PC Gamer and OXM: New Bioshock 2 Details!

[AlexB1001]

I have the May editions of both PC Gamer and the Official Xbox Magazine in the UK, so I thought I'd share the new details:

• You're the first Big Daddy ever built, and by far the most powerful.
• For some reason you still use Vita-Chambers.
• The girl standing on the beach in the teaser trailer is the Big Sister.
• Bioshock 2's story is entirely about the Big Daddies, the Little Sisters and the lives they once had.
• You’re the reason every other Big Daddy after you was brainwashed and crippled – you were too good, and you were involved in some unknown incidents that caused Suchong to abort his plans to make other creatures like you: “suffice it to say they decided to simplify”.
• Tenenbaum will be your advisor over the radio, as Atlas was last game.
• The Splicers that have survived for ten years are “apex predators”, who are at the top of the “Adam food chain”. Note: in the first Bioshock 2 podcast, Jordan Thomas indicated that these "apex predators" were new types of Splicers, suggesting that not all Splicers are like them and they are just a new type of more powerful enemy.
• You have the option, nicknamed the “superdick” option, which is to adopt a Little Sister, carry her around on your shoulder, take the ADAM she extracts from corpses and brings to you, and then kill her and take all of her ADAM.
• The game is nothing like the “horrible escort quest” in the previous Bioshock.
• Single Splicers or ones in a small group will flee when they see you.
• Whether you can go in it or not, there will be a sunken ship in the sea bed surrounding Rapture.
• There will be more people like Sander Cohen in the game.
• There will be more weapons you can wield than the drill and Rivet Gun, and you can upgrade all of them.
• Once you upgrade Cyclone Trap, you can combine it with almost any other Plasmid, not just fire, e.g. "Ice Traps", "Rage Traps", "Bee Traps" and even "Security Traps".
• The "Security Traps" will "cannon victims into the air while simultaneously setting every turret and bot in the area on them".
• When you drill a Splicer there is a large amount of blood, some of which splatters on your visor.
• Big Daddies will still put up a fight, and can top themselves up with health, so you can’t erode them down by constantly respawning.
• You will have “strong and unforgettable encounters with unspliced characters that you can develop genuine empathy for”.
• There is still hacking, and you can heal security bots.
• There are multiple endings and you’ll know which one you’re heading towards, you will make many choices that will resonate into the end-game.
• Underwater sequences are entirely optional.
• There will be no combat underwater, just a chance to punctuate the action and allow the art team to “go nuts”, but you can find and harvest live ADAM slugs on the seabed.
• Some of the really moody and emotional parts of the game will happen underwater. While outside you can also "act as a voyeur because you can look through windows at the next area", and listen to pieces of the story.
• Tenenbaum is still grief-stricken ten years on, especially about the Big Sister due to her origins.
• The Big Sister, due to her mental conditioning, tried to turn herself into a Big Daddy when she realised she was too old to be a Little Sister, and started kidnapping girls to bring to Rapture to restore order.
• You are not on a quest to stop her, she is on a quest to stop you – you are trying to escape Rapture and to do this you use the Little Sisters for saving, killing or adopting so you can receive ADAM. This infuriates the Big Sister, as you are undoing her work to restore order to how she believes it should be.
• Some parts of the Big Sister, like her legs, show her flesh, and she is “skeletally thin”. The pink ribbons on the basket and the crayons on her tank are both done by the Little Sisters.
• The Big Sister has much more powerful versions of certain Plasmids – for instance a version of Telekenesis that hurls everything in the room at you in a "giant tornado".
• Big Sister can hunt you down anywhere in a level.
• After the Little Sister has gathered ADAM for you, you can direct her to the air vents - meaning that you will not necessarily be able to save them until later.
• There is an inverted form of the relationship you had with the Big Daddies in Bioshock 1. In that game, you followed around a Big Daddy until you had it where you wanted it and "jumped it". In Bioshock 2, you are the Big Daddy, and the Big Sister is doing the same to you, constantly stalking you.
• There are special things to the prototype Big Daddy and the Big Sister we don't know about yet that will be revealed later, like how you can beat her in each fight without killing her and how she keeps coming back to fight again and again.
• The game will celebrate your “free will”, contrasting with the previous game. The art-lead on the game, Hogarth, and Jordan both know about the fans' dislike of the section when you break free of your mental condition and "have a plan to allow the player to breathe out".
• It still seems the game will not be a straight sequel, may be partly a prequel.
• Multiplayer is still not revealed, but will be in the next issue of PC Gamer.

[..Only Man..]

This is some great information, kudos and thanks .

[Rapture_Tourist]

Wow, great article and great work summing this up! Thank you very much!

Its nice to see that all magazines add stuff to each other even after such a short time.

Great to hear its still a "little prequel". Sea slug sounds fun. More interesting NPCs - check!

This is shaping up nicely

[japester]

Good stuff! Thanks for posting all these details. I like how 2K is already turning quite a few of our theories on their ears.

One quick question for you. Are the following statements quotes from the developers or the interpretations of the interviewers?:
The game is nothing like the “horrible escort quest” in the previous Bioshock.
It still seems the game will not be a straight sequel, may be partly a prequel.

Can't wait to see the sea floor artwork!

[AlexB1001]

Originally Posted by japester

Good stuff! Thanks for posting all these details. I like how 2K is already turning quite a few of our theories on their ears.

One quick question for you. Are the following statements quotes from the developers or the interpretations of the interviewers?:
The game is nothing like the “horrible escort quest” in the previous Bioshock.
It still seems the game will not be a straight sequel, may be partly a prequel.

Can't wait to see the sea floor artwork!

Jordan Thomas himself said both of those things, and I'll quote:

"The adoption mechanic, fairly importantly, is a direct rebuttal to the horrible escort quest that you may have played in other games starting with Bioshock"

"There's obviously been a lot of prequel/sequel argument/rumours - what I like to say is that if we did a pure one of those, we wouldn't be surprising you enough"

Also when the interviewer asked her that as Bioshock 2 was a straight sequel - so would that be all that Bioshock 2 was, Producer Melissa Miller replied: "in terms of the game you buy in the shop, no"

[Temple]

This is a very nice post. Thank you very much.
Suprised to hear that the Underwater parts are optional though, makes thing interesting.

[ancient]

If all these details are indeed from the magazine and not a hoax, that sounds much better than the gameplay video

I still can't understand the magazine industry why they release, say, May issue in mid-April. Oh those smart marketing techniques...

[japester]

Originally Posted by AlexB1001

Jordan Thomas himself said both of those things, and I'll quote:

Thank you, Alex! I was hoping those were quotes. That's great news.

I have to chuckle at all the people who have been wringing their hands about whether this is a sequel/prequel, pure sequel, or whatever. As if one or the other will significantly limit the quality of the game. Trust the team to create a great experience. It's like fretting over whether your meal will come on a square plate or a round one--it's the food that matters.....

[SR Blu]

great find. +1. Makes my day to a great start.

[Dax01]

Oh my god. This is amazing. Thank you!