There’s no doubt that Bioshock is an all time classic. It moved the FPS genre and indeed video games forward in a way that has proven long lasting and important to the development of the medium. Bioshock took a genre of game that was for the most part filled with run and gun shooters like Call of Duty and Battlefield and injected a pace, atmosphere and reverence to storytelling that had previously been rare in the FPS field. Admittedly, coming back to this game thirteen years on from its original release, but it still has on display the tendrils of a new age in video game narrative and I’ve no doubt in my mind that the techniques started and treated with such esteem in 2007’s Bioshock can be seen today in our storytelling greats like The Last of Us, Red Dead and even titles such as Wolfenstein and Titanfall.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the storytelling is on a par with these games, but Bioshock was the market leader in what became a nascent and breakout period for the level of quality in storytelling in video games. It’s probably no coincidence that the main head behind this game Ken Levine has strayed into film and TV script writing since 2007. I think by today’s standards Bioshock is beginning to look more than a little yellowed and frayed around the edges and the method of divulging story through audio-logs, although ground-breaking at the time, feels very tired and long in the tooth in 2020. It isn’t the method that is important here, but the story being told.

Bioshock weaves a political narrative surrounding the fall of what was supposed to be a Eutopia into a dystopian horror. It makes educated and resonant points on the subjects of capitalism, as well as communism and even subverts what the player expects from video game control mechanisms that have all endured the test of time. It tells a story that respects the player and assumes a level of intelligence that is at times rare in a field that is desperate to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to achieve the broadest appeal that it can and this is what players should walk away from Bioshock considering. By modern standards the way in which narrative is divulged to the player feels old and out of date, as does what becomes a monotonous gameplay loop over time, but that should detract from what Bioshock did for us as players.

Next time you sit down in front of a game and get swept up in the narrative, spare a though for Ken Levine and Bioshock and how it prove that serious and adult narrative was possible in the genre. Not all of our most important games have to play and feel timeless.