Nazi laboratory, cultists, warped monsters - what was cut from Bioshock? (Topic)

Bioshock is not just a game, but one of the representatives of smart shooters, that is, those where every action, event and incident has its own rationale, and the study of the environment moves the gameplay and the plot. Not surprisingly, the game from game designer Ken Levin is the spiritual successor to System Shock.

Bioshock needs to be studied, to look for causal hereditary relationships in it, and also to think about its philosophy. However, before the game became an allusion to the destroyed utopia of an underwater metropolis that lived according to the principles of Ayn Rand's objectivity, the game underwent many changes, and today we will discuss what was cut from Bioshock.

The game that was abandoned

Before talking about Bioshock's cut content, it's worth paying attention to some of the early work that was created to attract publishers.

For example, according to the first version of the game, we took on the role of a man named Carlos, who was involved in kidnapping members of religious cults in order to reprogram their minds and return them to normal life. So, according to the plot, we flew to save the daughter of a tycoon from the influence of the "Quiet Dawn" cult.

The game began with a scene on an airplane, where Carlos, under the cover of a sectarian, along with other members of the "Quiet Dawn" flies to a distant island to their headquarters. Unfortunately, during the flight it is declassified, a shootout begins, as a result of which the pilot is killed and the plane crashes.

Carlos is the only survivor and realizes that they fell near the very island. Having got out on land, he begins to fulfill his mission and look for the base of the cultists, finding a lot of strange corpses along the way. As a result, he will find himself in an underground bunker, where the main plot would unfold.

The game would give us the opportunity to repeatedly improve our weapons, for example, to make special cartridges for different types of enemies. All of them, enemies, represented deformed human mutants, similar to sea creatures. Most likely, the activity of the members of the cult would be to interbreed people with sea creatures to obtain a new advanced race or something similar.

This would be reflected in the gameplay, because according to one of the mechanics, we could supplement our DNA with the genes of marine inhabitants with the help of technologies based on the base. For example, if we supplemented ourselves with the crab genome, we would get a chitinous coating on the skin and receive less damage, and if we introduce ourselves to the genes of the jellyfish, we could poison enemies with the help of touch.

The original idea looks very intriguing, and as we see some ideas and developments in the plot and gameplay were involved or developed, as in the final parts of the story about Rapture, and in the third part of the series. However, then the concept did not attract publishers and was abandoned.

Nazi and slug bunker

In 2005, when the studio found those who would release the game, the concept of the game was rewritten so that it became more like the final version. According to the new idea, the action took place in an abandoned Nazi laboratory somewhere in the 60s, which a group of research scientists stumble upon.

In it, the player had to meet several types of enemies: soldiers, gatherers and predators. The gatherers represented ugly caterpillars / slugs looking for valuable resources, soldiers guarding them, and predators trying to take those resources. As a result, they all remained in the final version of the game, only redesigned into little sisters, Big Daddies and mutants. As we can see, the sisters were once disgusting slugs or centipedes, or the devil knows what to call these creatures.

The impetus for the change was the new owner of the studio - the 2K Games company. Although the developer himself admitted that the idea with a Nazi base, although it was interesting, was not worked out and they did not know how to twist the plot. This is how the underwater city of Rapture appeared, and we can proceed to what we cut from the final version of Bioshock.

Mechanics and parts we don't have

The original version of the game had a couple of interesting mechanics. Most notable is the atmospheric pressure system, which could be played with using special machines. So changing the pressure to low or high, it would entail changing the lighting, creating a fog effect. It would also affect the behavior of the weapon (at low pressure, the flame from the flamethrower flies much further, and at high pressure, the bullets have more chances to explode something) and the appearance of enemies. However, since it was difficult to implement, the mechanics were removed.

The idea with one ending was also removed. Ken Levine originally wanted one ambiguous ending. He himself said that over the course of the game you would make millions of different changes and choices, it is because of them that you would get one ending, fully experiencing the hundreds of your changes that would lead to it. This is much better than one big chunk of multiple endings that you would get from one choice at the end. However, the second ending was added to the game, as requested by the publisher.

Enemies and Environment

The delight itself initially had not so much the art deco style as an industrial orientation. The levels were more minimalistic and reminiscent of production. And they were called decks, as a tribute to System Shock 2.

The most interesting of the cut content of Bioshock is the enemies. So the little sisters managed to visit not only slugs, as already mentioned, but also frogs with ADAM tanks, as well as creatures that do not look like girls at all. And the very appearance of the sisters was more depressing in the concept art. By the way, the sisters were chosen to make it more difficult for the player to make the decision to kill them.

There were originally three big daddies. Daddy SlowPro was cut from the final version of the game - a slow and clumsy bully with a gun on his shoulder. It was cut for technical reasons. Two other daddies had borax on two hands, but one was removed to interact with the sisters.

Aggressors - this is how mutants were originally called in the game. They looked little like humans, but more like monsters with disproportionate limbs. So the mutant Stitching was a large stitched mass that wore only pants, and had one arm with a sawn-off shotgun. The main artist later called it: "the worst abortion that the studio did." The mutant Sweet potato hand , with a disfigured face and a large hand, resorted to melee attacks.

The " Missing Link " monster was more mundane to what we eventually saw - a whole undeformed body, clothing, and a mechanism with pipes that pumped something under his skin.

Prostitute - was an early model of a mutant spider and represented a bald woman with hooks on her arms and legs from which she could climb walls.

Plasmids

Plasmids are also part of the Bioshock cut content. According to an early idea, they were taken as pills and were supposed to change the appearance of the hero, turning him into an inhabitant of Rapture. The player was given a choice - either become mutants, or go through the game without them and with difficulties. The idea was abandoned, as it interfered with the full passage. Several interesting plasmids were also removed:

• Parasitic healing - throwing a charge at enemies, it would take away their health and restore ours.
• Shelter - created a protective bubble around the player.
• An accelerator - would give us the ability to move faster.
• Teleportation - would allow teleportation to any point on the map.

The first aid kit was also removed from the game, however, an EVA injection came instead, and even the sound of its acceptance remained the same.

This was Bioshock's most interesting cut content. Who knows, maybe the early developments will come true someday.

The Topic of Article: Nazi laboratory, cultists, warped monsters - what was cut from Bioshock?.
Author: Jake Pinkman