Back in December of 2019, fans of the First Person Shooter genre of video games were delighted with awesome news that the beloved series, BioShock, was getting a fourth installment.
Cloud Chamber, 2K Games publishing label, revealed that while the game is in fact in the works, developers don’t see it being completed for “several years.”
David Ismailer, President of 2K Games stated in an interview, “BioShock is one of the most beloved, critically praised and highest-rated franchises of the last console generation. We can’t wait to see where its powerful narrative and iconic, first-person shooter gameplay head in the future with our new studio team at Cloud Chamber leading the charge.”
The BioShock series began with the 2007 titular release of the same name in on seventh generation consoles. Throwing players head first into the world of Rapture, an underwater utopia gone awry. What once was a world where the artists, scientists and engineers of the future could create without fear of censorship and intervention now stands a cityscape being swallowed by political corruption and a substance abuse addiction on pandemic scales.
The drug of choice is Adam, a genetic manipulator that rewrites the body’s code. Using it, the everyday ordinary man are able to instantly make themselves stronger, healthier and more intelligent.
However, unintended consequence discovered far too late was that psychosis quickly sets in, only kept at bay by injecting higher and higher doses of Adam. The act of genetic modification through the means of Adam became known as splicing, with the game starting at the worst of it.
The player is to traverse the world of BioShock using Plasmids (the Adam primarily used for offensive) and Tonics (the Adam used to provide passive buffs) in order to survive the civil war brewing.
“The pseudo-goal presented is to face Andrew Ryan (the creator of Rapture), kill him and hand control over Atlas, a side character that’s been aiding the player through the journey.”
It’s not until this moment that the curtain is pulled away to show we were just another cog in the machine. All together, this game provides a great foundation of the material.
We get to hear all about the diverse kids of people that come to Rapture hoping for a better life, a sentiment that many of us can relate to. We also bear witness to the corruption and deceit that takes place in a world like this. For example, the doctor that initially witnesses Adam in sea slugs seeks funding from shady business partner Frank Fountaine. Her findings show that little girls implanted with said sea slug actually produce more at exponential rates. As a result, the Little Sister’s Orphanage was founded by Frank Fountaine. Its mission was to give the pair the supply that little girls needed in order to supply high amounts of Adam being demanded. Everything about this world feels meticulous.
Everything about the first game is elevated in BioShock 2. Set eight years after the events of the original, the player is thrust into Rapture once again, this time as a Big Daddy. In both the original and the sequel, Little Sister’s traverse the world using syringe like tools to extract Adam from corpses lying about the world. For their protection in such a hostile world, they are provided with Big Daddys, hulking behemoths that quickly dispose of any threat aiming for their assigned Little Sister.
In BioShock 2, the goal is to find the Little Sister that you’re assigned in your infancy but was taken away from you. Personally, this story is my favorite by far. In the original game, Andrew Ryan’s ideology was splattered all over the world. “Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
‘No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’ ‘No!’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘It belongs to God.’ ‘No!’ says the man in Moscow, ‘It belongs to everyone.’ I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different.
I chose the impossible.
I chose… Rapture.
A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”
Andrew Ryan’s world view operates very heavily on the concept of egoism, to treat self interest as the ultimate scale of judgement and morality. In his passing, a new evil named Sophia Lamb rises through the ranks. Sofia Lamb became popular to the citizen of Rapture in the wake of Andrew Ryan’s death as she operates on the world view of altruism, putting the community above yourself.
Using her daughter and your original Little Sister to control the masses, Sofia Lamb’s goal is to keep you away from her. As a Big Daddy, you are equip with the same daunting suit as them as well as the devastating drill. Plasmids and Tonics make a return and are now dual wielded, so their use is simultaneous.
New areas are explored in this game, which adds to the grandness of Rapture. In the original, the areas often felt like desolate wastelands. Scattered with enemies and pick-ups, the world felt very uninhabited. In certain ways, this adds to the atmosphere of BioShock. The world feel claustrophobic and isolating. Many areas are locked behind combination locks, giving the player the impression they aren’t welcome where they are. The cost of this design choice is that the world feels complete.
This is the end of Rapture and you’re simply traveling through the crumbles before it eventually succumbs to the ocean. In contrast, BioShock 2 introduces multiple situations where you encounter citizens of people who live their everyday life in Rapture. Many of these people lived through the events of the first game and were simply thriving in other areas of the city.
While this makes the experience less foreboding and hostile, it informs the player that not only is Rapture still alive, but there are stories and people you haven’t even discovered that are fighting tooth and nail for their own sake. These aren’t just enemies that spawned into the world to deter you; they’re crafted in a way that you can identify with if you were in a similar circumstance.
That’s what I truly want to see in the next installment of BioShock. Give me a world where we can see the lives and stories yet to be told in Rapture. Also, I’d like a good PC port. BioShock HD and BioShock 2 HD both crash constantly in my playthroughs. Had I not been such a big fan of the original I never would have stuck through it, especially since BioShock 2 HD was the first time I had ever played the sequel. BioShock Infinite fared far better; however, a word of caution, I’m not afraid to vote with my dollars.” Or”: “BioShock Infinite fared far better.
However, a word of caution, I’m not afraid to vote with my dollars.”
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