TITLE
The making of BioShock: How Irrational Games created an FPS that’s still celebrated 15 years on
AUTHOR
Adam Barnes
PUBLICATION
Retro Gamer
YEAR
2022
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
Let’s address that elephant in the room. We know what you’re thinking: BioShock isn’t a retro game. It’s a fair standpoint, but the underwater FPS celebrated its 15th anniversary in August, which falls within our own remit, and regardless, no one can discount its status as an utter classic. And the fact is, when it comes to selecting games from the pile of ‘recently retro’ to cover, only the very best, most innovative, most impactful games can make the cut… and that basically defines BioShock. But what’s interesting about the game’s development is how so much of its essence is owed to a much older, equally beloved release.“We didn’t think we were done with some of the ideas that we worked with on System Shock 2 and we wanted to keep working in that genre,” says Jonathan Chey. Many will know Jon as one of the co-founders of Irrational Games, and he was the director of development on the game. “We didn’t feel that anyone had picked up on those ideas. At least for the next few years after it had been released, there wasn’t a flood of System Shock 2 clones on the market because it hadn’t been a huge hit. So we didn’t feel like that space had really still been explored. We felt that it deserved to be more popular than it was.”
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Irrational Games
GAMES MENTIONED
BioShock
PRINT AVAILABILITY
September 2022 (Issue 237)