Bioshock is the first game in a series that contrasts exciting first-person shooting sequences with philosophical and moral questions.
Click a title to learn more about each topic.
Story & Themes
Bioshock explores the consequences of an ideology gone wrong.
You play a blank-slate character named Jack who crash-lands at a mysterious lighthouse in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 1960. Jack descends into the city known as Rapture, and discovers that it has succumbed to chaos after a bloody civil war over a resource known as “ADAM.” ADAM has amazing properties—it can bond with any cell and change it, effectively curing all disease. It also has terrible addictive qualities, and the citizens of Rapture have nearly all become physically deformed and insane from repetitive use of ADAM.
Jack must try to escape from the city, which means tracking down the city’s founder, Andrew Ryan, and getting answers about his own past.
Save Points
In Bioshock, players can save any time as long as they are not engaged in battle.
Difficulty
On the hardest difficulty setting, enemies will be much more difficult to defeat, and the player might have to get creative in how they go about accomplishing the task. Playing on easier settings definitely lowers the level of challenge, though gamers with little experience may still find it a bit tricky.
Heads Up!
Violence Bioshock is bloody. Most of the violence is perpetrated with guns, and there is some blood spatter when enemies are hit. There is also some level of body horror. People who take too many plasmids are deformed in various ways. Creatures called "Big Daddies" use giant drills to take out foes.
Scary Imagery Bioshock pays homage to horror games, pitting the player against psychotic drug addicts with mutated features in a dilapidated underwater city. The game features some jump scares, as well as generally scary imagery associated with the collapse of society.
Sex & Nudity There are inferences to sex in Bioshock, but no graphic sexual content. There are also sequences that take place in a strip club called Eve's Garden that has long been out of use; advertisements for it are still on the walls, but like real-life advertisements for strip clubs, they are not explicit.
Strong Language There is standard adult language in Bioshock.
Substance Use Bioshock takes place in a city where the player runs into lots of alcohol and cigarettes lying around. The player is not encouraged to drink or smoke. In fact, in Bioshock getting drunk can be a nuisance, as you can accidentally drink alcohol while rummaging through crates. When you’re drunk, your vision becomes blurry and the camera wobbles.
Drinking alcohol raises your health and lowers your EVE (resources that determine your secondary attack power). Smoking cigarettes lowers your health and raises your EVE. The games take place in the 1960s, when smoking was considered healthy, and tongue-in-cheek advertisements depict people (sometimes children) smoking cigarettes—the player is meant to understand that this is historical ignorance, but it is not explained.
Conversation Starters
- How does Bioshock use historical time periods to tell a story? Why is the setting important?
- In Bioshock, the use of plasmids has made people insane, to the point where they’re killing each other. Are they evil, or are they sick? What does Bioshock have to say about addiction?
- Did you choose to kill or save the Little Sisters in Bioshock? Why? Is killing for a short-term reward worth it, considering it’s just a game? Or did you feel compelled to save them?
- Many characters in Bioshock refer to the Big Daddies as smelly brutes, but the Little Sisters appear to adore them, and cry when they die. Do you think their feelings are valid, or are they being brainwashed? Do the Big Daddies genuinely care for the Little Sisters, or is it just in their programming?
- Every Bioshock game is about a city that is isolated from other cultures. Do you think it is healthy for a society to be cut off from the rest of the world? Can this ever go well?
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