We can try to pretend like Bioshock isn’t one of the best original titles to come out of the last ten years, but we’d be lying. In fact, the entire series is absolutely bonkers with little interesting tidbits of trivia that I’m sure you may not know. Want to delve into some secrets?
1. Those Circus of Value machines that we’re oh-so-happy to find? They’re actually voiced by the game’s director – Ken Levine. That voice will stick with me forever.
2. Andrew Ryan is actually a half-anagram of Ayn Rand who is the legitimate inspiration for the visuals and theme of the game. Not sure who Ayn Rand is? Get to the Google.
3. The character of Tenenbaum is actually only heard from twice in the game, though obscured, and that’s due to the fact production of the game ran costly. The budget became so pinched that the character model was completely scrapped in order to save a few pennies to get the game out on time.
4. When Atlas asks you, in his own way “Would you kindly find a crowbar or something?” it is in reference to Half-Life. How? Well, crowbars are quite well-known in the Half-Life series and the writers wanted to give a little ear-tug to one of their favorite series.
(2K Games)
5. The ‘Little Sisters‘ in the game were actually conceptually slug-like in their creation in the beginning of development. However, they found that they needed more sympathetic of a visual in order to make players care more about their survival and existence. The final form of the Little Sisters was seen as childish, encouraging players to care about their survival.
6. If you were curious, you can actually find the Rapture lighthouse by keying 63′ 2′ North 29′ 55′ West into Google Maps. Mhm. Kinda spooky, right?
7. Nineteenth Century French diving suits are actually the inspiration for the ‘Bouncer‘ Big Daddy enemy types. Remember those huge drills? Well, that part was obviously added on.
8. The completely distorted faces of the Splicers is based on the images of reconstructive surgeries that World War I veterans had gone through. The level of research in this game is pretty intense.
(2K Games)
9. Developers were completely heartbroken over the fact a third Big Daddy type was scrapped right before release. Called ‘SLOPRO‘, this Big Daddy had a shoulder-mounted cannon and a sharp hook meant to destroy players through melee attacks. Listen, the game was intense enough — not sure we needed a cannon/hook boss to contend with.
10. The Gene Bank was originally called ‘Plasmi-Quik‘ but developers noted that play-testers avoided the machine when not really quite sure what it did or how to use it. The Gene Bank was then utilized as the name and play-testers ran right for it! See, this is why development processes and play-testing is so important.
