Immersion in the Rapture

Bioshock may be one of the greatest games of all time. Personally, I’m more partial to Infinite because Elizabeth is one of my favorite characters of all time, and the 1912 setting is fascinating to me, but Bioshock sprinted so Infinite could take off like Sonic the Hedgehog.

And Bioshock’s incredible status comes from its world. Rapture, the city under the sea, where there are “no gods, only man.” What a load of crap. And the game demonstrates that being a load of crap in the best way possible: showing, and not telling, throughout its entire experience.

Rapture’s tone is established at the very start of the game, with surface travel locked down and yet, somehow, Jack (and the player along for the ride) is allowed in. It’s a dark mystery that entices you in, like the girl with the cigarette at the bar that locks eyes with you, daring you to come talk to her. There’s a war on, you have to be work at the newspaper to report on the fight against Germany and Japan tomorrow morning and she looks like she’ll get you killed, but you’re drawn in anyways because of the secrets behind her eyes. Rapture’s mystery is a seduction, and the arrival in the city’s interior only adds to it. You fly through this miraculous underwater city, and then you get inside and it’s decaying and damaged. There’s always a new question to be asked.

And the answer to Rapture’s state at the beginning of the game is so artfully developed. It seems like the idea of a paradise: a city founded for creatives and industrialists to do their thing unimpeded by bureaucratic red tape and societal pressures based on the next election. And with small clues from the environment like audio logs and conversations among splicers or propaganda posters, the game deconstructs why such a place would never work. Humans are empathetic by nature, most players will choose to save the Little Sisters throughout, and a place where only oneself is to worry about will attract those devoid of that empathy, and in a society that awards such thing, will lead to people being stepped on. Eventually those being stepped on have enough and they bite back with a fury, especially if led by someone as cunning as Fontaine. Never underestimate a strategist with a ruthless streak and a grudge.