Bioshock: A Critical Historical Perspective

Bioshock creates a unique immersive experience. The way it constructs a story, the way it allows players to customize their avatar, the way it creates a fictionally coherent space: all these things make Bioshock more than a mere genre exercise. It's interesting to examine how Bioshock does all these things, yet few can probably explain why it does them. Understanding Bioshock's design influences is the key to a more meaningful analysis. The first hint of Bioshock's legacy is right in the title. According to Bioshock's creators at Irrational Games1, Bioshock is the spiritual successor to System Shock 2. Yet System Shock 2 did not originate all the conventions Bioshock employs. Nor did the original System Shock. To truly understand where Bioshock comes from one has to go all the way back to System Shock's predecessor, Ultima Underworld, released by Looking Glass Studios2. Though Looking Glass made games using the first person perspective during the same time period as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake and Half-Life it never made games that could accurately be called first-person shooters. Looking Glass had its own trajectory of first-person game design independent fro