Studying Interactive Storytelling, Part 2: Bioshock

One of Roger Ebert’s criticisms of video games in his infamous games-as-art debate was the fact that the creators of games surrender authorial control when the game is released into the hands of the public. While this is an understandable issue, especially given Mr. Ebert’s background in film, granting the player control is an inherent part of the video game experience and can often be an important part of the narrative. While I am not interested in reopening old wounds from a tired debate, I am very much interested in understanding the effect of assuming authorial control as a player. The 2007 2K/Irrational Games title, Bioshock, is a great example of the type of experience that can actually be enhanced by the medium.

After a brief, narrated introduction, you find yourself floating in the ocean surrounded by the flaming wreckage of a downed aircraft. This is the beginning to Bioshock. You immediately have control of the main character as soon as you rise to the surface of the water. You see what appears to be a lighthouse in the distance. The game plays on your natural inclination to save yourself from this situation in order to launch your journey. Inside the structure, the lights flicker on. “NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MAN.” A crimson banner hangs before you and “Beyond the Sea” plays softly from the PA system. This is Rapture. You found an underwater civilization, created by a man named Andrew Ryan. Right from the very beginning, you are the center of the experience. Just the act of swimming over to and entering the ominous structure, as opposed to watching it happen, makes the events that will follow feel unique.

Rapture is an incredible world that is teeming with life and personality, even (perhaps especially) in its current state of complete dystopia. What brings the world to life is not simply seeing it, but being in it. The more you poke around in every nook and cranny of the anti-Atlantis the more you learn about it and the more you fear it. Corpses litter the rooms and hallways, some frozen, some pinned to the walls, some sculpted into nightmarish art. Some things you are meant to find in order to forward the narrative, but some are simply there to add to the experience.

While the citizens of Rapture were not the most mentally or genetically stable, they did have the presence of mind to record many of their thoughts in the form of audio journals. When you enter Rapture it is beyond saving. Those who are still alive have injected themselves full of gene-altering substances to the point of ferity. However, the recordings you find serve as a chronicle of the demise of Rapture. They are all supremely acted, which helps. In fact, the overall audio design of Bioshock is impressive. Every room you enter has a different sound to it. Hallways creak from the water pressure around it, your footsteps echo in the tile bathrooms, vending machines force their dying chants through tinny speakers, the mutated voice of a Little Sister simultaneously compliments and contrasts the inhuman bellows of a Big Daddy. You feel as if you’ve spent a lifetime in Rapture throughout your 10-or-so hour trip. An apt feeling, considering the tale that is told during the game.

During your time in Rapture, you are guided by a man on a radio who calls himself Atlas. Your personal exploration of Rapture is a major part of the Bioshock experience, to be sure. However, the story unveils a twist towards the end that is both an interesting narrative point and, seemingly, a comment on video games themselves. Bioshock does a great job of making the experience feel personal, but it is revealed in the game that your character is actually a genetically engineered experiment under an intense form of mind control. The trigger phrase, “would you kindly” is used as a way to make you do the speakers bidding. So, all the actions you take up until the point that this is revealed are not actually your decisions. It is not uncommon that you are told what to do in a video game. It’s hard to find a game where you are not told what to do, actually. But in the case of Bioshock, the concept of blind obedience to a disembodied voice is woven into the narrative quite expertly. It makes for an interesting feeling, as the player. You are manipulating the main character who, himself, is being manipulated within the game. It is one thing to witness the reveal in Memento that Leonard Shelby has tricked himself into thinking he has not found the man who killed his wife and caused his memory loss, or that he was the one to actually kill his wife. It is another thing to be Leonard Shelby in that situation. It is a great twist and is one that’s impact is heightened by the interaction of the player throughout the game.

However, while it is certainly one of the best plot twists in a game in recent history, it still could have been done better. I’ve praised Bioshock already for the way it rewards the player for exploring. The majority of the plot unfolds right in front of you and you remain in control of the character. The designers no doubt took a cue from the Half-Life series in the way it allows you, as the main character, to essentially view the action from the camera angle you choose. This is the case through most of Bioshock, but in when Andrew Ryan reveals to you the nature of your situation, in come the letterbox bars. The most important part of the entire game is, unfortunately, the very moment control is taken away from the player. I can understand the reasoning behind this, as Ryan uses the “would you kindly” phrase to make you kill him. But choosing to play this scene out in cutscene rather than leaving it in control of the player takes the wind out of the sails at the single worst possible moment.

There was a game that came out for the Playstation 2 in 2002 called Gungrave. It was a fairly mindless (but, admittedly, stylish) action game where you played as a man who has risen from the grave to seek revenge on the man who killed him. The game was very short and not very challenging, but the very end of the game has stuck with me ever since. After you have finally reached the man you’ve been mowing down thousands of others to get to, he drops to his knees and admits defeat. As my friend and I sat on the couch at the conclusion of the game, we both looked at each other and wondered why nothing was happening. After a moment, my friend picked up the controller and pressed a button. That button press caused Grave to fire a bullet right into his killer’s head. Our jaws dropped and we looked at each other again. Somehow, after several hours of making Grave fire unlimited amounts of ammo into every single thing in his path, this one last bullet into the man we’ve been trying to kill this whole time was unsettling. Maybe it was because he was unarmed and had accepted his fate, but we felt guilty. That simple act of making the player pull the trigger was all it took to create an impactful moment. The reason that one moment in a largely forgettable game is so effective is the same reason this one moment in a supremely memorable game is not.

I understand the concept of mind-control. You, as the protagonist of Bioshock, have been unknowingly taking orders during your time in Rapture. But even though you didn’t necessarily “decide” to take those actions, you, the player, still did them. You, the player, do not kill Andrew Ryan. Instead, you sit back and watch. Presumably, the designers of Bioshock wanted that scene to play out a specific way. You could not “fight” the mind-control by running in circles around Ryan’s office as he asked you kindly to kill him. Bioshock’s creators have regained authorial control, if only for a moment. Isn’t there a more elegant way to accomplish this? Playing the game a second time, I wished that when Ryan spoke the words, “would you kindly,” any button pressed on the controller became a swing of the golf club. After all, I was the one being brainwashed the whole time, make me the one to kill him. I could try to turn around and run, but attempting it would have the same result as deliberately hitting him. As twenty-plus years of video games have shown us, controlling the action is a powerful feeling.

You do have some level of control over what direction the story takes in Bioshock. Rescuing a Little Sister is “good” and harvesting one is “bad” in the game. Choosing to do one or the other has little effect on the story until the very end. Save all the Sisters you find and you and they will live long, happy lives. Kill one or more and you become that which you have been defending yourself against in Rapture. Other than the different endings, your decisions have little bearing on the story proper. Bioshock is certainly an example of the “it’s not about the destination, but the journey” theory. Ultimately, your interaction within Rapture is very important to telling the story. Bioshock is an experience that could only be done in the video game medium and is a valuable example of interactive storytelling.

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