Fatalism at its Finest: Playing Story
Bioshock
In video games, it’s easy for players to take their objectives for granted. The game tells you to fight and kill a rabble of NPCs, so you do it. The game tells you to get from point A to point B by whatever means necessary, so you do it. It’s easy to see these objectives as somewhat arbitrary, designed purely to pad a game with challenges that have no deeper significance in and of themselves, especially when those challenges are standard-fare in most video games – defeat enemies, find a key, get to point B, repeat.
If we look beneath the surface of these objectives, however, and think about the actions we are performing with our character in the game’s greater narrative context, we may find that there is a more significant reason for why we’re being told to do what we do, and that our indifference in doing these things is often significant to their happening at all.
The opening minutes of Bioshock, where the game's core ideas are introduced
As players, we usually see ourselves as the authoritative agent in a game, the one whose actions determine the progression of the story, but the truth of the matter is that it’s often the other way around. This is accomplished at a mechanical level, when the basic act of playing a game is itself a storytelling tool.
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this is Bioshock, a game that takes these ideas to the next level by using the player’s comfort with the traditions of the medium against them, using the act of playing the game itself to problematize those very traditions, and shining a light on the player’s complicity.
The game begins with a plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, the player character, Jack, being the only survivor. Coincidentally, the plane happens to have crashed beside a mysterious, solitary lighthouse, though what it is meant to guide passers to is unclear. With no alternative, the player swims to the lighthouse to find that it is in fact the hidden entrance to a vast underwater city called Rapture.
You take a sort of submarine trolley into the depths of the ocean, while an audio recording designed for newcomers to the city explains the city’s purpose for existing – to escape the “parasites” of the surface who look to reap the harvests of others, to create an objectivist utopia in the vein of philosophers like Ayn Rand (the founder of Rapture being not-so-subtly named Andrew Ryan) where libertarian capitalism would rein unperturbed, completely independent of the outside world. It is a place where man makes decisions for himself, not for anyone else.
A view of Rapture, Bioshock's underwater objectivist paradise
However, the realization of this vision has left Rapture in an apocalyptic state. Its residents are mad, tainted physically and mentally by plasmids, genetic enhancements that thrived in this competitive, survival-of-the-fittest environment. What little infrastructure the city sustained itself with has all but evaporated, and it’s a wonder that the entire thing hasn’t literally collapsed in on itself, the sea reclaiming its space.
After this introduction, you’re tasked with maneuvering through this fallen city, becoming tangled in a political struggle between Ryan and the city’s local revolutionary, Atlas, who contacts you via radio as soon as arrive and wind up stranded in the city. A radio on the wall creaks to life, and through it Atlas calls out, “Would you kindly pick up that short-wave radio.” You do this, as you must in order to progress, but even then you probably would have anyway, as you know right away the value of having a guide like Atlas in the otherwise overwhelming circumstances the game has set up.
Atlas is in your ear for most of the remainder of the game, guiding you through Rapture, all the while speaking like a friend and protector, like someone who has Jack’s – and therefore your – best interests at heart. It’s easy to trust Atlas, but even if you didn’t for some reason, it wouldn’t make a difference, because the game is going to force you to comply with Atlas’ orders and suggestions anyway, not unlike how you’ve been made to comply to the will of innumerable other, similar characters who act as guides in other games. Atlas is modeled so as to fit into this archetype of the helpful, trusting ally, and as such we take for granted that that’s exactly what he is, just like the game wants us to.
"Atlas is modeled so as to fit into this archetype of the helpful, trusting ally, and as such we take for granted that that’s exactly what he is, just like the game wants us to"
From all of this, the player may figure they know right up front the kind of story Bioshock is set to tell: a standard hero’s journey with a critique of objectivism peppered in for some spice. We figure this because, well, that’s just the kind of story games tend to tell, especially First-Person Shooters like Bioshock, which usually serve only to provide the player an explosively self-satisfying power fantasy. As the mechanics of the game are introduced – shoot enemies, burn enemies, shock enemies, etc. – this expectation is only further cemented.
It also fits that Jack is practically a mannequin, his face never visible and his past largely obscured, making it easy for the player to project themself onto him. We take this for granted because, again, that’s just the way video games are. Anyone playing Bioshock will no doubt have played a number of other games that place the player in the role of similarly faceless protagonists to that same end.
Even if we were to think about the odd fact that Jack, a supposedly ordinary guy, is able to fight his way through Rapture with relative ease, we probably would chalk it up to forgivable video game nonsense, because again, none of this is new to anyone who’s ever played a video game. That’s the subtle brilliance of Bioshock, something you can only fully appreciate in hindsight: the game knows you’re not going to second guess it, and eventually, it calls you out.
After a lengthy romp through many of Rapture’s colorful districts, you finally come face to face with Andrew Ryan, who reveals the darker truth of your role in the story: you’re not just some nobody who happened to survive a plane crash that also just happened to land near the portal to Rapture, but instead someone who’s been brainwashed into thinking that they’ve stumbled upon the city by coincidence, when in fact the entire experience of the game so far has all been carefully curated, all a part of someone else’s plan, using Jack’s brainwashed mind to get close enough to Ryan to kill him.
Ryan reveals the truth to Jack before ordering him to kill him
Ryan further proves his point by giving Jack various orders – to sit, stand, run – removing control from the player to showcase how he’s capable of puppeteering Jack, all by simply uttering the phrase “would you kindly” along with his orders. It’s a phrase that’s immediately recognizable, as it’s been casually used by Atlas since the very first moment he spoke to Jack. Atlas has been stringing the player along the entire game.
Everything you’ve done up to this point – every task complete, every enemy killed, every plasmid consumed – has all been at the whim of Atlas. The parameters that the game seems to set arbitrarily for what the player can and cannot do are actually defined by Atlas, and as such the player has unwittingly acted as his slave for the entirety of their playing.
Ryan cements his point by ordering Jack to kill him, which Jack does, again without the player’s direct control, making this long awaited confrontation feel mechanical and inauthentic, robbing the player of any satisfying sense of victory this event should have brought. As Ryan’s life drains away, he recites one of his faithfully objectivist mottos as one final insult: “A man chooses. A slave obeys. Obey!”
"The parameters that the game seems to set arbitrarily for what the player can and cannot do are actually defined by Atlas, and as such the player has unwittingly acted as his slave for the entirety of their playing"
In this moment, Bioshock finally shows its cards, not just turning the entire philosophy of Rapture on its head, but pulling the player’s entire perception of control inside out, not just in Bioshock, but in gaming as a culture. The player is suddenly fully aware of how little agency they’ve actually had, how the wool was pulled over their eyes just by virtue of the fact that they were playing a video game and didn’t think twice about what it was the game was asking of them. The reason we’re so blindsided by the revelation of Atlas’ manipulation is because, from the perspective of an avid gamer, nothing that he had us doing subverted the norms of the genre.
As we've emphasized, Bioshock has been a fairly rudimentary First-Person Shooter up to this point, including how it serves as a power-fantasy, simulating the feeling of gaining power and besting your weaker enemies in the name of gaining even more power. This is so normalized in the culture of gaming that it hardly stands out in Bioshock, until our own lack of agency is suddenly put under the spotlight, and we realize that these norms are quite similar to the objectivist system of values that Rapture stands for.
With its reveal, Bioshock essentially is calling out the player for subscribing to the same self-serving ideology that it has been so adamantly critiquing, and in doing so turns the target of this critique away from the abstract, unreal dystopia of Rapture, and onto the player themself.
Bioshock relies on our familiarity with similar games to pull off its trick, effectively fooling us into believing that we’ve maintained a safe distance from objectivist values, when in fact they’re the very values that most competitive, commercial games are built upon. Jack’s discovery that he’s been deceived and manipulated coincides with our own revelation that we too have been manipulated, not just by Atlas, or by Bioshock, but by the entire culture of video games altogether, and it’s a revelation provoked by and how we’ve played and experienced Bioshock.
Plasmids serve to make the player feel powerful, but their early-game limitations ceaselessly tease the player with the potential for more power, driving the player further into the game's meta power-fantasy
It doesn’t end there, however. In fact, Bioshock brings its story to an apt conclusion by utilizing the one genuine expression of agency the player is allowed. To understand how the game does this, we must first examine how its mechanics reinforce an objectivist system of values.
This is perhaps best seen in the plasmids, the genetic enhancements that drove the residents of Rapture to madness and are used by the player to make them more powerful, which itself reflects the virulent nature of objectivist philosophy – in order to survive an environment full of enemies hyped-up on plasmids, the player has no choice but to indulge in them as well. Even should a player prefer to stick to firearms in combat, plasmids are necessary for solving some of the game's environmental puzzles, meaning even the most careful players must indulge in them in order to progress. It’s simply impossible to get very far in Rapture without utilizing the same substance that brought the city down.
While this ought to make the use of plasmids troubling to the player, they are designed so as to be satisfying to use, as they make the player feel powerful in comparison to their weaker enemies. Despite all the evidence surrounding the player of the repercussions to the use of plasmids, the game’s design not only makes them necessary, but encourages their use, simulating the pursuit of power that objectivist ideology valorizes above all else.
One of the Little Sisters, the fate of whom is the one true expression of agency the game affords the player
This pursuit of power becomes the impetus for the player’s one genuine expression of agency I mentioned above, that being the fate of the Little Sisters. Little Sisters are children that have been genetically modified so as to be carriers of Adam, the substance that powers plasmids. As such, they’re treated like treasure chests by the denizens of Rapture, who risk going toe-to-toe with the Little Sisters’ formidable guardians, Bid Daddies, just for the chance at the substantial power they’re capable of providing.
The processing of one’s Adam, however, is fatal to the Little Sisters, at least if the processor wants to take as much Adam as possible from its source. Alternatively, one may spare the girl, curing her, even, of the genetic mutations that bind her to her role as a carrier, but only for a portion of the overall possible Adam. As such, with each Little Sister they encounter, the player must decide whether to harvest or spare them, deciding, in effect, if the life of a child is of more or less value than the potential power they have to gain from the child’s death.
It is this singular true expression of agency that determines the ultimate outcome of the story. After the truth about Atlas is revealed, the player’s journey continues, first by breaking the control Atlas held over them and then hunting down Atlas himself. After this, the final cutscene of the game depends on if the player chose to harvest or save the Little Sisters.
The possible endings of Bioshock, which are determined by how the player handled the Little Sisters
If the player saved them all, Jack returns to the surface having adopted all the Little Sisters, who grow up to have normal lives and stand lovingly beside Jack on his deathbed. Through this ending, Jack acquires a real family, not one forged in his memory so as to fool him into thinking he had an identity that was never really his own, and by acquiring a family Jack rejects the objectivist values of self over others.
If the player harvested the Little Sisters, Jack’s power-hungry descent continues until he becomes the new Andrew Ryan of Rapture, eventually leading the inhabitants of Rapture to the surface to use their vast power to spread their ideology around the world by force. Through this ending, Jack fully embraces the objectivist ideology of valuing self-gain over morals.
The game’s outcome holds the player accountable for their actions, as how they’ve chosen to play as Jack determines his trajectory beyond the player’s own time with him. You don’t get to be both a max-level badass and still get the ideal happy-go-lucky ending as you would in most games. The path to Bioshock’s multiple endings are tied directly to how the player plays the game, how the implicit moral principles of their choices are manifest.
"The path to Bioshock’s multiple endings are tied directly to how the player plays the game, how the implicit moral principles of their choices are manifest"
Rather than do what many games do and have the player make a singular, consequence-less decision that determines if they get the “good” or “bad” ending, Bioshock’s ending is determined by choices the player made that actually had repercussions to how they played the game, weaving together the game’s mechanics and its narrative functionality in a purposeful and substantial way. The player must choose to sacrifice power, the very core of what makes games of this ilk enjoyable, in order to reach the most morally favorable outcome.
Something important to emphasize about this is that none of the decisions you make in regards to the Little Sisters are controlled by Atlas. Even while you’re under his thrall he leaves their fates in your hands. So even if we may be rightly defensive about the game having manipulated us into acting on objectivist ideas – and perhaps there is a layer of innocence we can cling to justifiably in that regard – whatever ending we get in Bioshock is one we’ve earned entirely for ourselves. Whether it’s good or bad, whether it’s what we wanted or not, in Bioshock, we get the ending we deserve.