BioShock is a retrofuturistic video game series created by Ken Levine, published by 2K and developed by several studios, including Irrational Games and 2K Marin. The BioShock games combine first-person shooter and role-playing elements, giving the player freedom for how to approach combat and other situations, and are considered part of the immersive sim genre. Additionally, the series is notable for exploring philosophical and moral concepts with a strong in-game narrative influenced by concepts such as objectivism, total utilitarianism, and American exceptionalism.
The series consists of three main games. BioShock (2007) and BioShock 2 (2010) take place in the 1960s in the fictional underwater city of Rapture. BioShock Infinite (2013) is thematically and narratively tied to the first games, and takes place in 1912 aboard the floating city of Columbia. After Infinites release, Irrational Games was downsized and rebranded as Ghost Story Games to work on smaller titles, while 2K Games retained rights to BioShock. The publisher announced that a new BioShock game was in development by Cloud Chamber in December 2019.
The game series has received critical and commercial acclaim. The series had sold more than 43 million copies by August 2024 making the series one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time. A film adaptation of the series is in development at Netflix.
Development and common elements Developer Ken Levine founded Irrational Games in 1997 out of former members from Looking Glass Studios. Irrational Games produced System Shock 2, a sequel to Looking Glass's System Shock; Levine pitched another System Shock sequel to Electronic Arts, but the publisher rejected the idea based on System Shock 2s poor commercial performance. While Irrational worked on other projects, Levine still wanted to create a successor to System Shock 2. Levine said, "I have my useless liberal arts degree, so I've read stuff from Ayn Rand, George Orwell and all the sort of utopian and dystopian writings of the 20th century, and having developed the System Shock franchise, some of my first games, I felt that the atmosphere was a good one to set for a dystopian environment, one we borrowed heavily from System Shock." Levine has mentioned an interest in "stem cell research and the moral issues that go around [it]." In regard to artistic influences, Levine cited the books Nineteen Eighty-Four and Logan's Run, which represent societies that have "really interesting ideas screwed up by the fact that we're people." Walking through Rockefeller Center near the GE Building in New York City, Levine was inspired by the art deco styling of Rockefeller Center to make a similarly inspired space that had not been experienced in the first-person shooter genre.
The games in the BioShock series are first-person shooters with role-playing elements. While precise mechanics differ between all three games, they share common themes of players using a combination of weapons, the environment, and superhuman abilities—called "Plasmids" in BioShock and BioShock 2, or "Vigors" in Infinite—to defeat enemies. These weapons and powers can be used in various combinations to aid in defeating foes; for example, shocking a pool of water will electrocute the enemies standing in the liquid. In comparison to the hybrid role-playing game/first-person shooter stylings of System Shock, BioShock was marketed as a shooter to appeal to fans of the increasingly-popular genre. The gameplay nevertheless retained comparable elements: plasmids in BioShock supplied by "EVE hypos" serve the same function as "Psionic Abilities" supplied by "PSI hypos" in System Shock 2; the player needs to deal with enemy security cameras, machine gun turrets, and robots, and has the ability to hack them in both games; the player must manage supplies and ammunition; and audio tape recordings fulfill the same storytelling role as email logs did in the System Shock games.
Levine stated in 2010 that the name "BioShock" is not in reference to any specific setting or location, but instead a means of encapsulating common gameplay elements that reflects on their earlier games and the BioShock series.
Themes Following from its influences in System Shock 2, the games in the BioShock series broadly raise the question of free will of the central character, often acting at suggestions of an unreliable narrator who is using the character for their own ulterior motives. Levine had long been interested in evaluating how choice works in video games, both at the narrative level as well as at the player level, and the BioShock games represent his attempt to alter the perception of choice typically associated with the interactive medium. In BioShock, the player-character follows instructions from a man named Atlas to kill Andrew Ryan, the founder of the underwater city of Rapture. Once the character meets Ryan, Ryan reveals that the character has been under mind control throughout their arrival in Rapture, following any instruction led off by "Would you kindly...", which Atlas had been using. Ryan shows that he chooses free will by using the trigger phrase to have the character kill him, stating "A man chooses, a slave obeys" before his death.
The first BioShock game is themed around the philosophy of Objectivism established by Ayn Rand. Levine had been inspired for the game's setting after visiting the GE Building and the statue of Atlas in front of it while in New York City, and researching John D. Rockefeller, whom Levine called "a great man building an architectural triumph against all the odds". This led to the creation of Rapture and the character of Andrew Ryan loosely based on Rockefeller, with Ryan's name based on Ayn Rand's. Levine incorporated Objectivism concepts into these elements, particularly on the idea that man should be driven by selfishness and not altruism. One major gameplay element requires the player to decide how they interact with the Little Sisters that have harvested ADAM, either opting to save the girls for a small reward, or harvest the full amount of ADAM for their own benefit by killing the Little Sisters. Ars Technica states that the city of Rapture falls not necessarily because of objectivism, but through the corrupting power needed to control such a city.
BioShock 2 focuses on versions of utilitarian and collectivist ideals. Sofia Lamb, who rose to control Rapture in the wake of events from BioShock holds a philosophy of altruism that is based on historical figures Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill, along with modern figures such as Richard Dawkins. In comparison to BioShocks questions of free will and humans' destiny, BioShock 2s director Jordan Thomas said that the player character is "almost the ultimate individual" whom Lamb goads to fulfill her goals. Professor Ryan Lizardi draws parallels between BioShock 2s themes of community versus the individual and the issues of McCarthyism and the hippie movement that occurred around the time period of the game's setting. "As this sequel is an extension of the first game's storylines and characters, there are direct contrasts between the extreme politics of Andrew Ryan's objectivism and the extreme religion/politics of Lamb's collectivism", he writes. "BioShock 2 specifically asks players to question all sides of debates when extreme stances are taken, and asks players to weigh their decisions in an alternate and complex history."
BioShock Infinite used the concept of American exceptionalism as the basis for its setting of the floating city of Columbia at the turn of the 20th century. In capturing this period, Levine said that the game included aspects of racism, white supremacy and white nationalism, and other political and social issues as they were at that point in time, not to make a statement in regards to these areas but that it would be "strange" and "dishonest" to not include them. Levine considered the presentation of these elements in the game as simply historical, and invited players to derive any interpretation in meaning from them themselves. Separately, BioShock Infinite explores concepts related to multiple realities and "constants and variables", and understanding the impacts of free will, choice and consequences on one's actions.
Games
BioShock (2007)
BioShock was released on August 21, 2007, for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360. A PlayStation 3 port was released on October 17, 2008. The game was critically very well received, with positive reviews that praised its "morality-based" storyline, immersive environment and Ayn Rand-inspired dystopian back-story. According to Take-Two's chairman Strauss Zelnick, the game has sold around 3 million copies .
BioShock takes place in 1960, in the fictional underwater city of Rapture. Built in the late 1940s by business tycoon Andrew Ryan, it was meant to be a laissez-faire social environment for individuals to work, live, and prosper out of the increasingly oppressive hands of the world's governments and authorities. Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, Dr. Yi Suchong, and other scientists discovered a substance called ADAM, harvested from sea slugs that could be made into plasmids that gave the user psychokinetic powers. Frank Fontaine, a former gangster and businessman who brought black market goods to Rapture, found a way to harvest ADAM by implanting the slugs in the bodies of young girls, "Little Sisters", and profited from this. Ryan led an attack that apparently killed Fontaine and seized his ADAM production facilities. To protect the Little Sisters, Ryan created Big Daddies by conditioning and mutating humans into armored diving suits. Leading up to New Year's Eve 1959, a new figure, Atlas, rose from the worker classes to lead a revolt against Ryan, killing many and leading Ryan to mutate a number of his followers into Splicers to protect himself, creating the downfall of Rapture's utopia.
In 1960, Jack, the player-character, is in a plane crash over the ocean that is near the lighthouse which houses a bathysphere that takes him to Rapture. Atlas contacts Jack to ask his help against Ryan's forces. Jack discovers the Little Sisters and is warned by Tenenbaum not to harm them. After fighting through the failing city, Jack makes it to Ryan's offices. Ryan, patiently playing golf while waiting for Jack, reveals that Jack is his illegitimate son, and had been mentally conditioned by Fontaine to coerce his actions, specifically following any order preceded by the phrase "Would you kindly...?". Jack realizes Atlas has been using this phrase since his arrival. Ryan accepts his fate, using the phrase to make Jack kill him with a golf club, and Atlas reveals himself as Fontaine, having gone into hiding to plan a new strategy against Ryan. Fontaine leaves Jack to die, but he is rescued by Tenenbaum and the Little Sisters. Tenenbaum removes the conditioning from Jack's mind and urges him to defeat Fontaine and take the Little Sisters to the surface. In a final battle against Jack, Fontaine injects himself with numerous plasmids. Jack and the Little Sisters overpower him, allowing for them to escape.
BioShock 2 (2010)