Exciting news out of the recent MKM Partners Investor conference, which featured new word about the BioShock franchise. While we haven't seen anything about the genre-busting alternate history series of late, the newest word to come out suggests that the idea of fresh BioShock is more likely than expected.

Word came out of Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick, who noted that Bioshock was to be considered "unquestionably a permanent franchise", and also one that the company believed in. Zelnick also offered word that Irrational Games co-founder--and BioShock's creator--Ken Levin was also engaged in some current work, with Zelnick noting that the projects were "something highly creative and innovative."

Given that BioShock Infinite last came out in 2013, it may be that we're about ready to hear some fresh BioShock news. A three-year lag runs about standard for each installment, with BioShock 2 hitting in 2010, and in 2007, BioShock itself making its arrival. With the next generation of consoles on hand, it's about time for BioShock to step up its run and make an appearance instead of continuing as one of the franchises we've yet to see represented on the latest systems. Plenty of those holes have been filled in in recent months as "Fallout" and "Call of Duty" emerged and "Just Cause" is about to hit.

Good news, granted, but there are a lot of absent potential game-changers yet to come. Looking at the TBA 2015 column of several upcoming games sites shows dozens of games still allegedly set to hit by the time this month is over. That doesn't even count the December 2015 arrivals and the fourth quarter 2015 arrivals. It may be, however, that BioShock will actually pass the worst of that arrival glut by, since it won't come out until sometime in 2016. 2016 does as yet seem a bit lighter on the games, so a fresh trip to Rapture will likely go over well.

Only time will tell just what BioShock's release schedule looks like, or even where we'll be going. We can all, however, look forward to another great trip back to this increasingly complex series' madness.