Editing BioShock (section)

===Story and theme development===
[[File:Atlas Statue 630 Fifth Ave (1).jpg|thumb|right|upright|A visit to the [[GE Building]] and its [[Atlas (statue)|statue of Atlas]] in New York City was the principal idea that led to the art deco stylings of ''BioShock''.]]
The thematic core of ''BioShock'' was born when Levine was walking at [[Rockefeller Center]] near the [[GE Building]] in New York City. He saw the uniqueness of the [[art deco]] styling of the building along with imagery around the building such as the [[Atlas (statue)|statue of Atlas]] near it, and recognized that these were spaces that had not been experienced in the first-person shooter genre.<ref name="edge history"/> The history of the Rockefeller Center also fed into the story concept; Levine noted how the center had started construction prior to the [[Great Depression]]; when the primary financiers had pulled out, [[John D. Rockefeller Jr.]] backed the remaining construction to complete the project himself, as stated by ''Edge'' magazine "a great man building an architectural triumph against all the odds".<ref name="edge history"/> The history of Rapture and the character of Andrew Ryan is loosely based on Rockefeller's story.<ref name="edge history"/> He also considered that many of the characters of Rapture were all people who were oppressed once before in their lives and now free of that oppression, have turned around and become the oppressors, a fact he felt resonated throughout human history.<ref name="glixel sept2016"/>

At this point in the development, the backdrop of Rapture had been fleshed out, but they had yet to come on how to represent the drones, protectors, and harvesters from their original game idea. The Big Daddy concept as the protector class was developed early in the process, but the team had yet to reach a satisfying design for the drones, having used several possible designs including bugs and dogs in wheelchairs.<ref name="edge history"/> The team wanted to have the player care for the drones in some way and create pathos for these characters. The idea of using little girls came out of brainstorming, but was controversial and shocking within the team at first, recognizing that they could easily be killed and make the game more horrific in the style of ''[[Night Trap]]''.<ref name="edge history"/> However, as Levine worked on the story, he started to incorporate the ideas of dystopian and utopian thinkers from the 20th century, including [[Ayn Rand]], [[Aldous Huxley]], and [[George Orwell]], and considered their ideas "fascinating".<ref name="ign myths">{{cite web |url=http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/704/704806p1.html |title=The Influence of Literature and Myth in Videogames |first=Douglass C. |last=Perry |publisher=IGN |date=May 26, 2006 |access-date=October 7, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090104025910/http://au.xbox360.ign.com/articles/704/704806p1.html |archive-date=January 4, 2009 }}</ref> He brought in the ideas of [[Objectivism]] that Rand primarily outlined in the book ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', that man should be driven by selfishness and not altruism, and used this to inform the philosophy behind the city of Rapture and Andrew Ryan's work, viewing them as quite ludicrous, and primed to be applied to an antagonist, tied in with his previous observations on Rockefeller and his writings.<ref name="edge history"/> This was extended to the use of the little girls as drones (now Little Sisters), particularly the question whether the player should try to save the girls or harvest the ADAM for their benefit.<ref name="edge history"/> 2K Games expressed concern about the initial mechanic of the Little Sisters, where the player would actively prey on the Little Sister, which would have alerted a Big Daddy and set up the fight with the player. This approach did not sit well with Levine, and 2K Games asserted that they would not ship a game "where the player gets punished for doing the right thing".<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> They altered this approach where the Little Sisters would be invulnerable until the player had dealt with their Big Daddy, though LeBreton considered this "a massive kludge" into the game's fiction.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/><ref name="edge history"/> The idea of creating the Little Sisters and presenting the player with this choice became a critical part of the game's appeal to the broader gaming market, although it was met with criticism from some outlets.<ref name="edge history"/> Levine desired only to have one ending to the game, something that would have left the fate of the characters "much more ambiguous", but publisher pressure directed them to craft multiple endings depending on the choice of harvesting Little Sisters.<ref name="glixel sept2016"/> Levine also noted that "it was never my intention to do two endings for the game. It sort of came very late and it was something that was requested by somebody up the food chain from me."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gamespot.com/articles/qanda-diving-deeper-into-bioshocks-story/1100-6179423/ |title=Q&A: Diving deeper into ''BioShock''s story |date=September 20, 2007 |access-date=September 20, 2007 |publisher=Gamespot |first=Brendan |last=Sinclair |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141011144853/http://www.gamespot.com/articles/qanda-diving-deeper-into-bioshocks-story/1100-6179423/ |archive-date=October 11, 2014 }}</ref>

Other elements came into the story design. Levine had an interest in "stem cell research and the moral issues that go around <nowiki>[it]</nowiki>".<ref name="ign myths"/> Regarding artistic influences, Levine cited the books ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' and ''[[Logan's Run]]'', representing societies that have "really interesting ideas screwed up by the fact that we're people".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=77456 |title=Big Daddy speaks |publisher=[[Eurogamer]] |first=Johnny |last=Minkley |date=June 8, 2007 |access-date=June 21, 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070821030637/http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=77456 |archive-date=August 21, 2007 }}</ref> The idea of the mind control used on Jack was offered by LeBreton, inspired by films like ''[[The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)|The Manchurian Candidate]]'', as a means to provide a better reason to limit the player's actions as opposed to the traditional use of locked doors to prevent them exploring areas they should not. The team had agreed that Jack's actions would be controlled by a key phrase but struggled with coming up with one that would not reveal Atlas' true nature. Levine happened upon "Would you kindly" after working on marketing materials for the game that asked the reader hypothetical questions such as "Would you kill people, even innocent people, to survive?", later working that phrase into the first script for the game.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/>

Numerous tensions within the team and from publisher 2K Games continued during the development process. According to LeBreton, Levine was distrustful of some of the more egotistical newer hires and was often arguing with them to enforce his vision of ''BioShock''.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> 2K Games was concerned with the growing budget for the title, and told Levine to market the title more as a first-person shooter rather than the first-person shooter/role playing game hybrid they set out for.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> Near the targeted release date, Levine ordered the team into round-the-clock development, creating more strife in the team.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> Paul Hellquist, the game's lead designer, was often omitted from key design meetings, which he later recounted was due to his contrary nature to Levine, questioning several of his choices; he used his frustration to put into the design efforts for the Medical Pavilion level that he was in charge of at that time.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> Near the anticipated completion date, 2K decided to give Irrational another three months to polish up the game, extending the current crunch time the studio was already under.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> This left some hard-to-discover bugs and issues in the game undiscovered. One such case was an apparent [[Easter egg (media)|Easter egg]] found in the remastered version in 2018, where under certain conditions, the player can end up looking at an object with the description "Paul Hellquist did not do his Job". Both Levine and Chris Kline, the game's lead programmer confirmed the message was a cheeky jab at Hellquist left as a debugging message; Kline and Hellquist were developing the systems to show descriptions of objects to players when looked at, and Hellquist offered to complete all the necessary descriptions in-game; to jokingly help prod Hellquist along, Kline put "Paul Hellquist did not do his Job" as the default message within the executable code. While the code message was changed for the original release, the remastered version likely used a pre-final version of the ''BioShock'' code, according to Kline.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.pcgamer.com/bioshock-developer-confirms-that-obscure-easter-egg-debug-message-is-real/ | title = BioShock developer confirms that obscure Easter egg debug message is real | first = Andy | last = Chalk | date = January 9, 2018 | access-date = January 9, 2018 | work = [[PC Gamer]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180109235001/http://www.pcgamer.com/bioshock-developer-confirms-that-obscure-easter-egg-debug-message-is-real/ | archive-date = January 9, 2018 | url-status=live | df = mdy-all }}</ref> Hellquist took the revelation in good humor and tweeted that other Easter eggs should have been added to the game to display: "If you are enjoying this, Paul Hellquist did his job."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/01/obscure-hidden-message-in-bioshock-re-surfaces-a-decade-after-release/ |title=Obscure Hidden Message In BioShock Re-Surfaces A Decade After Release |date=January 9, 2018 |publisher=[[Kotaku]] |access-date=January 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180110044506/https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/01/obscure-hidden-message-in-bioshock-re-surfaces-a-decade-after-release/ |archive-date=January 10, 2018 |url-status=dead  }}</ref>

A critical [[playtest]] of the game occurred in January 2007, where initial feedback from the players was mostly negative, including issues of the setting being too dark, having no idea where to go, and distrusting Atlas, who at the time was voiced in a southern drawl, described as a "lecherous Colonel Sanders".<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> The team took this criticism to heart, revamping several elements during those extra months such as improving the lighting, implementing a quest marker, and using an Irish voice for Atlas to make him sound more trustworthy.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> During another late-stage playtest with the title "ninety-nine percent" complete according to Levine, the playtesters did not like the game at all as they felt no connection to the player-character Jack, and the person overseeing the tests told Levine that the game was likely to be a failure. At this point, ''BioShock'' did not have many cutscenes, as Levine was ideologically opposed to them. However, the following day, Levine and the lead group came up with a "cheap" way to correct this, by adding the initial cut scene within the plane and the subsequent plane crash, as this helped to set the time frame, place the player in the role of the character, and alluded to the "would you kindly" line later in the game.<ref name="glixel sept2016">{{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/we-were-all-miserable-inside-bioshock-video-game-franchise-w439921 |title=Inside the Making of 'BioShock' Series With Creator Ken Levine |first=Chris |last=Suellentrop |date=September 14, 2016 |access-date=September 15, 2016 |magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160916112859/http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/we-were-all-miserable-inside-bioshock-video-game-franchise-w439921 |archive-date=September 16, 2016 }}</ref> Levine likened this approach to the initial aircraft crash at the onset of the television show ''[[Lost (2004 TV series)|Lost]]'' to quickly establish character and setting.<ref name="edge history"/>

The game was successfully released in August 2007 with a final budget of about $25 million.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/> In a 2016 interview, Levine felt that the game could have used about six more months of development to improve the gun combat system and fix lagging issues that occurred during the final boss fight.<ref name="glixel sept2016"/> Despite the critical success of the title, many of those on the team would leave Irrational to pursue other projects due to late development strife that occurred.<ref name="eurogamer truestory"/>

In an interview in 2018, Levine had come to recognize that ''BioShock'' reflected several [[Jews|Jewish]] themes, though this was not intentional. Levine, who considers himself culturally Jewish but [[Jewish secularism|does not follow]] [[Judaism]], had grown up in New Jersey but spent much of his childhood time with his father who worked in Manhattan's [[Diamond District, Manhattan|Diamond District]] and visiting his grandparents in [[Queens]], a neighborhood with a large proportion of Eastern European immigrants. Thus, Levine was exposed to much of the Jewish culture that flourished in the area following [[World War II]] and understood some of the anxiety Jewish people faced.<ref name="kotaku jewish">{{cite web | url = https://kotaku.com/bioshocks-jewish-roots-run-deep-1827482206 | title = BioShock's Jewish Roots Run Deep | first = Cody | last = Mello-Klein | date = July 10, 2018 | access-date = July 10, 2018 | work = [[Kotaku]] | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180711021704/https://kotaku.com/bioshocks-jewish-roots-run-deep-1827482206 | archive-date = July 11, 2018 | url-status=live | df = mdy-all }}</ref> In the 2018 interview, Levine recognized several of the characters, including Andrew Ryan (who was inspired by Ayn Rand who was also Jewish), Sander Cohen, and Brigid Tenenbaum, were written all as Jewish, and all seeking to escape a world they felt they did not fit into by going to Rapture; Levine said: {{"'}}There's literal displacement and then there's a feeling of not fitting in, of 'I don't really belong here'. I think Jews are always going to feel a little bit like they don't belong wherever they are. There's always that 'what if we have to flee' mentality."<ref name="kotaku jewish"/>