BioShock 2: Big Ideas are Here to Stay
Just as many philosophical questions
There’s a stellar interview with 2K Marin’s Jordan Thomas over on ign.com today. The creative director for next year’s BioShock 2 has a lot of interesting stuff to say about the game, and goes a long way to assuaging any fears that Ken Levine’s original creation might have experienced some ‘dumbing-down’ for the sequel.
Thomas calls Rapture “an amazing setting”, and confirms that while Andrew Ryan might be dead, his legacy lives on in BioShock 2. “Andrew Ryan will always be part of Rapture. He is critical to knowing why the place exists. While he is no longer the villain, he is the guy whose philosophy our new villain is in contrast to.”
With Ryan’s philosophy drawn from the Objectivism of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the 2K team has used J.S. Mill’s stark utilitarianism as the ethical basis of new villain Dr. Sophia Lamb. Thomas says: “I’ve been interested in him since I was very young. His father isolated him from other children, specifically to turn him into a vehicle for his philosophy. He wanted to groom him into a genius level intellect. Dr. Sophia Lamb, our villain, comes out of that kind of background, and you see a lot of effects of her rather cold attitude toward morality over the course of the game.”
Lamb uses religion as a tool to further her ends, which can only add a further level of moral complexity to the game. And, although precise details are lacking, it looks like BioShock 2 will include a game mechanic based around ethical decisions, as Thomas says: “It’s very important to us that you’re aware of the choices and that there is a very demonstrable consequence of those choices. It lives right there on the screen, so that you can decide to tune it or take a different option next time if you want.”
Rolling your eyes right now? You’d be totally justified. Morality is a hugely tricky thing to pull off in videogames, and tying it to a slider or such is hardly representative of the range of human ethics. BioShock got it right thanks to its elegant story twist removing all but the illusion of choice from the player. Has 2K Marin set itself too great a challenge for the sequel? We’ll find out when BioShock 2 is released in February 2010.
I think I’m rather jaded now when it comes to video games. Whether that is because of age, or having played a metric tonne of games over the years, or maybe just a bit of both, I don’t know.
I happily spend hours of my time in Azeroth, and have not took one blind bit of notice of the story. About as involved as I get in the background is looking at it. I couldn’t hope to tell you about any of the back story. Likewise I didn’t take any notice of any story in Final Fantasy XII, but never wanted that game to end, to the extent my character levels were way over 120.
I suppose the thing is that in many respects I’ve seen it all before. Admittedly, there wasn’t a great story in FF XII, but nonetheless I took no notice. I still found the game fantastic just to play.
One complete exception to this was Bioshock. It may well have many cliches, and indeed the “illusion” of choice, but the game was not only great to play, but great JUST TO BE IN.
Even if this second game’s a shadow of it’s former self, I for one will gladly dip my toes in once again.