Highlights
- The BioShock series presents players with dark moral dilemmas and binary choices, ranging from throwing a ball at an interracial couple to sparing or killing characters.
- These choices, though they may not have major effects on the game's narrative, shock and unsettle players due to their connection to real-world issues like racial divides and revenge.
- These moral dilemmas prompt players to pause and consider the difficult experiences faced by people of color and the consequences of their choices, highlighting the dark and thought-provoking nature of the games.
The BioShock series certainly made a name for itself with its twisted and depressing settings, deconstructions of ‘free’ utopias, and a rather infamous morality system. Some decisions aren’t clouded with moral grayness at all, offering a “good” or “bad” choice, and no in-between, while others are a bit more subjective.
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Nevertheless, each entry in the trio of games in the series has offered some pretty dark moral dilemmas, whereby players are pushed into a mandatory binary choice, ranging from executing a crazed soldier revolutionary at his own request, or saving genetically mutated children… or not. Expect a lot of murder and death; some examples are going to be a lot more gruesome in context than others.
6 Pelt The Tied-Up Interracial Couple, Or The Host (BioShock Infinite)
- A tied-up black-and-white couple is brought onto a stage to be pelted with balls.
- Players can throw the ball at them, or the admonish showman.
- While it had no major effects on the game, it shocked journalists and players.
BioShock Infinite
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , Microsoft Windows , macOS , Linux
- Released
- March 26, 2013
- Developer(s)
- Irrational Games , 2K , Aspyr
- Genre(s)
- Action
The first moral dilemma in BioShock Infinite was certainly dark, as it prompted the player to choose between following along with a showman’s request by throwing a ball at an interracial couple or deciding to toss it at him instead. This all happens amidst a crowd of people. Being a game set in the late 19th century in a nationalist fictional country, it makes sense for them to have frowned on the couple.
In reality, it took players by surprise. According to former project lead Ken Levine, when the game was in development he hadn’t seen anyone throw the ball at the couple, and, considering how it conjures up conversations about ongoing issues of racial divides, it’s clear to see why people were uncomfortable. Either way, much like the rest of the choices in the game, it doesn’t affect anything substantial with the narrative, yet it’s more than enough to make a person pause and think about how difficult it must’ve been for people of color back then.
5 Murder, Or Leave Behind, Stanley Poole (Bioshock 2)
- Stanley Poole is revealed to have done many horrible things to hide his misdeeds.
- Players can kill or spare him after helping him through a portion of the game.
- This choice will affect the game’s ending.
BioShock 2
- Released
- February 9, 2010
- Developer(s)
- 2K , Irrational Games
- Genre(s)
- First-Person Shooter
Stanley Poole recruits the hulking Subject Delta, the protagonist, to do his handiwork in BioShock 2 in the underwater city of Rapture. Initially, he was asked by businessman Augustus Sinclair to win the trust of the game’s antagonist Sophia Lamb, and join her revolutionaries to find evidence of extremism. After ratting out Lamb, Poole threw wild parties and sold her (and Delta’s) daughter, Eleanor, to the orphanage (ready to be turned into a Little Sister) before flooding the park and its inhabitants to hide the evidence. Eleanor and Lamb eventually chime in to explain this.
Even worse, Delta became a Big Daddy because of Poole! Executing him will influence Eleanor’s moral compass later on in the game, yet the option to spare him is there. After all, his death won’t resolve anything, and Eleanor becoming a Little Sister (and, eventually, a butt-kicking Big Sister) has given them both a chance to reunite and potentially escape Rapture. It’s a tough choice from a moral standpoint and a bleak reminder of how revenge isn’t always sweet.
4 Execute, Or Spare, Captain Slate (BioShock Infinite)
- A mad former army captain seeks revenge and ends up fighting the protagonist.
- Players can execute him at his request, or spare his life.
- Sparing Slate will result in his imprisonment and lobotomization.
Captain Slate is a shadow from DeWitt’s past, who crops back up in Columbia to get revenge on the founder of the city-in-the-sky, Father Comstock. Understandably so as well, since he was discharged from the Columbian army for exposing Comstock, a supposed veteran, as a fraud. He exacts revenge by teaming up with the Vox Populi anarchists to bring war to Columbia's inhabitants.
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DeWitt defeats Slate in a fight and is instructed to finish him off. If he dies, he dies - simple as. However, sparing him will result in him calling DeWitt a coward. Later, he can be found locked away and lobotomized. It’s nasty to see him in an unresponsive state, no thanks to the medical butchery he was subjected to. Sometimes, existing as such could be considered worse than death.
3 Eliminate, Or Show Mercy To, Grace Holloway (BioShock 2)
- Grace Holloway is a former performer who sends Splicers to stop Subject Delta.
- Players can kill or spare her after breaking into her slum-based fortress.
- Sparing her will result in a small army of Splicers to fight alongside.
Once a musician, Grace Holloway was left penniless after criticizing Rapture’s de facto tyrant Andrew Ryan, and found solace as part of Lamb’s family of revolutionaries. While looking after Eleanor for a while, Grace's disappearance affected her emotionally. At the beginning of BioShock 2, she tries to get Eleanor away from Delta, only to be given a fractured jaw for her efforts. Naturally, seeing Delta return after so long enraged Holloway as she commanded some of Lamb’s Splicers to stop him. A confrontation leaves the player the option to kill Holloway or leave her standing.
What makes this so dark is that Grace genuinely saw Delta as a threat and only wants to support Lamb and Eleanor. Her oppressed time in Rapture and conflicting attempts to win over both Ryan’s supporters and the disheveled revolutionaries only made her life even more difficult, so it’s easy to sympathize with her for that reason. She’ll also change her view and offer reinforcements to support the player if spared. In short, it’s difficult to find reasons outside of her own prejudice against Big Daddies to not let her live.
2 Assist In Dr. Alexander’s Suicide, Or Leave “Alex The Great” (BioShock 2)
- Dr. Gilbert Alexander is a former scientist who has mutated and gone mad, now calling himself “Alex the Great”.
- Players can electrocute or leave him alive after fighting through his defenses and reaching his tank.
- Dr. Alexander requests, via pre-recorded messages created before his maddened state, that the player end his life.
In BioShock 2, players will find recordings from Dr. Gilbert Alexander, asking for his life to be ended. For context, despite being a crucial member of the Little Sister experiments, he tried to save Eleanor from her condition. Lamb, however, manipulated Dr. Alexander to infuse the unstable substance ADAM into himself instead, resulting in horrible mutations and a loss of sanity. Now calling himself ‘Alex The Great’, he’s adamant about “firing” Delta, paranoid that he’s out for his “job”.
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Should he die, or be left alone? As if his madness and sociopathy weren’t apparent enough, his mutated state is enough to make anyone wince. Once human, he is now preserved in a giant aquarium, resembling an enormous fetus with additional limbs. As calm and collected as he was when requesting assisted suicide in his recordings, he begs for mercy in his current form. Whether to be electrocuted into a pulpy mess or ignored completely, it's a horrendous, melancholic fate for him either way.
1 Sacrifice, Or Save, The Little Sisters (BioShock & BioShock 2)
- Little Sisters are genetically modified girls who extract the genetic liquid ADAM from dead Splicers.
- In the first two BioShock entries, harvesting them will extract the most ADAM to be used on new attacks and abilities.
- Sparing them will grant a lesser amount, but is considered good karma and offers other bonuses.
Both BioShock and BioShock 2 had an important mechanic that influenced the ending in each. Little Sisters are genetically altered young orphans who extract ADAM from corpses, all the while Big Daddies serve as their heavily armored protectors. With ADAM, anyone can rapidly alter their genetics. It’s already affected the Sisters, making their eyes glow and toughening them up against harm.
There’s no sugar-coating how horrible it is to decide to kill these innocent children in order to extract as much ADAM as possible for personal gain. In both games, it comes with a nasty animation with some bone-chilling sound design along with it, whereby the child dies horribly, and all that is left is an ADAM-filled sea worm. Sparing them may offer less of a reward, but it’s partially compensated for with ammo and items (in the original, additional ADAM was packaged alongside, but it proved to be too generous and was remedied in the sequel). Sacrificing an innocent life to extend one’s own is a moral dilemma that never stops making fans reflect on their choice's grisly consequences to this day.
