On Friday, February 5, 2010, members of 2k Marin and Digital Extremes had a conference call to answer questions for Bioshock 2. 2K Marin was in charge of the single player mode while Digital Extremes was given the reign to create a new multiplayer mode for Bioshock 2. On the call was Jordan Thomas (Creative Director, 2K Marin), Zak Mc Clendon (Lead Designer, 2K Marin), Hogarth De La Plante (Lead Environment Artist, 2K Marin), Matt Tremblay (Multiplayer Art Director, Digital Extremes), and Jesse Attard (Multiplayer Lead Programmer, Digital Extremes).

To start, Jordan Thomas gave a quick overview of Bioshock 2 explaining that the game takes places ten years after the events of the first game. The player takes control of a prototype Big Daddy called "Subject Delta" who is separated from his bonded Little Sister that he was set to protect. Delta is looking for his Little Sister and meets with the antagonist, Sofia Lamb, who is an altruist and a political rival of Andrew Ryan. Sofia Lamb has united the city, after the death of Andrew Ryan, into unity cult that's called the "Rapture Family" where there is no individual.

Multiplayer acts as a prequel that takes place in 1959 before the events of Bioshock 1. You take the role of one of several average citizens of Rapture that was thrown into the conflict called the Rapture Civil War. You will see the beautiful, Utopian city before the world was torn apart. The first question asked to the team was about the storyline of Bioshock 2 and how it expanded on the original story. Jordan explained that the player will be defined by the choices they make in the game. Unlike other Big Daddys, Subject Delta is not enslaved, but instead, has free will to make a number of ethical decisions which will shape the outcome of the plot that wasn't possible in the original game.

Jack Ryan (protagonist of Bioshock 1) did not return as the developers felt that his arc in Bioshock 1 was fully completed and did not warrant any additional story. 2K Marin also wanted to respect whatever choice the player made when they beat the game meaning that neither ending of Bioshock 1 is the definite ending. What is known from Bioshock 1 is that Jack Ryan did leave Rapture, Little Sisters are gone, and Andrew Ryan has fallen. Jack is actually considered almost as a religious figure among some of the Splicers, and you will hear them discussing him as you play. Tenenbaum will be a returning character in Bioshock 2, unless you count Rapture itself as a returning character.

Choosing to have the protagonist as a Big Daddy was a decision made early on. Jordan stated that by playing as a Big Daddy, there would be a new perspective both in the narrative and gameplay. They wouldn't reveal the background of Subject Delta, just restating that he has awoken ten years after the event in Bioshock 1 and is in search for the Little Sister he is bounded to. The story is mystery driven and the player will learn more details during the game.

Being a prototype Big Daddy, Subject Delta is more agile than the classic Big Daddy. Delta will also be able to use plasmids, and have a greater array of weapons to choose from. Most importantly, he will have the free will to make moral choices throughout the game.

As a Big Daddy, you can have a relationship with one of the Little Sisters. Known as adopting, you can protect your Little Sister as she scavenges dead bodies for Adam. This will be totally optional on whether you want to do this as there maybe fears that the game maybe one giant escort mission. A choice will be given to you if you adopt the Little Sister on whether you choose to harvest her for Adam or not. The choice is yours and it will affect the outcome of the game.

2K Marin strived to make the moral choices more substantial than they were in the first Bioshock which didn't offer much variance between the choices you made. They made it a point that if you want to be good, it'll be tougher for you while being evil more of shortcut. There is a middle ground where your character can be as powerful as those that went the evil route with still being on the side of good, but that route will take more of your time.

Other Big Daddys in the game will still attack you. There is a new Big Daddy called the Bruiser Big Daddy, who will be a tough fight for the player. Even playing as a Big Daddy, fighting other Big Daddys will still be a challenge, as they were in the first game.

Big Sisters were explained as being Little Sisters that didn't leave Rapture when Jack Ryan left. Instead, some Little Sisters remained hidden after the events of Bioshock 1 and have grown up a little too fast. The design for Big Sisters was to take the Big Daddy look but make it more of an awkward adolescence look instead of the older man design of the Big Daddy. If you look closely at the detail of the Big Sister, you will see drawings and stickers on their suit showing that they are still young women.

For gameplay, Zack talked about some of the elements that they wanted to keep and what they wanted to improve on. What they kept was the continuation of letting the player make moral choices within the game, having players control the setup of their character, and overall, have the game play out as the players wanted it to. They also made sure to keep the deep storyline that included all the philosophical underpinning.

In regards to improving the gameplay, they wanted Bioshock 2 to be more acceptable by new players to the game as well as veterans of the game. Dual wielding was added to let player use their weapons and plasmids at the same time rather than having to constantly switch back and forth like they did in Bioshock 1. They were also looking to improve of the growth mechanics of the game by having weapons and plasmids upgradeable by three levels instead of just two levels like in the original. It will take more work to get the third level, but they feel that the final upgrade will be well worth it.

Hacking and Researching return in Bioshock 2 and have been improved upon. Their approach was to make Hacking and Researching less disruptive than they were in Bioshock 1, and have them be more fluid with the core gameplay. Hacking difficulty has been reduced to make way for the more streamlined feel. With Researching, a video camera will be used instead of a photo camera to record you fights with Splicers, and you will be graded on how stylish your fight was gaining more points if you defeat the Splicer with style.

AI has been improved with Splicers setting up more ambushes, taking cover, and overall being more dynamic than before. Jordan did also address concerns over the final boss. "Actually we sort of see the final boss of the original game, in general, one of the things Bioshock 1 doesn't do well. So without spoiling the ending, suffice to say, we have taken a different approach." Rapture will be a new sight for returning players as all the areas in the single player mode will be new. There will also be surprises and twists in the game to try and provide that initial "shock value" that Rapture ha d the first time you played the game. Ocean floor exploring has also been added to let players see Rapture from the outside, and will provide some exploratory elements including seeing the Adam slugs in their natural habitat.

Throughout Rapture, players will fight against new Splicers, such as the Spider Slicer, but there will also be normal people found in Rapture. "There are characters now that you meet in Rapture that are kind of genuine, normal human inhabitants who aren't spliced up, murderous lunatics. We wanted the game to be a little less isolated as that was a common response we received from the first game. These handful of characters are important to the narrative of Bioshock 2 and I think will make it feel less lonely," said Hogarth.

With the multiplayer, the question came up on why they decided to have the multiplayer tell the story as a prequel. "In many ways, we feel that an honest prequel to Bioshock single player would be a very different game. It would sacrifice a lot of what made Bioshock 1 work. I'm not saying there would never be a game that takes place earlier in Rapture, but we certainly felt that it didn't speak directly to the values setup by the first game," explained Jordan. The "dogpile of self interest" during the Rapture Civil War made more sense to be told in multiplayer instead of single player.

In multiplayer, there will be 7 game modes with 10 players max. Overall, they felt that Capture the Sister, a change to the Capture the Flag mode where the Little Sister acts as a flag, was the most fun of the gameplay modes because of its new take on the CTF formula. In certain game modes, there will be a Big Daddy drop that will allow for a player to become a Big Daddy meaning that they can deal and take more damage in exchange for moving much slower and being a bigger target. In Capture the Sister, one player on the team will be randomly selected as a Big Daddy.

Player ranks online will be based on how much Adam a player accumulates. Adam can be collected different ways in every game mode. Those players that stick with the multiplayer will be able to unlock plasmids for their character, and unlock audio diaries that will reveal more of the story of Rapture and details of their character's background. Digital Extremes confirmed that there would be no offline multiplayer or any form of co-op.

Speaking about any possible improvements during the several month delay that Bioshock 2 had going from a 2009 release to 2010, Zak, from 2K Marin, stated that there was not much to add within that delay time. "Very few games get delayed so that you can add crazy new stuff. Really the extra time for us was really focused on balance, polish, and getting to take a good long look at the early moments of the game to making sure we're providing the smooth on-ramp for new players and older players.

On the other hand, Jesse, from Digital Extremes, said that the delay allowed them to add a lot more to the multiplayer. "In addition to the polish which was a huge thing that we were allowed to focus on during this time, we added a bunch of game modes. About four of the game modes actually got added in that extra time which really allowed us to expand what the user can experience." Hogarth confirmed that all versions of the game will be identical with their content. No one will be reward, nor penalized, for having one system instead of the other. "The game will be the same on all three platforms, and yeah it was tricky to get it that way."

As a whole, the developing of a sequel to a game with such magnitude of Bioshock was a huge undertaking. Add onto that a quality multiplayer mode, and you have a difficult challenge for both 2K Marin and Digital Extremes. Yet their goal was still to provide an experience that can live up to the Bioshock name, and be accessible to new players, as well as enjoyed by the hardcore fans.

You can listen to the entire conference call at Gameflak.net.

- Eduardo