“All good things of this Earth flow into the city.”
The words still ring in my head almost two decades later. Some of the first words you see when you descend into the underwater city of Rapture in the opening moments of BioShock.
The moments leading up to the reveal of Rapture are chaos: flames licking at the ocean surface, Jack’s heavy breaths as he swims to safety, the echoes of screams still nestled at the back of your head.
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Then you break through the water and head into the lighthouse, the tower that beckons you forward with the flashes of its light and its steady presence, the full moon glowing behind it but obscured by a structure you can’t ignore.
Once inside, you begin to descend back into the depths, but this time, you are met with a giant gold statue of a man and his creed: No Gods or Kings. Only Men.
This man, who you do not yet know, towers over you, his brow furled into a scowl like he is judging what you choose to do next.
What else could you do but continue your descent?
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As you creep down the winding staircase, the sound of mid-20th century jazz lures you like a siren as the lights welcome you like a long-lost relative and it isn’t long before you are met with BioShock’s method of travel, the bathysphere.
Acting as a submarine but resembling an old-fashioned diver’s helmet (imagery that you will soon become familiar with throughout your journey), this is your connection from the surface to the very depths of the sea, or more specifically, Rapture.
The bathysphere soon creeps below the surface as the water envelopes you but the darkness is soon broken by the art-deco statues that have been deliberately placed to welcome you into the underwater city.
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Just as you begin to get used to the silence that can only be achieved below the surface of the water, a screen appears and begins to tell a tale narrated by the business magnate himself.
“I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question,” it begins.
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.'
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'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.'
'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.'
I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different.
I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture.”
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It was this very moment that changed my attitude towards video games.
I was 11 years old when BioShock came out and up until then, I played video games just to have fun but this was the first time that a video game had taken my breath away, when I finally appreciated them as an art-form.
As Andrew Ryan’s “Rapture” spilled from his lips like a breath of relief and the screen folded away to give us our first glimpse at the underwater city, the image has been imprinted on my brain ever since and despite it being almost two decades since BioShock was released, no other game opening has made me feel the same.
Of course, moments have come close but if you ask me my favourite video game, I will hear jazz creeping through the hallways, the maniacal screams of the splicers, the clanging of pipes and the booming footsteps of a Big Daddy protecting his Little Sister.
I will remember the clicks and whirs of the audio diaries as I learn about Andrew Ryan’s attempts to make Paradise before it ultimately fell as the result of human greed or how Brigid Tenenbaum repents over her involvement in the creation of the Little Sisters.
From the very beginning of your time in Rapture, you are confronted with the unseen horrors of its former residents who now crawl the walls in this twisted version of the Garden of Eden.
In this city where religious practice was all but banned but the player can still stumble across bibles hidden within smuggler crates, you realise that as the promise of Paradise began to fracture throughout this metropolis, its residents began to look for something to believe in again in a city built in spite of the Gods.
How can it not stay with you years after the credits have rolled?
To this day, the magic and horrors of Rapture have stayed with me. So much so that returning to the underwater city in BioShock Infinite made me feel like I was returning home.
In that moment when Booker and Elizabeth enter a “tear” into Rapture, the notes of Bobby Darin’s Beyond the Sea begin to float through the very hall where Jack injects his first Plasmid in BioShock and the memories come flashing back.
Rapture is the same and yet I am different all those years later and somehow I am back there.
Not many games could make me feel that way.