Paul Hellquist, who was the lead designer on the first Bioshock game, held an AMA on the series’ subreddit earlier today to talk about his time developing the beloved title, and also spoke a bit about his upcoming game, Wartorn. While we can definitely appreciate his newest venture, we want to expressly focus on the things he said about Bioshock’s creation, because there are some insightful things to see.
Bioshock Lead Designer AMA Highlights
- While talking about his favorite memories from working on Bioshock, Hellquist mentioned two.
- The bathysphere ride down into Rapture after it had music added to it. He says, “I got goosebumps when you crested the rise and the music sweels at the first look at Rapture.”
- The jumpscare in the dentist’s office in the Medical Pavilion. Hellquist is the one who set up the plasmid on the desk which spawns the dentist enemy behind you to attack when you turn around. The first time Ken Levine and other developers saw it, they all got very scared.
- Being a big science buff, Hellquist says plasmids were inspired by real concepts in genetics. “I had ideas for things like “gene linked” traits that would link parts of the plasmid slots together to get extra buffs for them. An idea inspired by some concepts in real genetics.”
- One of the biggest praises for Bioshock is its environmental storytelling, whether that is through audio diaries or surveying the area around you. According to Hellquist, they wanted Rapture to feel like a crime scene. Things like that are a little more common in gaming these days, but Bioshock was one of the first to really drive it home.
- Big Daddies and Little Sisters are such an important part of Bioshock, but apparently, there was a time in development where getting them included in the game was so difficult, that Irrational Games cut them for about a week.
- He liked Bioshock 2, but didn’t connect with Infinite (we’ll forgive him for this one time).
- The final boss against Fontaine was rushed within six weeks with help from outside studios. He agrees that it’s the worst part of the game, but if it wasn’t there, he feels the ending would have been very anti-climatic.
- There was a time where Helquist felt that Bioshock would be trash. When things came around, the team felt they would sit around a 90 aggregate review score, but were pleasantly surprised with the 96 it landed at.
