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James Birks. Richard Dobson. Gareth Brierley. Dave Ozzy. Paul Renshaw. Darren Edwards. Jahanzeb Khan. The only huge difference was the ending cut-scene. Yes, there were moments along the way where you could approach situations from various angles. But BioShock understood that the medium of video games is always going to be goal-oriented, and the designed worlds still exist for one player to navigate a very specific story toward pre-written endings.
It was subversively self-aware for the time—in , BioShock was actively experimenting with the medium and the small choices it could offer the user. But its designer, Ken Levine, also wanted to make it clear that there was only so much he could do within the constraints of the medium.
Two sequels, also included in BioShock: The Collection, were largely regarded as disappointments. Though the game embellished on some of the most appealing design elements of the first BioShock, it had much less to offer in terms of original storytelling. Infinite retained the moral nuance of BioShock, often presenting its users with small crises to resolve in multiple ways. The Little Sisters started life as armoured slugs and, while the design changed to little girls, they remained vulnerable; the player was supposed to prey on them.
This murderous interaction matured into the idea that the player could also 'save' the Little Sisters, by performing a form of exorcism. Saving the girls was a harrowing process, and it was ambiguous as to whether 'saving' them was even doing them a favour. Towards the end of Levine and Chey were unhappy with the system. Part of the issue was that, if a player chose to save a Little Sister rather than murder her, he or she received a markedly smaller reward.
We were worried about it. We weren't looking to create controversy and we didn't want outrage to overshadow the real point of the game. We had to find a solution that conveyed the tough decisions we wanted the player to make without bringing out the mob and the pitchforks. The team's solution was to make the Little Sisters invulnerable, only allowing the player to harvest or save the child after their assigned Big Daddy was eliminated.
As BioShock entered its final year of development, the pressure on the team to work ever harder increased. According to the designer the decision to force the team to work without days off came directly from Levine; the game's producer, Alyssa Finley who would later become studio head of 2K Marin was against the move.
The team would find different ways to cope with the bruising workload. So I just made a video locally and then went on, fixing bugs. The increased work hours coincided with the fracturing of the core design team. Hellquist was increasingly shut out of key meetings. Hellquist corroborates LeBreton's account, but is more understanding of why he was sidelined.
I was a pain in Ken's ass towards the end of development. I was constantly challenging his opinions and directives and, having sat in that chair now, I expect he was exasperated. In retrospect I should have been more quick to say: 'OK, I'll do it. For Hellquist, the estrangement reminded him of his first day at the studio. I felt my opinions deserved more weight than they received.
It hurt, but I channelled that frustration into making that portion of the game as good as I possibly could. Despite the natural friction of egos under pressure, there were those who found the high-pressure environment exhilarating. Jordan Thomas joined Irrational in January as a senior level designer, eight months before BioShock's release.
And when we let ego fall away, and that engine of collective intent began to roar, man - there was a beauty to the naked momentum of it. Maybe you were at the wheel, maybe you were fuel.
On the best days at Irrational, it didn't matter. Thomas, who would go on to found 2K Marin with LeBreton, where he directed BioShock 2, remembers the sense of elation when a design fell into place. One night he was working on the area of the game for which he was responsible, Fort Frolic, where an insane artist, Sander Cohen, holds the player captive. I was trying to show him Cohen's big final entrance scene, and had been tinkering with it for several days, with the savvy assistance of JP LeBreton.
Chris left to go home. There's canned cheering and the music swells As Cohen sat there in his looping poses, admiring his masterpiece, I realised that, in a way, I had become him.
As BioShock neared its scheduled completion date and the natural pressures on the team intensified, the game's publisher made an announcement that startled the team: they had added three extra months to the schedule in which to finish the game. It was double-edged news offering the prospect of three more months of physically and psychologically exhausting seven-day weeks, but also the opportunity to realise the game's grand ambition.
I was excited because I knew that was the time we needed to really make something special but the curse was that we knew we had more months of crunch before we could rest. The wearying news was made more palatable for some staff members by the fact that they felt like they were on the verge of greatness with the project. I imagine it's how a band feels before they enter the studio to record their breakthrough album. There's just an energy. Other team members were less certain the game would be a success.
The play-test behind the one-way glass in January only seemed to confirm these fears. But, after the initial sting of the criticism, the team went away and redoubled their effort. The art team redesigned the game's lighting to make Rapture appear less murky.
A great deal of work went into reworking the control, UI and feedback. The team implemented a 'quest arrow' to direct the player on where to go next much to the chagrin of some designers. Atlas was recast as an Irishman.
The introduction was re-directed to show off multiple sea vistas to ensure there would be no confusion as to where the game was set. As the final submission date approached, confidence grew. Towards the end of a video game's production the issue of accreditation is raised. How one's work is credited in a video game is important not only for validating one's sense of contribution, but also as an essential part of establishing a career record.
With blockbuster productions, establishing the boundaries of authorship can be difficult, especially when the project is led by something of an auteur. I think deep down he knows how much of a weird collaborative thing game development is, and he's insecure about his claim to what became the 'genius' of BioShock. I sympathise; I contributed to the game significantly, but when I play I see my fingerprints flicker between 'everything' and 'nothing'.
In video games so many people touch the work and no idea is the same in two or more minds. BioShock launched on 21st August The reviews were universally positive. Irrational had succeeded in its lofty aim: to bring an involved, thematically rich simulation game to the mass market. But the team was broken. I worked on the game for a long time, and it was very special to me.
I was in a bit of an odd place because I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. It was a feeling echoed across the team. After the game's launch, many team members left, either - as in Jordan Thomas and LeBreton's case - to found 2K Marin, or, as in Hellquist's case, to move to new studios where they could step out of Levine's shadow.
We pour so much of our lives into them and sometimes people feel like they need to move to reignite the creative fires. It's also just generally the right time to do it. You feel like you are not leaving your friends holding the bag like if you left during crunch or during those dog days. It's just the right time to shift your focus. Despite the strains of the final few months of BioShock's development, and the creative tensions that existed long prior to that, many team members look back on the project with fondness, the pain salved by time and distance, and the near universal praise the game received and has maintained.
We made exactly the thing that we wanted to make. Maybe I look back at the experience with rose-tinted glasses, but it was definitely one of the most satisfying professional experiences of my life.
Although, if you just let me redo one thing, I think it would have to be the Atlas boss battle. We weren't great at boss battles. I have nothing but respect for Ken," says Hellquist. Ken can be a tough guy to work for sometimes, but he is driven to make his games great and drives his team towards that same goal.
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