January 23, 2017

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Bioshock was released on iOS in 2014 to a mixed reception regarding how it played on mobile. It currently sits at a 68 on Metacritic. Fans weren’t impressed by the much lower graphical fidelity on iPhone and complained that the game really wasn’t fit for mobile devices. It turned out that 2K Games lost interest in supporting the game months after release. The game was removed with the release of iOS version 8.4 due to incompatibility issues. 2K had stated that the game would eventually be updated. Somewhere between September 2015 and now, though, 2K made the decision to drop the project altogether.

It’s really unfortunate for those that dropped the $15 to play Bioshock on the go. While the game still does run, 2K cannot guarantee how well it will perform on later versions of iOS. For all intents and purposes, if gamers want to go through Rapture one more time, it’s best they look toward console or PC versions.

Bioshock was released in 2007 to near universal praise. Its mature themes and unique environment enveloped players in the underwater city of Rapture. It also forced gamers to make ethical or utilitarian decisions, bringing a layer of moral ambiguity that made it a major talking point for that year. Unfortunately, the team behind Bioshock, Irrational Games, downsized to just 15 employees after the release of Bioshock: Infinite, with most of the staff going their separate ways. Here’s hoping series creator Ken Levine can excite gamers once again, even with a significantly smaller team.

Imad Khan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Imad has been a gamer all his life. He started blogging about games in college and quickly started moving up to various…
Epic still plans to bring its Games Store to iOS and Android this year
epic games store ios android 2024 egs mobile

Epic Games affirmed its commitment to bringing the Epic Games Store to iOS and Android before the end of 2024 during its State of Unreal presentation at GDC 2024.

Steve Allison, Epic Games Store general manager, explained that the mobile version of the Epic Games Store will feature Fortnite, as well as games from "a selection of third-party partners who have expressed interest in joining us when we launch." Like the PC version of the storefront, developers who release games on the mobile version of the Epic Games Store will have 88/12 base revenue share and Unreal Engine royalties waived.

Read more
Fortnite is coming back to iOS, but Epic Games still isn’t happy about it
Solid Snake aiming a pistol out of a box in Fortnite.

Fortnite is set to come back to iOS in Europe sometime in 2024. This will mark the first time a natively running version of Fortnite will be available on iOS since Apple removed the game from the App Store in 2020.

Apple did so at the time because Epic tried to use its own third-party payment system, kicking off a series of legal battles in an attempt to get Apple to open up its platform more. Although those legal battles have yielded mixed results for Epic, a newly passed Digital Markets Act in the European Union is forcing Apple to do things like "allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations" and "allow their business users to promote their offer and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform."

Read more
Netflix games may be coming to TVs soon, as revealed by new iOS app
Selecting a game in Netflix Games.

It looks like Netflix might be expanding its gaming offerings to TVs soon, as a Netflix Game Controller is now on the iOS App Store. Netflix has yet to announce or comment on the purpose of the app, but a message shown when the app boots up confirms that it's coming.
Netflix has slowly made its way into the gaming industry over the past couple of years, acquiring studios and adding a dedicated game section to its mobile app that lets players download premium mobile games. The library includes some great games like Poinpy and Before Your Eyes, but has yet to break into the mainstream, likely due to its somewhat obscure availability. This new app, which was preemptively listed on Apple's storefront by Netflix and lines up with leaks from earlier this year, indicates that Netflix Games are coming to the TV.
The description for the app states that "this Game Controller app pairs with your TV and allows you to play games on Netflix using your phone or mobile device." After downloading and booting up the app, Digital Trends discovered two more messages asking players to "choose a game on your TV and follow the directions to connect" and that "Netflix Games on TV are in beta. Some devices may not be supported at this time."
All of this points to an impending beta rollout for games on Netflix's TV apps, which has not been announced yet. As such, we don't have any idea about which televisions or games the iOS app or Netflix Games on TV will support just yet. Regardless, this looks like a massive evolution for Netflix's gaming efforts, especially as it gears up to release a cloud gaming service.
Netflix declined to comment on the program when asked by Digital Trends, but it did refer us to previous statements it made about its intentions to break into cloud and TV game streaming.

Read more