BioShock 2 release finally confirmed

Remember kids, splice responsibly!

Getting a little bit depressed with the number of games pushed back to “Q1 2010″?  Well good news everyone, you can cross one ambiguous date off your list, as it was announced today that BioShock 2 has finally confirmed it’s release.

The big day? February 9, 2010.

Here’s a cut from the press release:

Set approximately 10 years after the events of the original BioShock, the halls of Rapture once again echo with sins of the past. Along the Atlantic coastline, a monster has been snatching little girls and bringing them back to the undersea city of Rapture. Players step into the boots of the most iconic denizen of Rapture, the Big Daddy, as they travel through the decrepit and beautiful fallen city, chasing an unseen foe in search of answers and their own survival.

Multiplayer in BioShock 2 will provide a rich prequel experience that expands the origins of the BioShock fiction. Set during the fall of Rapture, players assume the role of a Plasmid test subject for Sinclair Solutions, a premier provider of Plasmids and Tonics in the underwater city of Rapture that was first explored in the original BioShock. Players will need to use all the elements of the BioShock toolset to survive, as the full depth of the BioShock experience is refined and transformed into a unique multiplayer experience that can only be found in Rapture.

BioShock 2 is currently in development at 2K Marin in collaboration with 2K Australia, Digital Extremes and 2K China for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Games for Windows® LIVE. BioShock 2 will be available worldwide on February 9, 2010. This title is not yet rated by the ESRB.

So in other words, Mark Meltzer has about five months to figure out where his daughter disappeared to.

While the big date is still a little ways off, we can only assume that (barring a major accident) there won’t be any further delays in the game’s release.  So now all we’ve got to do is wait out the time, and if you live where I live, hope that Australia isn’t banning it for being too aggressively underwater.

In the meantime, the Cult of Rapture has posted up the first in a series of articles showing off the game’s multiplayer characters.  The first is a welder by the name of Jacob Norris.  Take a look, and start counting the weeks!