No matter how many years pass, Bioshock retains its original excellence like very few games. Ken Levine wanted to give System Shock 2 a spiritual successor and pulled a masterpiece out of his hat. An essential released in a not so close 2007 and that asks to be played and replayed as many times as necessary. Above all, with a collection of remasterings that dress up a trilogy of obligatory formality and with Lots of curiosities and secrets.
Precisely for this reason, in Extra Life We have proposed to share no less than 11 curiosities and special details. Elements removed from the game prior to launch, easter eggs, subtle or quite blatant tributes… More than a dozen elements that add new nuances to our arrival in Rapture, being aware that they are only the pint of the iceberg of an experience major that leaves a special mark on the player.
Bioshock is the spiritual successor to System Shock and was going to take place aboard a ship
before imagining bio shock, Ken Levine directed and scripted System Shock 2, and it shows: despite the fact that the setting inherited what was fair and necessary, the lessons learned are present both in the game design and in the narrative. In fact, the original plan for the project was create a spiritual successor to System Shock 2 and, like this one, Jack’s adventure was going to take place in a futuristic city in the style of the fifties on dry land and later in a closed spaceship.
From there, new ideas began to be explored, such as that the new game would take place underwater instead of in space, but they found that deep down it was just another ship in which the only difference was what was seen. through the windows.
It was then that it was decided to rethink the whole and turn the setting into a resource that would evolve throughout the game in a different way, generating in the player a huge contrast between a genuine free exploration and the feeling of being really trapped.
There are two Irrational games easter eggs (that we know of)
Much has happened since the curious signature of the author of Adventure, considered one of the first easter in video games. Coincidence or not bioshock There are two conveniently hidden references to Irrational Games in the original.
- The first one is in the opening scene, where Jack shows his bag and can be seen timidly peeking out. a company business card.
- The other, much more visible, is shown to us in the form of a poster during the projection of Sander Cohen’s office, inside Fort Frolic.
About the Big Daddys
The inspiration when creating the Big Daddys is no mystery: Irrational Games took the diving suits with their huge diving suits as a reference and turned them into more caricatured and menacing figures. Moreover, its original name was protectors. What is not so well known is that there were originally planned to be more variants that were discarded during development.
- The first of the discarded models had the code name SLOPRO and later located in the remaster of ProLenJo, Which comes from Slow Projectile- Fucked Melee. A variant armed with a powerful cannon that will be recovered and rethought for the sequel.
- The second of the reworked models was a variant of the Gorilla-type Bug Daddy that had two powerful hammers replacing its arms. The reason for the change? Originally there were no Little Sisters.
the original idea of bio shock is that the Big Daddys were controlled by the collectors, a kind of worm dedicated to collecting ADAM from corpses. During the testing phase, it was concluded that these collectors did not arouse sympathy with the players, so various options were tested and finally the Little Sisters were chosen.
The Bioshock lighthouse on Google Maps?
Have you ever wondered what would happen if Rapture were a reality? Well, in the absence of further evidence or a submarine, a quick search on Google Maps entering the coordinates 63′ 2′ North 29′ 55′ West indicates the location of the in-game lighthouse. The only stage, by the way, that takes place at the height of the surface.
In fact, this location (between Greenland and Iceland) is revealed to us earlier in the game in the gift note that Jack opens during his flight.
The great trick for Rapture to be an endless underwater stage
That bioshock being set in a colossal underwater environment played into the experience, and not just because of how the water ends up making its way through the facilities. Jack’s vision as he looks through the windows places us unmistakably in an endless underwater city. How was this effect of immensity achieved?
The secret is not so much in what is seen, but in what is insinuated: when looking through the windows and areas that show the seabed, Jack’s aforementioned vision is limited to a relatively short distance given the turbulence and nature of the water itself, so the player doesn’t question why they can’t see further, but still has a feeling of being on an endless stage.
Are those ghosts or hallucinations of Jack?
Throughout the game we will see scenes in which a class of spectral visions are revealed to us on stage. Is it a secondary effect after our genetic recombination? The truth is yes.
The reason Jack can see those ghosts, who were previously inhabitants of Rapture, is because the ADAM in the city is constantly moving from person to person as they die.
In other words, these ghosts we are seeing are, in essence, the processed remnants of RNA (memories) that we inject ourselves with with ADAM itself. All very cloudy.
Who is Ayn Rand and what does she have to do with Bioshock?
The name of Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture and the owner of Ryan Industries, is not chosen by chance. In fact, one could say that it is a kind of anagram that refers to and pays homage to Ayn Rand, a Russian philosopher and writer nationalized in the United States.
Alisa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, her birth name, developed the philosophical system of Objectivism that in many ways supports Ryan’s vision. If you want to know more about her, you can find her novels with her signature, such as El manantial or Atlas Shrugged.
0451, a number that is not chosen at random
In horror and survival games, it is quite common to open doors in the traditional way, with the appropriate key (even if it is a wrench) or with a code. Throughout the opening bars of bio shock We will look at these three examples, including a very precise number combination for a certain door: 0451.
At first glance it might seem like any number, but in reality it is a tribute, since that same code has been used both in System Shock and in other titles closely related to its legacy, such as Deus Ex, Dishonored and Thief. a subtle and brilliant wink.
The origin of Bioshock enemies and their behaviors
Despite the optimistic message that is offered to us when we arrive in Rapture, we will soon discover that this utopia has not gone too well. In fact, we will be assaulted by mutants as soon as we set foot outside the bathysphere. How did they make these creatures so intimidating?
While Irrational Games was in the early stages of the project it had been determined that the game would take place at the bottom of the sea. A small big step. What’s more, the first enemies looked like a mixture of humanoid sea creatures. Subsequently, a kind of mutations with notable deformities will be chosen.
Once the use of amphibious creatures was ruled out, it was decided to create different types of enemies with the appearance of mutants. For one thing, a sizable portion of the splicers’ faces were referenced by images of World War I veterans who underwent precarious facial reconstruction and surgery.
Also, many of the splicers in bio shock they inherit characteristics and behaviors from the hybrid mutants and cyborg assassins from System Shock 2, which was developed by the same team. And the thing does not end here, since the Big Daddy also received elements of the game. Which makes sense, since bioshock he sought to be a spiritual successor.
However, there were numerous enemies and threats that remained in the pipeline. One of the most notable was the Amorphous, the first splicer developed by Irrational games and that was not only finished in terms of animations, voices and reactions. Unfortunately, it didn’t fit with the vision of the game. In the words of Shawn Robertson (head of game design) the Amorphous was the “worst abortion Irrational ever created”.
A tribute to Pac-Man
A subtle but brilliant secret: if we enter the Worldly Winery of the Agricultural Fair and go to the right corner starting from the entrance we will see a cheese with a portion removed and, fortuitously, a series of marks of bullet A clear reference to Pac Man, the legend of Namco, who found his way to Rapture in milk form.
Spoilers Zone: Do you want?
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably reached the point in the game where the true purpose of Jack and his raid on Rapture is revealed. A set of catastrophes triggered by three words “would you kindly“, which were translated into the Spanish version as “Do you want?”
The truth is that beyond the great twist that the story gives, which we will not address here, it gives new nuances to a new game, since that expression appears from the initial bars of the game in the note that Jack Lee on the plane, or the first sentence that Atlas welcomes us to Rapture: “Take the shortwave radio, will you?”, as well as in practically all the instructions that we will receive during these initial bars of the game.
As a special detail, Irrational games compared several different trigger words, including Excelsior, although the problem with this last one and others like it is that they were too conspicuous for the player not to miss it before the big twist that occurs in bioshock.