Yesterday, we were able to take part in a Q & A session with some key people from the BioShock 2 team. Taking part in the Q & A were Creative Director Jordan Thomas, Zak McClendon, and Hoagy De La Plante from 2K Marin. Also on the call from the multiplayer side of things were Mat Tremblay and Jesse Attard from Digital Extremes. This is some of what we learned about the highly anticipated sequel.
Story
The game takes place 10 years after the events of BioShock. You are Subject Delta, a prototype Big Daddy. You move faster than the Big Daddies you fought in the first game, and due to experimental testing, you have the ability to use plasmids. Upon awakening, you decide to seek out the Little Sister you were paired with before you were put to sleep. This becomes the main goal of the game.
Of course, a lot has changed in the 10 years since the first game. With Andrew Ryan dead, a new person has risen to power. Her name is Sophia Lamb, and she has used her power to form a cult and unite the Splicers. The cult is called The Rapture Family. Have you noticed the butterfly logo that has popped up in the marketing imagery for the game? It’s even on the box for the limited edition. That logo is The Rapture Family logo and a symbol of the Splicers’ faith.
After defeating a Big Daddy in BioShock, you had a choice to make: Harvest the Little Sister for Adam, or set her free. BioShock 2 opens up more choices for you to make. Since you’re a Big Daddy, the Little Sisters trust you, and you can either turn on them, harvesting them for their precious Adam or have them lead you to bodies where they can harvest Adam for you. The problem is that once she begins extracting the Adam you begin to be attacked by Splicers. Wave after wave of Splicers. If you manage to protect the Little Sister, you are rewarded with some Adam. After she’s done harvesting bodies, you then have another choice to make. Set her free into the exhaust pipes, or sacrifice her. Sounds like things aren’t going to be so cut and dry this time around.
Speaking of Splicers, not only are they going to be more prevalent in BioShock 2, but they are also a lot more vocal. Catching you up on what happened in the years since BioShock. BioShock 2 is much more mystery driven than its predecessor. While the developers wouldn’t elaborate, I can already imagine some of these include Sophia Lamb’s true intentions, the mystery of who you are underneath your Big Daddy suit, and the identity of the Big Sisters.
This time around, there is no “twist” either. BioShock has a rather famous plot twist about two-thirds of the way through, but you won’t find one in BioShock 2. We were told that the new game does not follow the same template as the first game. It even sounds like there would not be a traditional boss battle at the game’s end. A common complaint about the first game was that its final boss fight felt a little out of place and, perhaps, a bit too easy.
New Challenges
Challenge seemed to be a big focus for the folks over at 2K Marin. Just like in the Playstation 3 version of BioShock, you have the option to turn the Vita Chambers off. Not only that, but Big Daddy fights are more difficult since if you die, the Little Sisters begin to heal their Big Daddy. On the hardest difficulty, the Big Daddies will be completely healed by the time you get back to them. On normal difficulty, they will be mostly healed, depending on how long it takes for you to find the Big Daddy again. Then of course there is the deadliest enemy in Rapture, the Big Sister, a grown up Little Sister locked in a deadly suit of armor. You may be a Big Daddy, but you’re no match for the Big Sister. Taking her down will take all of your resources and careful planning.
There are also some harder enemies like the Rumbler Big Daddy who is now the hardest Big Daddy to fight. Another addition is the Brute Splicer who is extra strong and slow, like the Big Daddies, but we imagine they don’t feel like a boss fight. Finally there is the Strider Splicer who can climb the walls and ceilings very quickly.
Combat
Things aren’t all bad for you though since you now dual wield. No more switching to your plasmids then back to your weapons; both arms are out and ready to unleash damage. Electrocute a Splicer with the left trigger, and then pump a couple shots into him with the right trigger. It makes for much faster, more fluid combat. Hacking has also become a much more fluid process. No longer do things stop, and up pops the mini-game. While the developers didn’t say exactly how the new hacking would work, it is done while you are in combat, keeping things exciting.
There are now three upgrades for each weapon instead of the last game’s two. The third upgrade takes some work, but if you can get it, it changes the weapon you are using. For example, the third upgrade for the rivet gun adds heat to the ammo. Shoot an enemy enough times, and they burst into flames. Tonics are now also “more open-ended,” however, that statement wasn’t clarified.
In the first game, players took pictures of the enemies to learn weaknesses and earn tonics. In BioShock 2, you use a video camera and capture footage of yourself battling enemies. After about 45 seconds, the camera turns off, and you’re graded on how cleverly you dispatched your foes. So you spend less time worrying about getting one good shot and more about taking a good piece of video footage.
Multiplayer
Finally, we couldn’t talk about BioShock 2 without discussing the multiplayer. There are 7 game modes including the team modes of things like deathmatch. The max amount of players in a game is 10, making them 5v5 team battles. The multiplayer acts as a prequel to BioShock, chronicling the years 1959-1960, otherwise known as the civil war that erupted in Rapture. Each player has an apartment, and it’s here that you choose your weapon and plasmid load out, as well as receive narrative information, mostly through audio logs that document the ongoing civil war. The developers mentioned that it will take many matches for you to learn the entire story, but hopefully, you will find the multiplayer engaging enough to keep playing. There are also clues about what is taking place written on the walls and hidden in certain places.
To unlock more pieces of the story, you will need to rank up, similar to Modern Warfare. To rank up, you need to get Adam. You earn Adam for each kill and for completing goals in objective game types, but there are also other ways such as hacking turrets or finding vials of Adam on the map. Also, much like Modern Warfare, you can complete challenges to gain more Adam(XP) like killing X amount of players in a single match. These challenges will be called trials because you are playing as a test subject for plasmids.
Hopefully, with all this knowledge, you are now armed and ready to take on all the new challenges that Rapture holds for us. BioShock 2 will be in stores this Tuesday, February 9th for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Games for Windows. See you in Rapture!