A Better Ending For Bioshock
Bioshock was one of the best games of 2007, but I think we can all agree that the ending was terrible. With Bioshock 2 on the way, PC Gamer writer Tom Francis describes a ten-step plan for a better Bioshock.
Needless to say, spoilers for Bioshock, but if you haven’t played it yet THEN WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?!
His suggestions basically boil down to this. Once you kill Andrew Ryan, Vita Chambers stop working for you and instead will only resurrect Fontaine, essentially making him invincible.
Tenenbaum explains that the only way to kill him is to flood the entire city of Rapture. To do this and survive however, you will need to become a Big Daddy. Having transformed, you drill through an outer wall and walk out into the seabed as Rapture is consumed by water.
You reach Fontaine’s hideout from the outside, just in time to see Tenenbaum helping Little Sisters into a bathysphere. Fontaine kills her before you can stop him, then you drill through the walls for the final show down.
Tom says the fight with Fontaine should be a reversal of all the Big Daddy encounters throughout the game, which is a fantastic idea. Fontaine is an unspliced human, so you can easily kill him, but he keeps respawning to chip away at your health – just like the player did when trying to take down a Big Daddy.
Fontaine can keep this up indefinitely until you are dead, so you’ve got one of two options. You can’t fit in the bathysphere with all of the Little Sisters in there, so if you want to escape you have the physically drag them out before you ascend to the surface. Alternatively, you can save the remaining few by escorting them to the bathysphere and sending them on their way.
The game ends once the bathysphere is launched. Either you escape or the Little Sisters do, but Fontaine has no such luck. He drowns as Rapture floods…only to be respawned by a Vita Chamber. Which of course is underwater, so he drowns again. The cycle repeats forever.
I have just one question. Why the hell isn’t Tom Francis working on Bioshock 2? This would have been an incredible ending, infinity better than the terrible boss fight with a spliced-up Fontaine that we actually got. If you’re listening 2k Marin, hire this man immediately.
Misc Tags: BioShock, BioShock 2
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I agree most of his points are very good, but that ending, from the gameplay perspective, could be an arse. How would you have the situation explained in a way you would understand, without simply having text on the screen?
Also, I play BioShock with the vita-chambers tuned off, so the reversal at the end wouldn’t really work for me. Though I guess it would still make sense. The current reversal, where you are a BigDaddy, defending a little sister, I think addresses this well.
And the final boss, whilst a bit out of the blue, dos fit with the game. BioShock is a very generic shooter with an extraordinary story and visual design.
Holy shit, that ending was fucking amazing.
The similarities are uncanny.
Damn, that’s kind of a horrible ending but awesome. I guess the more you harvested in the game the fewer little sisters there’d be in the sphere. Sure as hell better than the current one I think.
This is blogspam. Why don’t just post the direct link to the Tom Francis’ post:
http://www.pentadact.com/index.php/2009-04-15-ending-bioshock
@Jim: What? Have you come here from some other site that’s linked in? If so, sorry you didn’t spot the link in the very first paragraph.
I’m assuming you don’t read NG, if you did you would realize just how confusingly dumb your comment is.
This article isn’t some crappy “blogspam” posted on Digg to help me pay for my giant evil corporate jet. It’s an article pointing to the source saying “check this out, it says [quick break down] and I think it’s good”. Followed by the NG community having a chat about it.
Go away.
Post the direct link? You mean exactly like I did in the first paragraph? The original post is over 1500 words long, I wrote a summary of less than 300 words for people who don’t have the time/inclination to read the whole thing.
@wardrox: When do I get a turn on the giant evil corporate jet?
@OrangeGoblin: Shut up and get back to copy/pastering from legitimate sources to earn me a million pounds!
Not only was this the best article (which I read both here and at the source) but the comments have put a smile on my face.
This idea also does 1 vital thing that doesn’t require a crappy patch to fix:
Vita Chambers = Purpose!
The ending to Bioshock was awesome. Shut up.
@Brandon “RavenSanâ€: Bioshock ended just like an episode of Dragonball Z. Fontaine got juiced with something and gained special magic powers to shoot different lasers out of himself every time you defeated him. It was a solid end but it was nowhere near being good (not saying Bioshock was bad in its entirety). This ending would have been much more entertaining since it gave you an actual choice to your ending and not some sick attempt at adding replay value.
That would’ve been amazing. Granted, I got the “bad” ending, I still don’t think that the ending was that great. That would have been a lot more memorable/unique.
Thats and interesting ending. I loved Bioshock but I don’t even remember why I had to become a Big Daddy. Plus, I don’t think it gave me any advantages. I did like the good ending to the game but I agree that the ending was melodramatic.