As BioShock turns 17, we need to talk about its biggest plot hole

Depending on when this article goes live, BioShock will either be about to turn 17-years-old or has just recently celebrated the anniversary. In any case, many of us will be thinking fondly of the 2007 FPS that helped push video game narratives further along. We may also be wondering whether the franchise will ever make a comeback.

With its creepy atmosphere, gorgeous visuals actualized in the underwater city of Rapture, the first game in the series is nothing short of a modern classic. However, BioShock‘s most memorable asset is undoubtedly that jaw-dropping twist that left us contemplating what it means to be a free agent in a video game world.

With the studio Cloud Chamber ramping up as talks of a new installment are on the horizon – not to mention 2K allegedly working on a remake, as well as the long-awaited Netflix adaptation – BioShock seems like it’s about to make some sort of return. However, after more than a decade and a half, I can finally hold my tongue no longer. Something about the original game has been bugging me, and I think we need to have a talk about it.

Bio-shocked this hasn’t been mentioned before

If you’ve ever played BioShock, you’re already very familiar with the game’s big twist. If you haven’t, all of this will come as some kind of surprise. To sum it up: about halfway into the story, it’s discovered that the player-character, Jack, has been following orders of one Atlas only because of a trigger phrase.

Throughout the game, you’ll have noticed that Atlas has been prefixing his requests to take action with “would you kindly.” It’s a throwaway pleasantry, or at least it seems that way at first. However, it’s revealed that this is part of some brainwashing tactic employed when Jack was an infant.

The fact that you – as the player – have only been advancing throughout Rapture seemingly because you’ve been commanded to was a huge mindf**k when we first encountered it. It meant that, from a narrative perspective at least, we had to consider whether any of our actions were truly our own, or simply the endgame of mental conditioning.

This twist brought down the walls of what was possible in video game storytelling, as it almost pointed the finger at us directly, asking us to question how much agency we have when we play any game and are instructed (perhaps through objectives or level design) on where to go and what to do.

One problem with this idea. Have a look at the clip below. If the timestamp doesn’t work, skip forward to around the 3:00 mark. That’s the key bit.

This is the big reveal. Rapture’s creator, Andrew Ryan, finally lays everything out. It’s all part of Jack’s conditioning. Nothing he does is part of any sense of free will. However, what do you notice about this scene? Watch it again.

See how, even before Ryan utters the “would you kindly” phrase, the player-character immediately follows his orders.

“Stop!” He says, and the player does…”would you kindly?”

“Sit!” He barks – again the player does just as he’s told…”would you kindly?”

He even runs when told to without Ryan having to utter the trigger phrase.

It’s something that others don’t seem to have noticed. If the whole point of BioShock‘s infamous reveal is that the player is supposed to feel like they’ve only ever accomplished anything because of story conditioning, then Jack obeying orders before the trigger phrase feels like a huge plot hole. It feels like it was never needed to begin with.

Look, maybe it can be explained away. Maybe Andrew Ryan, being the perpetrator of Jack’s early conditioning, is so authoritative that he doesn’t need to utter “would you kindly.” Maybe Jack’s so far gone at this point in the story that he’s almost anticipating the phrase being said, so simply resides himself to following orders before he’s even heard it. There could well be a canonical reason why he would run, sit, stop etc. without the prefix “would you kindly,” but it kind of weakens the immense impact of this otherwise shocking twist.

If this scene has been put together slightly wrong by the studio, then it feels a bit like an oversight. We now know that Jack’s motives have been the part of brainwashing, so to see it fall apart at this very crucial moment is a bugbare I’ve been carrying for quite some time. Now, I infect you with it.

Somebody out there may well be able to offer an explanation. At the time of watching this cutscene, I never cottoned onto this plot hole. The revelation alone left such a reverberation – in both me and the gaming industry at large – that any inconsistences were either unnoticed or ignored. It didn’t matter back then.

I still love you, BioShock

This is absolutely not a criticism of BioShock or its story elements. It was – and still is – a brilliant game. Even with how lauded BioShock Infinite was (just two points shy of matching the original game’s score, according to Metacritic), the 2007 release goes down as the best of the bunch.

But I understand this is coming across as just some aging gamer with some ancient and, frankly, unimportant point to make. There’s a very good chance that I’m just wrong entirely, but having watched this clip many times over, it does seem at least odd that nobody else has pointed it out. Or if they have, it’s been reserved for the deepest crevices of the most obscure parts of the indexed internet.

I just think it’s fascinating that one of gaming’s most notorious plot twists has this gaping hole in it. As I said, it doesn’t entirely undo the shocking revelation that comes halfway through BioShock‘s storyline. But it does potentially open up further discussion. But then, the game is now 17 years old. We’ve very much moved on since then.

I love BioShock. I loved it back then and I love it now. I truly hope that we get a fourth installment, or at least a remake of the first game. It went down as one of the most successful releases of the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation, rubbing elbows with Red Dead Redemption, Halo 3, and Valve’s Orange Box. There’s a very good reason it typically shows up in lists of the best video games of all time, plot holes notwithstanding. Now, would you kindly go easy on me in the comments?