Some of the mutants' distorted faces were based on photographs of First World War veterans who had undergone facial reconstructive surgery.
The look of the "Bouncer" Big Daddies (the ones with the drill) was inspired by nineteenth-century French diving suits.
The voice of the Circus of Value vending machines is actually that of the games' director, Ken Levine.
At the start of the game, Atlas tells the player that he has a son named Patrick and a wife named Moira. Later, in Fort Frolic, the player can find posters for a show titled "Patrick and Moira." This shows that Atlas used these names to lie to the player about having a family, and it also foreshadows the "Would You Kindly" plot in later parts of the game.
Although they are always referred to as "Little Sisters" in the game design documents, the Little Sister was not always designed as a little girl, and was always meant to be a sympathetic character. Initially the Little Sister was going to be a slug, but it had no appendages and could not express emotion without a face. Other designs were also tried, such as a crab and a crippled dog. However, none of these designs were sympathetic enough, and the Little Sister became a small human girl.
At one point the game featured bosses known as Savants, consisting of brains in jars that had essentially evolved beyond having physical bodies. This was scrapped when they realized that fighting a brain in a jar was not a fun game.
Tenenbaum is seen only twice, and both times she is hidden. The reason was that BioShock's budget was so limited that the developers could not afford to create another character model.
There is a hidden reference to be found in the Arcadia Farmers' Market. If the player enters the World Wine Imporium and goes to the right corner of the main lobby, they can find a Pac-Man reference made of bullet holes, implying that Pac-Man is made of cheese and is simulating his munching.
During development, the game went through multiple incarnations with time periods ranging from the 1930s to the future. Rapture was intended to be very functional, resembling an underground subway system rather than an underwater base. The style was considered too soft, and Art Deco was settled on.
During the game's development, the creators wanted Jack to become increasingly mutated through his use of Plasmids. This would require players to decide whether they wanted to look more like a Mutant in order to survive, or to refuse at the cost of less security and preserve their humanity. Unfortunately, this idea did not make it into the final game.
The Big Daddy sounds are recordings of the voice actor's lines played back at a slower speed.
In the opening scene of the game, when Jack is on the plane, an Irrational Games business card can be found inside his wallet.
Many thematic and plot elements were strongly inspired by most of Ayn Rand's novels, including "Atlas Shrugged," in which one of the characters is named "The Fountainhead."
You can find the Rapture lighthouse in the game on Google Maps by typing in the coordinates 63' 2' North 29' 55' West.
It was explained that the reason the player can see the ghosts of Rapture's inhabitants is that the ADAM in the city constantly moves from person to person as it is being killed. The ghosts you see are a result of the residual RNA (memories) that you inject along with the ADAM.
Andrew Ryan's philosophy about a man having the "Right to the sweat of his own brow" is an indirect reference to Ayn Rand's philosophy of "Objectivism," in which morality is full respect for individual rights. Ryan's name is even a reversed half-anagram of Rand's surname: ANDRew rYAN.
At the very beginning of the campaign, just before the plane crashes, Jack holds up the gift he received from his "parents," along with a note containing three simple words:.
Before settling on "Would you kindly" as the magic words to control the player's mind, the developers considered several different key phrases, among them "Excelsior." In the end, that sentence became too cumbersome and noticeable to players.
A third Big Daddy model was scrapped before release, to the horror of some developers. This Big Daddy, named SLOPRO, was designed with a shoulder-mounted cannon and a large hook it could use for deadly melee attacks.
There is an early hint that the game is changing. In Neptune's Bounty, there is a soundtrack detailing Andrew Ryan's effort to restrict the use of bathyspheres to certain members chosen by Ryan. However, this method does not work properly, since people related by blood to Ryan can also travel.
In one of Dr. Suchong's audio diaries, he makes statements about the science of the Vita-Chambers and comments about "plasmid reconstruction this and quantum entanglement that." In System Shock II, an older game on which BioShock's FPS-RPG gameplay is based, you had to provide examples of quantum entanglement to reconstruct your character after death.
The Gene Bank was originally called Plasmi-Quik, but the name was changed because playtesters were often unsure of its purpose and generally avoided the machine. The first released video of the game showed Plasmi-Quik.
The game underwent many development changes from the moment it rose to the top of the final product. The game's original concept was set in a futuristic city in the style of the fifties, taking place on land and inside interconnected controlled environment rooms. These laboratories were to be filled with dead human bodies and various insect-killing life forms. One of these life forms, called Gatherers, was to collect genetic material while being protected by a second life form called Protectors from the final life form, the Predatory Aggressors. These eventually turned into Little Sisters, Big Daddys and Splicers, respectively, when the developers decided to bring a more humane perspective to the game.
Jack is the only playable character in the BioShock series whose face is never fully seen. He is also the only person who does not die no matter what.
In Germany, much of Dr. Tenenbaum's backstory was changed due to her connection with Nazism. At the time, German laws prohibited references to Nazi Germany in video games, including symbols and even names. Her nationality was also changed to Russian.
One of the first things Atlas says to you at the beginning of the game is "Would you kindly find a crowbar or something?" This is a subtle reference to the iconic weapon used in the Half-Life series. Additionally, the crowbar Jack carries throughout the game bears a great resemblance to the crowbar Adrian Shepard uses in Half-Life: Opposing Force.
The code "0451" is used to open one of the first locked doors in the game. The same code can also be seen in other games such as Deus Ex, Dishonored, System Shock and Thief.
Atlas was initially voiced with a Southern twang. The accent led BioShock's playtesters not to trust him immediately (and to reveal his betrayal early), so the character was completely redesigned as Irish.
In all BioShock games, the writer is also the director. For example, Ken Levine is the writer and director of BioShock and BioShock Infinite, while Jordan Thomas is the director and writer of BioShock 2.
Andrew Ryan is a kind of anagram of Ayn Rand, the main inspiration for both the game's architecture and its theme.
The Irrational Games logo can be found on the projection reel in Sander Cohen's office in Fort Frolic.
A BioShock film was greenlit and was initially planned for release in 2011, to coincide with the premiere of a third BioShock game. The film was to be directed by Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates of the Caribbean series. However, on August 24, 2009, it was announced that Verbinski had left the director's chair due to budget problems and the possibility of shooting some footage abroad. Verbinski remained as producer of the film and is working with new director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, known for the horror film 28 Weeks Later, to manage the film's budget.
It is considered one of the greatest games ever made and one of the first examples of video games as an art form.
The game was first released in Germany with a censored version, but it still received an 18 rating. Unusually for a game of its kind, the uncensored version was not banned in Germany. Since the release of "BioShock: Ultimate Rapture Edition," the game has been officially available in its uncensored form.
There are numerous hints of Atlas's betrayal early in the game. Among others, some of the biggest are: (1) Atlas mentions that he regrets bringing Moira and Patrick to Rapture, which confirms that he and Moira were together before coming to the city, but he later claims that he had his first date with Moira at Fighting McDonagh's bar. (2) The names "Patrick & Moira" on posters in Rapture show where Atlas got the names of his fictional family. (3) Atlas, who claims to be Irish, references American football (Ryan "moving the goalposts further down the field") and references the Fourth of July.
Although the character is apparently German, Tenenbaum's accent sounds distinctly more Russian than German. In the German version of the game, her nationality was even changed to Russian.
Misinformation circulates online that Greg Baldwin voiced the character Frank Fontaine, while Karl Hanover voiced the character only in the Atlas persona. In reality, although the original choice to voice Frank Fontaine during development was Greg Baldwin, he ultimately never voiced the character in the final product because the developers felt he was not the right choice for the role; instead, Karl Hanover was chosen and voiced the character as both Frank Fontaine and Atlas. It also does not help that Karl Hanover was not included in the credits of the first game because he was not a member of the Screen Actors Guild at the time he was hired, while Greg Baldwin was mistakenly credited as voicing the character. Greg Baldwin, despite never having done so, is also known for lying in interviews that he voiced the character in the final game.
The Xbox 360 version of BioShock became backward compatible with Xbox One on December 13, 2016. Although this means the game runs as the Xbox 360 version on Xbox One hardware, BioShock sees a tremendous performance boost. BioShock has an option to unlock the frame rate. When this option is enabled on Xbox One, the game mostly runs at 60 frames per second, with only occasional drops. When the frame rate is capped at 30 frames per second on Xbox One, BioShock never drops a frame. While BioShock was running on its native Xbox 360 hardware, it continued to experience some frame drops when the frame rate was capped. With the frame rate unlocked on Xbox 360, the game suffered from extremely inconsistent frame rates that could range from the high 20s to the low 40s, combined with constant screen tearing (Xbox One fixed this by forcing v-sync). The BioShock games were among the first announced for the backward compatibility program. It took nearly a year for them to finally arrive on the program, and in the meantime, the BioShock remaster collection was released for Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The mutants were originally going to be called Aggressors, and concept art shows their appearance was much more mutant-like. They also bear strong similarities to the hybrid enemies in System Shock 2.
Most of the enemies in BioShock share many similarities with the enemies in System Shock 2 (also developed by Irrational Games). The characteristics and behavior of the Mutant Hybrids are based on those of the Mutant Hybrids, the Little Jane Mutants share the same black bob cut as the Cyborg Midwives, the behavior and attack tools of the Spider Splicers are based on the Cyborg Assassins, and the Big Daddies resemble the Security/Maintenance/Assault Robots. Both games feature Turrets and Cameras that the player must destroy or avoid.