BioShock Franchise Interview

Gamasutra has published an interview they did with BioShock and BioShock 2 executive producer Alyssa Finley about the steps they’ve taken with both games to make them appeal to a broader audience.

One thing about BioShock in particular is that it appeals to traditional players, PC fans, fans of System Shock, and yet it drew in new audiences on the console, too, who may not ordinarily play that kind of game. Now adding multiplayer is again potentially a different audience — How do you worry about the audience issues when you’re working on the game?

AF: Well I think the arc of developing the first game was really the arc of us trying to figure that out as we went. You know, we went through a couple of pretty big reboots over the course of building BioShock 1, and the core of that game is a game where choice is paramount; where you can customize, sort-of tweak around the things and customize things.

And as we got it closer and closer to done, we played it more ourselves; we were able to take a step back from it, and we realized that if you go too nerdy, you’re not appealing anymore.

So, the first game was really use trying to figure out the right balance of the nerdy side and the accessible side, and trying to make sure that we were inviting people to try the things that they could do. This was as opposed to assuming that they were going to walk in with a full knowledge of all of our nerdiness and go, like, “Yes, I am so glad you provided crafting, because crafting is the best!”

I think its accessibility as a core paradigm has been really good for us, and that has allowed us to appeal to both the people who have played System Shock 1 and System Shock 2, and really understand that side of the genre, and people who come from consoles, play Gears, and love Gears.

Multiplayer… I think our hope is that we’re going to be able to show the multiplayer community a different set of tools. You know, being able to play around with the BioShock. Like, what is it that Jordan says? The marine corps in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other hand.

And, you know, just bringing that — bringing just a new dimension of play to multiplayer, and see if folks like it; see if they enjoy that. Because I think at the end of the day, BioShock is always about letting people find their own style. And some people just want to play BioShock like a shooter: Play with the guns, use the guns. You can do that.

But if you want to play with it? I am the antithesis of that. I’m like the non-confrontational player of all times. I love bees; I love decoys. Like, if I can just play and make them shoot at something else? I am totally happy. So, being able to support different play styles, and if somebody can find a style that makes them happy, hopefully they can play it in our game.