Levine: BioShock Was Never Just About Rapture

[Fortesque]

For me, BioShock was Rapture.

Im all for the idea, but ive grown to the characters and the settings. Infinite just wont have that appeal of looking out the window and the beautiful rendered city, shimmering through the water.

 

[Woodsey]

i say if bioshock was never just about rapture then why didnt bioshock one have a caption like "bioshock: rapture" or to that extent... i think they just realized a city underwater would have limits to story so they changed their minds. I think the idea in infinite is too out there, even for bioshock, i mean a floating city? ok a(singular) huge ass hot air balloon can only carry a twine basket and a few people, what makes it realistic that what...6 hot air balloons can fucking lift a 50 story building, not to mention that if they could lift the buildings they would need constant fuel to stay up in the air... at least rapture was believable...it seems to me like they've just skiped sci-fi and went straight to fantasy.

Do you know quite how impossible it'd be to actually build Rapture?

There was a thread on here months back and someone went into major detail about it. It might seem more plausible, but it really isn't.

It's far less about how it's there and far more about what it represents.

Are people really questioning the plausibility of a story where humans have magic arms that shoot bee's

Haha, apparently so. Hopefully it's because it's new, so it seems to so much more crazy than an entire city built at the bottom of the ocean, with no one noticing.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Didn't the lead-designer of Bioshock 2 say that the story of Bioshock IS about rapture?

He meant that Rapture was the main character of the bioshock story, about 90% of every piece of narative in bioshock was about Rapture the second by second story of Jack was a minor thread.
For bioshock 2 Jordan thomas left the story of jack behind and continued the story of rapture which was the best direction as jacks story was self contained.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

The game is called Bioshock. It's quite clear that the game was about severely and dangerously altering biotic structures, as seen in it's title, Bio-shock.

The game could be placed in San Fransisco, and all of the missions could revolve around eating Rice-a-roni and driving Hybrids, and as long as you had plasmids, it would still be Bioshock.

Plasmids and that creepy atmosphere of being watched that made 1 so scary.


OT: As long as it's some more Bio mixed up with some Shock my local game will be taking my money for Infinite.

 

[Legion]

What makes a BioShock game? Is it Andrew Ryan's philosophy, or the undersea city of Rapture? Is it the inextricably linked Big Daddies and Little Sisters? Is it plasmids, ADAM and Splicers? According to Ken Levine, it's none of the above.

Whereas according to the vast majority of fans, this is exactly what makes a Bioshock game.

Don't get me wrong, the game seems like a brilliant idea, but to myself and a significant proportion of the fans, it is not a Bioshock game. The same way System Shock 1 and 2 are not. Similar, but not enough to count them as the same series.

 

[E-Penguin]

Any who disagree are not fans of Halo: Reach. (Halo...where?)
(For the slow to get, I highly doubt any of the Halo rings will be in Reach aside from multiplayer)

Excuse me?

 

[Alandoril]

Glad to see there's some artistic integrity left the industry, though I'm shocked some people here seem to react badly to that.

If they had given the upcoming game a new title and stated it was part of a new franchise everyone would have said they were just ripping off their own games. Better to have a sense of structual and aesthetic continuity than nothing.

 

[Alandoril]

Didn't the lead-designer of Bioshock 2 say that the story of Bioshock IS about rapture?

Maybe he did, but Rapture is a concept. A product of a philosophy. No reason why derivitives of it could not exist in another form elsewhere in the same fictional world.

 

[Knight Templar]

But then why not call it "X"-Shock?

 

[Jumplion]

Nope, I meant exactly what I wrote. Rapture was built in what, 50's, while for Infinite they go back in time and the ridiculousness of the setting increases. Not to mention it appears that they either have better technologies than what Andrew Ryan had in the first one, or that big daddy knockoff is run through magic. I'm sorry, but my suspension of disbelief can only go so far.

I'd be more inclined to agree with you if we had any idea what the story was!

People are jumping the gun way too early and crashing through the 10th story window behind it on this, all we have seen is a teaser trailer and already people are decrying it as "ridiculous" and "milking the franchise" when that's ridiculous in itself. You cannot and should not downplay the game's story based only on a fucking teaser trailer, it's got 2 years (released in 2012) to go before you can do that.

I'll quote him again;

Are people really questioning the plausibility of a story where humans have magic arms that shoot bee's

This is BioShock's world, this is Irrational's game, they can dictate however the universe will structure among itself, you, and nobody else in this forum for that matter, have no idea what Irrational plans to do with the game or the story behind it.

Remember, Levine and his team had nothing to do with BioShock 2, that was a completely different developer who completely missed the point of the original. Give them a chance to tell the story that they want to tell.

 

[Jumplion]

*snip*

*snip*

they explained how they built it already. it was in bioshock 2.

I strongly feel that Bioshock was just like System Shock, in that they are both high Science Fiction concepts, in which - similar to how Movie Bob explained Inception - amazing new technology is inserted into OUR world, and the story shows how it falls apart. A LOT of classic science fiction is like this.
I think as long as this is an important theme of Infinite, they can most definitely call it Bioshock.

Maraveno explains it quite well too:

Spoiler

you are very very silly
for 1 the game is set in an alternate Reality
2 It's zeppelin like baloons not just "hot air baloons"
Ofc this raises the but what if I shoot fire onto it question but They'll probably solve that

You people are completely missing the point as were most critic with the game itself
The thing about Bioshock is The story, using a setting like steampunk and I forgot the other -punk that bioshock 1,2 employ or biopunk or cyberpunk
Then it takes Grand detailed enviroments and a particular brainwash product

The brilliance of this Bioshock is that after this one we can get a new one that uses both settings and a new one again

the way to scare is also being change

It's not Survival horror as is nor is it a Horror FPS
It's a game completely in it's own right

EDIT : Bioshock Infinite
Is set in Protopunk
The previous ones seem to have been set in a Cyberpunk setting that would have been what they thought of in the 50's

I completely agree with you, people who are decrying BioShock: Infinite as "ridiculous" are completely missing the point of the games. It's not about the believability, it's about the "what if"'s. How could getting the smartest people in the world in one place work? And how would it crumble? It just so happens to involve a hugeass underwater city with drilling scuba divers and magical powers.

Though, again, I may be giving it a bit too much credit, I still loved the original BioShock even when I read all the spoilers before (played it on PS3, you see)

 

[Jumplion]

But then why not call it "X"-Shock?

Okay, I'll stop with the posts for now, but here's one shout out to a theory that I really like;

The game is called Bioshock. It's quite clear that the game was about severely and dangerously altering biotic structures, as seen in it's title, Bio-shock.

Or it may be called Bioshock because...

The term bio in Greek can mean "one's life", so if we follow this line of thought Bioshock can mean "a shock to one's life." And as shock can mean "to strike or jar with intense surprise, horror, disgust, etc." Then Bioshock is an appropriate name.

So take it how you will.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Nope, I meant exactly what I wrote. Rapture was built in what, 50's, while for Infinite they go back in time and the ridiculousness of the setting increases. Not to mention it appears that they either have better technologies than what Andrew Ryan had in the first one, or that big daddy knockoff is run through magic. I'm sorry, but my suspension of disbelief can only go so far.

I'd be more inclined to agree with you if we had any idea what the story was!

People are jumping the gun way too early and crashing through the 10th story window behind it on this, all we have seen is a teaser trailer and already people are decrying it as "ridiculous" and "milking the franchise" when that's ridiculous in itself. You cannot and should not downplay the game's story based only on a fucking teaser trailer, it's got 2 years (released in 2012) to go before you can do that.

I'll quote him again;

Are people really questioning the plausibility of a story where humans have magic arms that shoot bee's

This is BioShock's world, this is Irrational's game, they can dictate however the universe will structure among itself, you, and nobody else in this forum for that matter, have no idea what Irrational plans to do with the game or the story behind it.

Remember, Levine and his team had nothing to do with BioShock 2, that was a completely different developer who completely missed the point of the original. Give them a chance to tell the story that they want to tell.

You would think after Bioshock and System Shock 2 Ken Levine would have earned some goddam respect by now.

Have faith people.

 

[Jumplion]

You would think after Bioshock and System Shock 2 Ken Levine would have earned some goddam respect by now.

Have faith people.

Though I never played the SystemShock games, I think it's mainly because people think that he had something to do with BioShock 2, which is not true at all. It happens a lot, people get confused when a series is handed over to another developer, and it turns out to (supposedly) suck, so people blame the original developers even though they had nothing to do with it.

 

[Knight Templar]

But then why not call it "X"-Shock?

Okay, I'll stop with the posts for now, but here's one shout out to a theory that I really like;

The game is called Bioshock. It's quite clear that the game was about severely and dangerously altering biotic structures, as seen in it's title, Bio-shock.

Or it may be called Bioshock because...

The term bio in Greek can mean "one's life", so if we follow this line of thought Bioshock can mean "a shock to one's life." And as shock can mean "to strike or jar with intense surprise, horror, disgust, etc." Then Bioshock is an appropriate name.

So take it how you will.

I was under the impression Bio meant life, hence Biology, Biosphere. But that string of meanings isn't enough to tie together two games with seemingly different themes. Because if all something need to have is "a shock to life", then thats most RPG's.
The game isn't out yet so of course I can't judge it, I fully expect to be proven wrong when I play the game.

 

[Jumplion]

I was under the impression Bio meant life, hence Biology, Biosphere. But that string of meanings isn't enough to tie together two games with seemingly different themes. Because if all something need to have is "a shock to life", then thats most RPG's.
The game isn't out yet so of course I can't judge it, I fully expect to be proven wrong when I play the game.

Eh, like I said, it's a theory, just one I happened to like. I also assumed that BioShock meant more of "life" thing like you, but thinking about it it could also mean "Life" as in the whole world, so it's like a "shock" to the world. Though I have no idea if that theory can be supported, just a thought.

I disagree with that last statement, though, "Because if all something need to have is "a shock to life", then that's most RPG's". Wouldn't your life be "shocked" if you discovered an underwater city full of mutant things and THEN discovered you have no free will ("Would you kindly...")?

 

[Monkeyfunforidiots]

He said that it sense to use the name,

Hey, yeah, that does sense.

 

[wellhereiam]

I don't really agree with the game having similar themes to the original. It's great to have a philosophical undercurrent to your games but just rehashing the same themes as the original seems so unnecessary. I don't want Bioshock games to end up like SMT games where they all have the same philosophies with the same basic flaws, the same conflicts, and the same problems that arise because of those conflicts. If you really want to make the game unique and enjoyable then change up the themes but keep the atmosphere of the original.