The Rise and Fall of BioShock | Documentary

[00:00] Akin to the great musical artists and films  of our time, certain video game releases  

[00:27] have instituted a culture shift, establishing a  clear demarcation line dividing the art created   before its existence and after. Wolfenstein 3D  earned its place among such a prestigious list,   having fathered the modern first-person shooter  in 1992. The 2001 launch of Grand Theft Auto 3  

[00:45] similarly shifted popular culture, birthing the  open-world genre whose potential knows no limits.   BioShock from Boston-based developer  Irrational Games drew yet another indelible   line in August 2007, its immersive gameplay,  gripping atmosphere, and pioneering use of  

[01:01] inventive storytelling devices elevating  first-person shooters on countless fronts.  The original BioShock constituted Irrational’s  attempt at bringing the hallmarks of the   critically acclaimed yet commercially unimpressive  System Shock to mainstream audiences. It  

[01:17] accomplished as much by coloring outside the lines  of market expectations. Over the course of the   series, however, adapting to said expectations  deeply affected the core of the brand.  Development woes affected all three entries as  well, often driving a wedge between members of the  

[01:33] creative team. That series creator Ken Levine was  supposedly difficult to work with only exacerbated   the tension. Internal and public-facing issues  aside, many would argue BioShock never shied  

[01:46] away from challenging the status quo, all while  raising the bar. But for Irrational’s publisher,   a contingent of fans, and even some developers,  that bar could never quite reach high enough. 

[01:58] This is the rise and fall of BioShock.

[02:37] Founded in 1997 by Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey,  and Robert Fermier, Irrational Games started   as an outfit primarily comprised of alum from  System Shock studio Looking Glass. Fittingly,   co-development efforts with Looking Glass  on 1999’s System Shock 2 marked Irrational’s  

[02:54] industry debut. It was far from a bad first  outing, considering the follow-up garnered   enough critical acclaim to be dubbed Game  of the Year several times over. Glowing   reception did not translate to blockbuster  success, however. Thus, try as he might,  

[03:09] Levine had no luck securing a green light  for the team’s proposed System Shock 3.  The designer sent a rudimentary pitch document for  the third game to publisher Electronic Arts one   year after System Shock 2’s release, outlining  a resolution for the cliff-hanger ending. EA  

[03:26] dismissed the proposal, presumably because  of the sequel’s poor sales performance. An   insatiable hunger for additional adventures in  the System Shock universe drove Irrational to   quietly manage a pet project, one the  studio tinkered with while developing  

[03:40] Freedom Force and Deep Cover, the latter a  canceled joint endeavor with Looking Glass.  Levine’s idea for the side project stemmed from  an interest in further exploring the freeform   gameplay and immersive storytelling that permeated  System Shock. Brainstorming sessions began around  

[03:56] 2001; by 2002, Irrational had built a barebones  demo on the original Xbox using Unreal Engine 2   technology. According to a Eurogamer profile  on BioShock’s production, the demo took place  

[04:09] aboard a space station overrun with genetically  mutated creatures whose conceptual stylings   harkened back to B-movie sci-fi fare. The  mutants in question included the likes of “eel   man” and “jelly man[a],” while the narrative that  prompted their existence followed Carlos Cuello,  

[04:25] a deprogrammer tasked with rescuing cult members  and reversing their psychological conditioning.  Centering the earliest version of BioShock  around a cult was born out of necessity;   the team needed something as it ironed out  various game design elements. Impressively,  

[04:41] even the 2002 build boasted tentative game  systems split into three main pillars—Protectors,   Harvesters, and Drones—all of which  later manifested as Big Daddies,   Splicers, and Little Sisters, respectively. The Cuello-starring narrative didn’t occupy  

[04:58] the playing field for long, eventually morphing  into another pitch that positioned an abandoned   genetics lab run by Nazis as its backdrop.  Neither of these nascent ideas sparked the   interest of publishers, given that Atari,  Codemasters, and EA rejected Irrational’s  

[05:13] System Shock-esque concept. 2K Games, on the other  hand, inked a deal in 2004 on the good faith of   little more than “ideas about game systems.”  Levine explained that without Big Daddies,  

[05:25] Little Sisters, and antagonist Andrew Ryan in the  picture at the time, 2K’s commitment “showed a   lot of vision.” Irrational put that faith and the  publisher’s expansive budget to good use quickly. 

[05:37] What began as a low-budget, RPG-leaning  production with 30 developers evolved   into a $25 million FPS/RPG-hybrid supported  by a core team of 90 people. But before the  

[05:49] crew could get too comfortable with its new  status quo, narrowing down BioShock’s setting,   characters, and overarching narrative was a must.

[06:19] The once shining underwater city of Rapture  floated to the surface during Ken Levine’s   visit to Manhattan. Setting his eyes upon the  splendor of the GE Building[b] at Rockefeller   Center planted the art deco seed. Couple  that with the plaza’s bronze statue of  

[06:33] Atlas trapped beneath the weight of the world  and BioShock’s visual style and philosophical   backbone ostensibly came together all at once.  Levine’s Manhattan trip additionally inspired   the story behind BioShock, specifically with  respect to the plaza’s historical beginnings. 

[06:49] Planning to build a new opera house at the  location, The Metropolitan Opera initiated   the construction of New York City’s Rockefeller  Center in 1928, then retracted its funding amid   the stock market crash the following year. JD  Rockefeller’s need to make a profit from the  

[07:03] land ultimately resulted in the oil tycoon taking  out a multimillion dollar loan and partnering with   broadcasting companies RCA, RKO, and NBC in hopes  of establishing a massive entertainment center.  

[07:16] The fictional Andrew Ryan would similarly erect an  architectural marvel against all odds, one nestled   deep within the waves of the North Atlantic Ocean. BioShock’s business magnate didn’t only draw   influence from JD Rockefeller; Andrew Ryan’s  name, personal history, and Objectivist political  

[07:33] ideology were derived from 20th Century writer and  philosopher Ayn Rand. The late author’s 1,000-page   opus Atlas Shrugged explored her belief that  selfishness, not altruism, should guide human  

[07:46] behavior. Rand opposed the welfare state[c],  thinking it a parasitic system that gnawed away   at the productive capabilities of the individual.  Atlas Shrugged pondered the ramifications of   the rich and talented, an analogue for Atlas,  finally freeing themselves of the world’s weight.  

[08:02] Ayn Rand wrote a novel to test the boundaries  of rational self-interest. Andrew Ryan built   a utopia—Rapture, “where the artist would not  fear the censor[d], where the scientist would   not be bound by petty morality, and where the  great would not be constrained by the small." 

[08:19] Interestingly, embracing Rand’s political  philosophy as the intellectual underpinnings   of Rapture’s rise and demise helped the studio  zero in on a solution to its longstanding problem   with Little Sisters. Irrational had already  divided BioShock’s key pillars into Protectors,  

[08:34] Harvesters, and Drones, the latter  carrying a valuable resource, Adam,   that Harvesters would kill to retrieve, thus  justifying the existence of stalwart Protectors   like Big Daddies. Drones went through several  phases of evolution[e] throughout development;  

[08:48] they began as slugs, a concept the team abandoned  over concerns players would carelessly squash   them. Turning Drones into figures with  whom users could empathize seemed ideal,   engendering concepts that replaced small  slithering bugs with dogs in wheelchairs. 

[09:04] Little girls were ultimately adopted as Rapture’s  resource carriers, though Art Director Nate Wells   later divulged the internal wariness that  pervaded the decision. Developers balked at   the thought of purposefully harming young children  in a game. In addition to fearing public backlash,  

[09:19] 2K Games rang alarm bells because of how ratings  boards would potentially perceive the behavior.   The solution came twofold—making Little Sisters  invulnerable to player attacks and injecting  

[09:31] Randian Objectivism into binary moral choices,  which were distilled through Harvest or Rescue   options. Harvesting killed Little Sisters, a  selfish act that reduced them to slugs harboring   the substance capable of genetically altering  Rapture’s denizens. The altruistic alternative  

[09:47] resided in Rescuing the girls, freeing them from  their conditioning and restoring their innocence.  This level of consequential decision-making  layered the first-person shooter with   intellectual depth. But solving the Little Sister  conundrum marked neither the beginning nor the  

[10:02] end of BioShock’s design-related troubles.  Uncertainty about the game’s overall direction   as well as pressure to deliver a top-tier  blockbuster created a pressure cooker at   the Irrational offices, such that tension  too often divided internal departments.

[10:28] Speaking with IGN around the time of the game’s  2004 announcement, Ken Levine remarked that,  

[10:43] before partnering with 2K Games, Irrational had  previously been in no hurry to present BioShock to   prospective publishing partners. The studio first  focused on pinpointing the project’s “identity and  

[10:55] design,” preferably sans the input of external  marketing departments that would involve   themselves early for purposes of maximizing  future profits. And BioShock wasn’t exactly an   experience the average marketing group would’ve  eagerly endeared itself to, Levine argued. 

[11:10] Not until Grand Theft Auto 3’s meteoric rise  did gaming ads plainly discuss concepts such   as open-ended or emergent gameplay without  stealthily threading them into promos   littered with popular buzz words. Levine  and Company believed the tide was turning,  

[11:24] though, thanks in part to the positive reactions  that greeted BioShock’s reveal. Players craved   innovation and Irrational planned on delivering. One initial design pitch described BioShock as a  

[11:37] “modern-day nightmare of the terrifying nexus  between religious fanaticism and unbounded   science in an undersea complex.” Yet, even while  leaning into the now-iconic art deco style,   Irrational developers struggled with nailing  down a visual language that complemented the  

[11:52] pitch. Earlier versions of the undersea colony  boasted levels adorned with industrial-looking   space corridors where bog-standard mutated  creatures roamed. Former Irrational staffers   claimed these complications grew from a rift  between the art and design departments. It took  

[12:07] the collaborative efforts of two relative  newcomers, Level Designer J.P. LeBreton   and Level Artist Hoagy de la Plante, before the  location’s general aesthetic found its footing.  Sensing the in-house friction, new hire de la  Plante, who joined Irrational early in 2006, asked  

[12:24] to work with LeBreton on a “week-long experimental  level-building process.” Most importantly,   nascent designs for the botanical environment  known as Arcadia spawned from the collaboration.   Impressed by their work, Levine showcased the  Arcadia level to staff, labelling it the bar to  

[12:39] reach for all of BioShock’s explorable spaces. Unfortunately, establishing an agreed upon   baseline for the look and feel of Rapture had  virtually no impact on the interdepartmental   tension. Levine added to the friction, too,  given his reportedly fraught relationship  

[12:55] with the design crew. LeBreton posited  in a Eurogamer interview that pressure   to produce a “successful blockbuster” placed  the co-founder at odds with designers. Fears of   repeating System Shock 2’s underwhelming sales  presumably fueled one outburst, in particular.  

[13:10] During a meeting centered on condensing BioShock  into a compelling demo for Game Informer’s March   2006 cover story, one developer submitted an idea  using System Shock 2’s cyborg ninjas as a point  

[13:22] of reference. Some in attendance alleged Levine  threw his glasses down, then shouted expletives   that underscored his disinterest in the topic.  Those who interjected in hopes of defusing the   tension similarly attracted the director’s ire. System Shock’s influence on BioShock constituted  

[13:38] the source of much inner turmoil. Though  Irrational considered its new title a   spiritual successor to the Looking Glass classic,  the need to ship a bankable first-person shooter   outweighed all else. This especially became  evident after BioShock’s E3 2006 showing,  

[13:53] when Levine returned from a 2K marketing meeting  and announced the underwater adventure would be   promoted as a shooter from that point onward. The  creative director assured staff the game hadn’t   lost its identity as a “smart FPS/RPG hybrid”  but explained that a few tweaks were critical  

[14:08] to attracting the Halo market. It made sense;  an action game focalizing a failed undersea   utopia and the overt Objectivist philosophy that  precipitated its ruin would’ve been a difficult   sell since shooters were predominantly  associated with the likes of Call of Duty. 

[14:23] The pressure never hit a standstill, either.  In fact, crunch in the final year of production   exacerbated the issue, courtesy of mandated  six and seven-day work weeks. J.P. LeBreton   said Levine ordered the crunch directive;  meanwhile, leads like Producer Alyssa Finely  

[14:38] disapproved the mandate. Worse still, feedback  from focus group testing conducted months ahead   of release raised questions about whether  these laborious efforts were for naught.

[15:14] Early in 2007[f], the BioShock creators hosted  focus group testing sessions that didn’t go as   well as anticipated. The brutal feedback delivered  a huge blow to morale. For one, players mocked   Atlas’s accent while expressing immediate distrust  in the character meant to initially feel like an  

[15:30] ally. BioShock’s zombie-like enemies counted  among the more confusing factors for testers.   Other noteworthy complaints pointed out how dark  the shooter looked. But most debilitating was how   many users understood neither the story  nor what they were supposed to do. And,  

[15:45] apparently, at least one participant had no idea  they’d been exploring a city beneath the sea.  Fully aware of the title’s esoteric themes,  developers expected testers would have difficulty   grasping everything set before them, yet no one  prepared themselves for BioShock’s brief turn as a  

[16:01] laughing stock. Thus, as the unfavorable feedback  flooded in, so, too, did self-doubt. Regardless,   addressing the criticism seemed the natural  path forward; fixes added following the focus  

[16:13] group testing even fostered some of  the game’s most memorable qualities.  BioShock’s lighting system received an overhaul,  for example. In addition, developers reworked the   controls and implemented a large quest arrow that  provided players with better navigation tools.  

[16:28] Recasting Atlas as an Irishman helped tackle  the disdain for the character. And, finally, the   user’s introduction to Rapture underwent extensive  changes, the end result showcasing underwater  

[16:40] vistas that established the colony’s setting. Despite the setbacks, turmoil, and daunting   feelings of uncertainty, BioShock’s creative  crew felt validated once the shooter launched   to universal praise on PC and Xbox 360 in August  2007. Its 96 rating on Metacritic quickly secured  

[16:58] BioShock a spot among the highest-reviewed games  of all time. Critics dubbed it an instant classic,   a masterpiece that demanded everyone’s attention.  Reviewers and players agreed the hauntingly   atmospheric world of Rapture presented a technical  marvel unlike anything else in or outside the  

[17:15] medium. Many also argued the storytelling had  demonstrated gaming’s cinematic potential,   since it so seamlessly encompassed multiple art  forms. Not to mention the immersive gameplay   elevated first-person shooters, setting a high  bar that few would subsequently dare to reach.

[17:49] Unlike its ancestor, BioShock enjoyed  both critical and commercial success,   having hit a milestone of four million copies  sold by March 2010. Ken Levine viewed the positive   reception and strong sales as evidence that  players craved the types of thought-provoking  

[18:03] interactive experiences his studio specialized in.  But the crew at 2K Boston, so named following 2K   Games’ 2006 acquisition, weren’t interested  in revisiting the sunken halls of Rapture. A  

[18:15] sequel “wasn’t the right thing for 2K Boston,”  Levine admitted in a GameSpot interview. The   outfit’s parent company had other plans in mind. In December 2007, publisher Take-Two Interactive  

[18:28] announced the formation of 2K Marin, a new  developer under its 2K Games label located   in Novato, California. About half a dozen  BioShock veterans seeded the Marin office,   with series Producer Alyssa Finely serving as  founder and Executive Producer. Press details  

[18:43] confirmed the expansion would permit the  creation of original IP, as well as open   the door for more collaborative efforts between  2K-owned studios. Secretly, the group had already   begun mapping out plans for a second BioShock. Finely brought Jordan Thomas on board as BioShock  

[18:59] 2’s Creative Director, a big leap for someone  who’d previously been a Level Designer. Still,   Thomas’s vision proved rather ambitious. In a  retrospective by VICE, the Creative Director   shared insight into the original pitch, which  cast players in the role of a former Little Sister  

[19:14] returning to Rapture. Layers of trauma concerning  the protagonist’s past would’ve been peeled back   as the story progressed, specifically in a manner  that Thomas called “very Silent Hill.” However,  

[19:26] someone higher up the chain insisted BioShock  should embrace its action-oriented qualities,   franchise like Gears of War or Call of Duty.” Regardless of what awaited them at the finish  

[19:39] line, 2K Marin developers tried protecting  the established BioShock canon above all   else. Dissecting how best to accomplish as  much helped determine the primary concepts   that guided development, namely Rapture’s return,  the humanization of the relationship between Big  

[19:53] Daddies and Little Sisters, and the positioning  of an ex-Little Sister at the story’s center.  Upper management had its mandates, too, according  to Thomas and Lead Designer Allen Goode,   one of which required multiplayer to justify  the sequel’s launching at full price. Another  

[20:08] mandate prioritized a PS3 port[g] for the original  BioShock; and, finally, the publisher wanted the   project on store shelves within two-and-a-half  years. These were tall orders for a studio   assembling a brand-new team and building the  follow-up to a venerated masterpiece. In pursuit  

[20:23] of its lofty goals, 2K Games provided Marin  with support from 2K Boston and 2K Australia.   The publishing house additionally outsourced  Digital Extremes for its multiplayer expertise,   ensuring the lead team could steer its energy  towards delivering a worthy BioShock sequel. 

[20:39] Despite the time constraints and their myriad  limitations, Thomas and Company hardly wanted   to retrace previously taken steps. The Creative  Director advocated against orchestrating an M.   Night Shyamalan-style “gotcha” twist, feeling  it risked duplicating the original. This  

[20:55] meant stripping away the ‘Would you kindly,’  mind control motif to instead centralize how   the player’s actions impacted the in-game  world. 2K Marin funneled the new approach   through an additional thematic departures.  Firstly, BioShock 2 paid closer attention to  

[21:09] the regular people in Rapture, emphasizing  smaller stories and intimate relationships   whereas its predecessor depicted grand ideas about  the city’s elite. As a result, the sequel did far   more than meditate on free will, thus amplifying  the weight of moral choices regarding the Little  

[21:25] Sisters. And it all required a very specific  story staring a certain type of character.

[21:55] Set 10 years after the first game, the script  Thomas penned for BioShock 2 dropped users back   into Rapture where Brigid Tenenbaum, the  geneticist responsible for Adam and the  

[22:08] Little Sisters, awakened an original Big Daddy  prototype and restored his free will. Playing   as a model from the first line of Protectors  allowed audiences a view of Rapture from the   perspective of a “man out of time.” If BioShock  starred an outsider discovering a secret society,  

[22:23] its successor focalized an insider reacquainting  himself with the metropolis. The relationship   layer of nuance when Subject Delta took the lead. While the moral choice to either Rescue or Harvest  

[22:38] Little Sisters remained intact between games,  Executive Producer Alyssa Finley maintained   in a Digital Spy sit-down that the decision  held more weight. Unlike Jack in BioShock,   Subject Delta didn’t feel like a stranger given  that Little Sisters inherently trusted Big  

[22:53] Daddies. What the player did with said trust  drove the sequel’s most significant choices.  All in all, 2K Marin aimed to produce an  experience whose deep dive into morality   read as more “fuzzy-edged” when compared  to the 2K Boston title. A broader range  

[23:08] life figures like Sofia Lamb gravitated towards  the center of attention. Lamb, in particular,   constituted the perfect polar opposite of Andrew  Ryan, assuming control of Rapture following his  

[23:21] death. Philosopher John Stuart Mill and socialist  Karl Marx provided the building blocks of Lamb’s   creation, her altruistic ideology enforcing the  notion that everyone should treat the rest of   the world as they would their own children. In  true BioShock fashion, Lamb imposed extremes  

[23:37] which blurred the lines between secular and  religious altruism, to the point of bearing   an uncomfortable number of qualities in  common with cult leaders like Jim Jones.  2K Marin planted Big Sisters in the middle  of Subject Delta’s brewing conflict with  

[23:50] Lamb. The mantle of Big Sister initially  belonged to a sole character—Eleanor Lamb,   Sofia’s daughter and the Little Sister formerly  bonded to Subject Delta. Speaking to GamesRadar   months after release, Thomas explained that  players would’ve fought Eleanor frequently;  

[24:05] however, this course for the character left  her feeling too far gone, fragmented in a way   that allowed for no redemption. The director also  rejected the implication of a twist wherein the   story suddenly unveiled the main antagonist as the  protagonist’s assigned Little Sister. Ultimately,  

[24:20] a “combination of pressures” engendered the  shift where multiple Big Sisters functioned as   enforcers before Eleanor later adopted the role. Big Sisters represented more than an interesting   narrative touchstone. Mechanically,  they made for the ideal opposition to  

[24:34] a playable Big Daddy. The diving suit-wearing  enemies in BioShock dealt with a lot of bulk,   an unfitting design for a leading character  in first-person shooters. Subject Delta’s   status as an early model Protector informed  the creation of a faster, more agile suit,  

[24:48] ensuring he stood a chance against the especially  spry Big Sisters who were kitted out with powers   that provided yet another combat advantage. In terms of sprucing up the gameplay,   Jordan Thomas told Eurogamer the project  started as an examination of what the  

[25:01] 2007 title didn’t do and what it could’ve  handled better. BioShock’s upgrade systems,   which included weapon improvements, Gene Tonics,  and Plasmid modifiers, were nothing if not solid,   but 2K Marin knew customization needed more depth.  A wider range of specialization options entered  

[25:17] the mix in BioShock 2 as a result, though  the franchise’s shooting mechanics received   the most measurable enhancements thanks  to guidance from designer Zak McClendon.

[25:50] Of course, the Big Daddy-starring campaign  served as only one part of the sequel’s overall   offerings. Produced and released during the  height of tacked-on multiplayer modes, BioShock 2   featured a narrative-driven online component known  as Fall of Rapture. Developers got word during  

[26:04] pre-production that the sequel needed to “expand  what it meant to be a BioShock game.” This note,   presumably from 2K Games leadership, nudged  2K Marin in the direction of an online suite,   inspiring several loose concepts that were  “too complicated.” For instance, Jordan Thomas  

[26:20] and Lead Designer Allen Goode referenced an  MMO-like proposal in a TechRadar interview,   describing it as “self-contained and perpetual.” 2K ultimately outsourced the multiplayer to Unreal  

[26:32] co-creator Digital Extremes, which built a more  reasonable online component because of the roughly   two-year development cycle. Translating the  sophisticated shooter to a PvP setting created   several challenges, chief among them being that  BioShock’s heavily modified version of Unreal  

[26:46] Engine 2.5 boasted no built-in multiplayer  capabilities[h], forcing Digital Extremes to   create the necessary technology from scratch. On  top of battling technical setbacks, the support   crew struggled with determining which type of  content would best befit Rapture-set online modes. 

[27:03] One embryonic version pitted nine users against a  playable Big Daddy in an asymmetrical experience   that was sidelined due to balancing issues. PvP  seemed the optimal route, although the established   gameplay required fine-tuning. According to  Senior Producer Melissa Miller, adjusting the  

[27:18] pacing of maps in multiplayer proved especially  integral. The single-player campaign let users   pause and consider the best path forward; online  battles offered no such options. Limiting loadouts  

[27:30] to two Plasmids, two weapons, and three Gene  Tonics helped combat the PvP balancing concerns,   which developers hoped would encourage players  to stick with Fall of Rapture long-term.  Digital Extremes further stretched the mode’s  potential appeal by exploring a prequel narrative,  

[27:46] recognizing multiplayer as the perfect opportunity  to delve deeper into Rapture’s past between the   years of 1959-1960. Though beset by a violent  civil war, the Rapture of this period still held  

[27:58] glimpses of beauty in areas such as Arcadia  Bay and Fort Frolic. Players could explore   the city through a new lens, one wherein Andrew  Ryan’s original vision didn’t feel so distant.

[28:15] BioShock 2’s single-player and multiplayer  successes weren’t possible without impeccable   teamwork. The Marin office staffed up quickly  upon opening its doors, going from a headcount of   eight to 80[i] in record time. But rapid growth  never hindered the team dynamic; if anything,  

[28:31] Jordan Thomas viewed 2K Marin’s approach  as egalitarian “to a fault,” suggesting   that perhaps everyone on staff had too much  of a say. As a first-time Creative Director,   Thomas gave all developers a voice, believing  BioShock 2 was much bigger than any one creative  

[28:46] mind. He may have felt some reservations  about this method in hindsight, yet members   of the crew appreciated the collaborative  environment. It paid off tremendously, too.  2K Games lifted the veil on BioShock 2 in  March 2008; the excitement quickly reached  

[29:02] a groundswell, although news about the newly  founded development team and online play fostered   a degree of skepticism. For the most part, 2K  Marin proved the doubters wrong when the title   garnered acclaim at launch in February 2010. The  sequel didn’t earn review scores high enough for  

[29:17] a place among the upper echelon of gaming greats  like the original; however, most agreed BioShock   2 amounted to nothing less than a worthy second  entry. Plus, the Minerva’s Den DLC won over series   faithful with an emotionally gripping storyline  comparable to the 2K Boston-developed adventure. 

[29:34] Across these few experiences existed  the foundation of what would later be   dubbed—albeit condescendingly—walking simulators.  Former BioShock developers went on to produce   Gone Home and Firewatch, for example. Bearing  that trajectory in mind, onlookers might have  

[29:50] assumed the BioShock brand had a clear path ahead  of it. But during the time in which the Marin   studio descended into the depths of Rapture,  franchise creators in Boston had their heads   in the clouds—crafting a universe, or multiple  universes, where the variables were infinite.

[30:25] Taking a step back from Rapture didn’t immediately  set Ken Levine and his staff on another course   in the System Shock-inspired world of BioShock.  2K Boston instead cast its gaze towards another   classic PC game, XCOM. For his book Press  Reset, reporter Jason Schreier spoke with  

[30:42] former developers who alleged Levine’s  commitment to the secret XCOM project had   subsided by mid-2008, leaving 2K Australia  and 2K Marin to join forces on The Bureau:   XCOM Declassified while the Boston-based  subsidiary reengaged with BioShock. 

[30:58] The earliest ideas for what would become  BioShock Infinite were conceived as far back as   February 2008. Levine informed The Guardian that  Infinite’s 1912 backdrop settled into place first,   with the city in the sky concept coming  online sometime thereafter. The American  

[31:14] exceptionalism bent manifested much later,  each idea coalescing into one thanks to the   influence of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the  White City. Multiple 2K Boston artists were   engrossed in the historical non-fiction book,  reading about the architect behind the Chicago  

[31:28] World's Fair of 1893 and the serial killer who  used the fair as a lure for unsuspecting victims.  Levine considered the New York Times bestseller  a mirror to the United States’ then-concurrent  

[31:40] events, thus believing Devil in the White City  a perfect point of reference for the creation   of a floating metropolis that exemplified  American idealism. And out of that motif   blossomed the vibrant visuals, accentuated by  the beaming sun rays, high-flying national flags,  

[31:55] and god-like effigies honoring the founding  fathers. Columbia signified Rapture’s polar   opposite in every sense. Rapture represented a  graveyard, a time capsule rife with disturbing  

[32:07] histories for players to unearth, whereas Columbia  offered a lively world whose tragedies users could   experience first-hand. Beneath the perpetual  July 4th veneer rested something sinister,   discomforting truths nestled within  harrowing political and religious ideologies. 

[32:23] Columbia very easily worked in concert with  BioShock themes; building a character-driven piece   to complement them proved rather trying. The team  made it a point to avoid standard sequel tropes,   which typically involved introducing a  handful of previously unseen monsters  

[32:38] and extra playable levels. An entirely new  locale didn’t seem striking enough either,   since skirting the usual trappings of a  sequel also morphed into ditching basic   shooter conventions that had comforted the  genre for far too long. NPCs issuing orders  

[32:52] from behind a window or through an earpiece  had become old hat—the original BioShock swore   by these means of delivering objectives.  For Infinite, 2K Boston, which reinstated   the Irrational Games label in 2009, challenged  itself to design a companion character capable of  

[33:08] driving the narrative and drawing empathy from  players. They named the character Elizabeth. Games of the past had featured meaningful  AI companions, but Elizabeth’s injection  

[33:25] into BioShock presented obstacles that were fairly  novel for the time. On one hand, the ways in which   she enhanced the gameplay had to correspond with  the abilities of player character Booker DeWitt,   though Elizabeth’s powers couldn’t prove  so dominant that she led the action and,  

[33:39] consequently, outshined the playable hero. Still,  her gameplay involvement demanded noticeable   impact, requiring a balancing act on Irrational’s  part that bled into her narrative function as   an NPC. Making Elizabeth believable, worthy of  sympathy even, was another challenge, given that  

[33:56] BioShock and countless of its FPS contemporaries  had conditioned users to either kill non-playable   characters or view them as commodities. Unsurprisingly, technical and logistical   complications arose from these lofty ambitions;  developers argued in favor of cutting Elizabeth  

[34:11] from the game on more than one occasion. While  she ultimately crossed the finish line, several   so-called “doomed projects” fell by the wayside,  dedicated multiplayer constituting one example. 

[34:23] Ken Levine noted not long after Infinite’s 2010  announcement that online support wouldn’t be a   guarantee. Job advertisements posted in May  2012 indicated Irrational had big plans for  

[34:35] multiplayer, though, with sources later confirming  two separate modes were once in development.   Polygon sources claimed one mode, Border Control,  offered tower defense-style cooperative gameplay,   children for propaganda purposes. Meanwhile, former developers who  

[34:54] spoke with Kotaku said the tentatively titled  Spec Ops shared similarities with modes of the   same name in classic Call of Duty: Modern  Warfare entries[j], in which four players   worked cooperatively to navigate levels borrowed  from the campaign. The studio put both on hold  

[35:08] so resources could be diverted elsewhere; when  BioShock 2’s Jordan Thomas rejoined Irrational to   steer Infinite on course, he and Levine agreed the  multiplayer efforts were impractical. After all,  

[35:20] the main story needed every bit of help Irrational  and its sister studios could muster. Apparently,   such a need emerged because the project  had suffered a distinct lack of focus.  When asked to address Infinite’s developmental  woes in a 2016 Rolling Stone interview,  

[35:34] Levine cited a number of factors regarding  the structure of the development house.   Working across continents between the Boston and  Australian arms complicated matters, of course,   but the Creative Director insisted the real  disruption stemmed from Irrational having  

[35:48] to rebuild its internal team. A number of key  BioShock developers moved to BioShock 2 in 2007,   shattering the work culture and creating a  schism that never properly repaired itself.  One key departure included co-founder  Jonathan Chey. The head of 2K Australia,  

[36:04] Chey represented the yang to Levine’s yin in  that the former led the production side of   things while the latter managed the creative.  Chey’s exit in 2011 saddled Levine with the   responsibility of wearing both hats, admittedly  unfamiliar territory for the acclaimed visionary.

[36:29] After launching a cryptic teaser website, 2K  and Irrational lifted the veil on BioShock   Infinite during an NYC event in August 2010.  The now-infamous E3 2011 demo exhibited its  

[36:42] true coming out party, providing a showpiece  of what developers planned on delivering. Yet,   Infinite’s heavily-scripted demo featured dynamic  gameplay sequences the seventh-gen consoles   couldn’t replicate, making for a final product  that technologically failed to measure up. The  

[36:57] memory constraints of PS3 and Xbox 360 severely  limited everything from dynamic mechanics to the   number of enemies present on screen at once;  and less on-screen enemies meant foes were   bullet sponges. Such issues added another knock  against the franchise’s divisive combat systems. 

[37:14] In some respects, the E3 demo and its false  promises were the least of Irrational’s   concerns. Former staffer Shawn Elliot divulged  that so much effort went into the vertical   slice because the studio had nothing else of  consequence ready for primetime. Dozens upon  

[37:30] dozens of issues had beset the project by  this point; even Infinite’s A.I. circa E3   2011 earned the description of “atrocious.” According to anonymous sources interviewed by   Kotaku, a good chunk of the bloated production  cycle meandered to and fro—the result of  

[37:46] Levine’s iterative creative process. The director  reportedly leveraged a system wherein repeatedly   creating, destroying, and reconstructing ideas  became the norm. This method served the project   well in certain cases, having benefited the  Skyhook mechanic that nearly hit the cutting room  

[38:01] floor multiple times. However, this one mode of  traversal absorbed resources for lengthy periods,   distracting from key areas of design that  hadn’t been finalized years into development.  BioShock 2’s Jordan Thomas and Rod Ferguson  of Gears of War fame helped turn things around  

[38:17] upon boarding the Infinite crew in 2012. Thomas  guided the production away from iterative tactics,   using his talents to assemble the disparate  parts of Levine’s vision, then cohesively   mold them together. Similarly, Ferguson in  the role of VP of Development established a  

[38:32] manageable path forward by providing structure  and assigning actionable goals. Many developers   later posited the title may not have launched  without guidance from Thomas and Ferguson.

[39:49] BioShock Infinite finally landed in stores in  March 2013 after multiple delays. Met with rave   reviews, the series had yet again pushed the  medium in a bold new direction. Its handling  

[40:06] of subject matters such as racial segregation  in the 20th Century felt eerily prescient,   though divisiveness about its politically  pessimistic arc for insurgency leader Daisy   Fitzroy dominated much of the conversation.  The uninspired gameplay further disappointed  

[40:20] critics and players who lamented that  BioShock played like an average shooter.  Players could still equip special abilities  and mix and match them for stronger effects,   but gone were BioShock’s relatively deep  customization options. That the actual shooting  

[40:35] mechanics felt unrefined didn’t do the gameplay  any favors, either. From the outside looking in,   it all played into the notion that higher ups  wanted a broader audience for the brand. This   much held true regarding Infinite’s marketing  campaign at least, with Levine admitting that  

[40:50] ads purposefully “focused on the action” to  attract those who purchased games off the shelf   with minimal knowledge—hence the generic cover art  that relegated Elizabeth to the back of the box.   Over the course of three entries, BioShock had  somewhat capitulated to market pressure, the very  

[41:05] thing Irrational originally bucked against. And it apparently took a toll on Levine,   who began downsizing the studio’s workforce  during production on the Burial at Sea   expansions. Internally, the executive expressed  doubts about the viability of producing another  

[41:19] Triple-A title in the then-current video game  landscape. Even so, most were surprised when   Levine shuttered the studio in February 2014 to  form a much smaller company, Ghost Story Games,  

[41:31] with roughly a dozen Irrational veterans. 2K Games hasn’t given up on the property.   Despite the delays, overrun budgets,  and a PlayStation Vita spinoff[k] that   was unlikely to ever see the light of day,  BioShock still holds plenty of promise. New  

[41:46] development firm Cloud Chamber Studios entered  production on the next installment years ago;   as yet uncorroborated rumors allege the adventure  will explore an Antarctic setting. Precedent   suggests it may trace the footsteps of its  forebears, perhaps centralizing a larger-than-life  

[42:01] figure whose hubris and inordinate ambitions  send the world tumbling down around them.  As the industry continues rinsing and repeating  exhausted visuals and gameplay systems[l],   BioShock fans can only hope future entries  retain the IP’s distinctly unique qualities,  

[42:16] some of which got lost in the shuffle over  time. But so long as there’s a lighthouse,   a man, and a city, there will never exist a limit  to the stories worth telling in the universe   where choosing the impossible requires  nothing more than the sweat of the brow.