Levine ponders BioShock DLC

By Tom Bramwell Published 17 October, 2007

Wants to add replay value.

Ken Levine has been dropping hints about the direction 2K Boston might take with BioShock's downloadable content.

Speaking to Games for Windows Magazine in Americaland, Levine cited Diablo II as "a great model for an expansion, because it enhanced the original game, but also extended the game, too".

As you might imagine, he's not keen on the idea of dumping in new levels, and admits he's "confused as far as how to expand the narrative experience", and says instead that he's a fan of "enhancing the original experience and adding replayability to that experience".

So, new plasmids then? Could be. We'd like a post-completion toggle to help us find all the diary recordings, personally. What about you, Eurogamers?

Head over to our BioShock 360 and PC gamepages for the review and guides to getting the most out of what's already there.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (43) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Lexx87 #1 4 years ago

    Like. The plasmid of. Flight. Yeah. WITH SUPER LASER DEATH BEAMS!

  • andromeda #2 4 years ago

    do it!

  • GamesConnoisseur #3 4 years ago

    New enemies please! I think that would certainly add more than just plasmids and dont think entire new level would be feasible but perhaps a sunken submarine Nautilus!

  • BadBoyBonner #4 4 years ago

    Already traded it for PGR4. Could not be bothered to go trawling back for the Tape Recordings.

    Not sure new Plasmids would make a play through that much more interesting - once was enough for me - and I enjoyed it massively.
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/07 @ 10:14

  • dudefella #5 4 years ago

    ANDREW RYAN MODE

  • Peew971 #6 4 years ago

    I loved it but I doubt I'd replay it just to try out new plasmids. Just start working on a prequel already!

  • Thamuhacha #7 4 years ago

    New enemies. New enemies. New enemies. New enemies. New enemies. New enemies. New enemies. + lots

  • tincanrocket #8 4 years ago

    MULTIPLAYER IDEA:

    Well, I was thinking they could have some kind of harvesting multiplayer game - each round one player takes on the role of Big Daddy, who has to defend his Little Sister as she harvests ADAM on one of the levels. The other players play as Splicers and have to kill the Little Sister - when they die they resurrect, but their bodies can be harvested, adding to the potential score of the Big Daddy that round. Take it in turns playing Daddy, and see who gets the most ADAM over the course of the matches.

    The Splicers would need to work together, stalking the Little Sister and choosing a good moment to attack (i.e. when she can't easily escape to one of the holes in the wall). Perhaps there could also be separate teams of Splicers working against one another to addd to the fun?

    It'd need to be well balanced, so if there were tons of Splicers you might need 2 Daddies...
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/07 @ 10:32

  • immateriaux #9 4 years ago

    Amazingly over-hyped game this, maybe offer something to make the game a bit more challenging perhaps? Or some variety even?

    And how come Levine is banned from the 2K forums on Bioshock: [link url=ht tp://forums.2kgames.com/forums/member.php?u=2378
    ]http://fo rums.2kgames.com/forums/member....[/link]

    Surely that kind of indicates nothing he says is official? eg He also claimed 2K would drop the online activation system for PC version but 2K, on the forum, say there are no plans to do that at all.

  • Scurrminator #10 4 years ago

    it's new plasmids, they're there on partnernet

  • Toothball #11 4 years ago

    Replay value? There's already too many games coming out this time of year. I rarely get the time to play games more than once anymore. I had to finish Bioshock twice already because I missed one of the diaries.

    The second time was a lot faster because there was no fear anymore. Perhaps if they could find a way to include some fear in the form of downloadable content, it would be worth the time to check out.

  • mattigan #12 4 years ago

    Er.... Multiplayer?

  • Madafunkola #13 4 years ago

    @immateriaux
    I was so entertained by the fact that "Big Ken" would be banned from the 2K forums i had a little look. Sadly it appears it's not really him as there's a post saying it's a joke and "why would I be asking questions about my own game?"
    Perhaps that's why the account is banned.. or double bluff??!!

  • dr_swin #14 4 years ago

    i just wish they hadnt blocked off the opening level. I had collected virtually all the tapes before I realised I had missed one in that first section. made me feel a bit cheated.

  • suzakuseven #15 4 years ago

    A decent ending would be nice. Never before has a game felt like 'Game of the year, game of the year, game of the year, whoops! Biggest dissapointment of the year!'
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/07 @ 10:41

  • mkreku #16 4 years ago

    I never felt that "Game of the Year" feeling. I was more like "when does the FANTASTIC start..?" and when it ended I was more like "Was that all?!".

    System Shock 2 it ain't.

  • Darren #17 4 years ago

    BioShock: my game of the year, downloadable content would be most welcome... as would a fix for the stutter and massive slowdown whenever a Big Daddy appears onscreen I'm experiencing since the update (which didn't happen prior to installing it I might add!!! /rolls eyes ). 360 version by the way (and, no, holding down RB and LB until the title screen appears has no effect).

  • Killdare #18 4 years ago

    Hmm ... not sure I want to play again. I enjoyed Bioshock 'n' all but, though it's opening chapters were solid 10/10 stuff, by the end I was getting a little er ... bored. Oh it's another level, oh I'll have to kill some Big Daddies, oh it doesn't really matter if I kill or cure the little sisters except for the odd change in cut scene. I also felt the game ducked the brilliant initial premise of a battle between different ethoi: Ayn Randian capitalism versus communism vs liberal democracy. For me Bioshock will always be a "so close" rather than a true game of the year.

  • symbiote #19 4 years ago

    Bioshock? Replayability? Would you kindly excuse me whilst I piss my pants laughing.

  • Mashum #20 4 years ago

    Some kind of reward for playing it though again would have been nice and there was none of that in the original game. Model viewer, NPC dialogue recordings.... anything except the dreaded concept art!

    Southpaw support would have helped as well but I guess that might be difficult to retrofit.


    Edit: ... or more succinctly what symbiote just said.
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/07 @ 11:16

  • pinchofsalt #21 4 years ago

    Co-op patch?

  • t8yman #22 4 years ago

    dont bother, wont be replaying it anyway, will be trading it for orange box or cod4 or maybe even a hddvd add-onn very soon.

  • jlaakso #23 4 years ago

    A new enemy, a new weapon, some new plasmids, a new level and I'd be all over it again. I wouldn't mind if a new level wasn't so tightly integrated into the plot, just something extra. It would be cool to be able to go outside Rapture, like into an external station or something.

  • afghan_jones #24 4 years ago

    It has zero replayability as it's strength lies purely in the story twist, without which it is somewhat lacklustre.

    New Plasmids would not make it worth another run through as even some of the existing ones were hardly worth bothering with.

    Played it once, enjoyed it a lot and traded it in.

    Final battle should have been you, in the big daddy suit, stomping around out on the sea bed, through the 'streets' of Rapture, fighting a giant 'sharkmanfishboss'

  • gaselite #25 4 years ago

    "Bioshock is 8/10 nothing more. Great story, very little else."

    Spectacular copout and backhanded insult to every man and woman who worked hard on making a top drawer, intelligent, atmospheric and highly playable game, arsehole.


    From a narrative point of view the game is perfectly constructed as it is and no expansion can really expand upon the more ambiguous ending, only a proper sequel could really do that. Multiplayer does seem like a pretty obvious choice in terms of replayability but the game might not lend itself to multiplayer as much as we'd like it to.


  • suzakuseven #26 4 years ago

    Everyone raves about the story but ultimately it was the setting and the themes that were impressive. The audio logs hinted at something that was way more complex than we what we were presented with and, ultimately, I was more interested in these than what I was actually doing in game. For the first part of the game it's a great feeling. You're exploring and everything seems interesting. Later on, everything becomes routine. Big Daddies are no problem at all and you off them without a second thought. The denizens of Rapture have seemingly spliced themselves into one of four distinct architypes, and with the minimal NPC interaction there really isn't that much to do beyong the basic 'kill and collect' goals. This game had a great thing going for it but just couldn't maintain the standard set by it's amazing beginning.

  • sharpfish #27 4 years ago

    pssssssththththththt... Maybe they PC PATCH should be his primary concern... that's about the only thing worth DL now for this messed up game. (and even though I can run it ok, it doesn't make it any less broken in oh so many ways).

    Seriously, no one cares about bioverhypedshock anymore, including the developers.

  • sharpfish #28 4 years ago

    @ Madafunkola > the banned one may be an imposter but Ken Levine DID post there in a thread or two, he even answered me directly about why his lead coder told us that Widescreen users would get a completely different projection matrix (FOV stuff) to standard months before release and then the game was released with this 'locked' FOV WS BS... he said some crap excuse but then 2k have are experts at crap excuses.

  • miiiguel #29 4 years ago

    I found all the diaries, thanks anyway..., and they're brilliant, subtle, classy, shocking...

    New Plasmids would be great, a pre-Jack arriving event would be nice, playable as "mother goose", for instance...
    And new Achievements (usual 250) to come along as well.

    And I'd hate to see multiplayer on this, the usual run-n-gun brainless thingy shouldn't mix with this very plot driven experience. It would be a major crime. Please don't!

    sharpfish: are we talking about the same game?! And does Hype=Quality/financial success, nowdays? every time I see a game that's good and sells well the lexic "hype" spawns...
    Edited by 3 at 17/10/07 @ 12:54

  • immateriaux #30 4 years ago

    yeah i thought ken levine was a poster at 2K too - remember reading others on the forum saying he had posted about activations and such but i was a late arrival there so never saw such personally. But, unfortunately, I can see now the link I posted earlier is indeed to an imposter: didn't think to check what the posts were by that particular account!

  • glaeken #31 4 years ago

    I already played it a second time through and I can not see me playing a third time just because of additional plasmids. I think there is so much in the game you barley use anyway that adding yet more stuff would just be a waste of time.

    Save the effort for a sequel I say.

  • Hangman #32 4 years ago

    already had enough replay value for me, finished it once, then twice to get all the tapes, then a 3rd time on hard to get the 1000/1000 points. and i enjoyed every minute of it. GOTY without a doubt, beating halo 3's single player into a pulp.

  • the_dudefather #33 4 years ago

    WOOD YUO KOINDY FOIND A CREOWBAR OR SUMTHUN

    anyway, i would like to see a 'hardcore' difficulty mode (like blue dragon), have a cash/eve penalty when you die and less ammo (as well as tougher enemies etc)

    in terms of actual new content, wouldn't mind a new enemy or two, or some kind of bonus mode, like one where you play as a big daddy and you have to escort a little sister around, with adam gained as a score, with leaderboard ranking (think re3/4 mercenaries mode in terms of gameplay)

  • prolific8 #34 4 years ago

    If Bioshock is overhyped, 8/10 stuff (and I would agree to a point, possibly 9/10 instead) then Halo 3 is a solid 6/10 at best.

    At least Levine made his game from scratch, Bungie updated an engine and wrote some new levels.

    (Before Halo fanboys jump on me, I think the multiplayer is fantastic fun, and I'm enjoying it immensely. It just isn't everything it's hyped to be, much like Bioshock which was a better game).

  • Darren #35 4 years ago

    I'd like to see a chainsaw and BFG make an appearance in BioShock, perhaps even an axe or a drill!!! As for Plasmids, how about an acid one that disfigures then dissolves your enemies. Or one that turns them into something else like a puppy or insect? Or... or... oooooh, I'm feeling particularly evil today! Gimmee gore, gore, gore!

  • Mildew #36 4 years ago

    Some levels based before the actual story takes place when everything goes tits up?

  • Slamhound #37 4 years ago

    I really can't help but feel that the boys at Irrational had a talk with the boys at Bethesda.

    "Yeah, see, what we did is that we made Oblivion, right?"
    "Right."
    "But there was also a bunch of other stuff we could have released with it. Little stuff, y'know?"
    "Of course."
    "Well, when we did Morrowind we made this stuff free to download, but the idiots that bought the XBox version felt left out."
    "Well, it's their fault really."
    "Yeah, so what we did with all these little Oblivion extras is charge for them. I mean, we could've given them away, but the the XBoxers would keep on whining, and since we dumbed the game down for them we thought 'hey, why not charge everybody?'"
    "Nice."
    "You could do the same with Bioshock, you know..."

  • miiiguel #38 4 years ago

    Slamhound: oh man, you're so funny! Why don't you do sit-down comedy ? Just didn't get the "dumbed down version", how come it's "dumbed" down ?, What it has less than other versions (I know one thing the others have, less units sold).
    Edited by 1 at 17/10/07 @ 14:20

  • asharkman #39 4 years ago

    I think this game got bored of itself about half way through. really, i think it should have ended after killing ryan. It really was a case of go here, get that blah blah blah.
    It is a classic alright, i just feel they didn't set the tempo right. Like too much too early or something like that. And those bees are completely rubbish. Seriously didn't use them once after i tested them.

  • Feanor #40 4 years ago

    Did they ever do that widescreen patch?

  • Diabeu #41 4 years ago

    destroy Vita Chambers

  • Lurks #42 4 years ago

    How a whole reverse dumbing-down of the game? Could be done with the existing content but force you to decide if you're going to be a hacker, or a weapons dude, or heavy on plasmids. Make the game back into the sort of RPG System Shock was where you had to decide what path to take and choose your abilities accordingly, rather than just giving you everything for instant gratification.

    Don't get me wrong, I loved Bioshock but the genre of game moved firmly away from the awesomeness of System Shock 2 and I'd like to see them recapture some of that ground.

    That's why you replayed System Shock 2, people still doing it years later. I couldn't face replaying Bioshock because it'd be exactly the same.

  • Lurks #43 4 years ago

    "And how come Levine is banned from the 2K forums on Bioshock: http://fo rums.2kgames.com/forums/member....

    Because it isn't him. Just a simple click on the posts would have shown you that.