Irrational's Ken Levine on BioShock's final boss and how Infinite's solution is 'more in our wheelhouse'

by Ben Gilbert on Oct 18th 2011 3:20PM

"So every game we make, we always say to ourselves -- back on BioShock 1, we had that terrible showdown fight at the end -- we're not good at that, let's not do that again. And then somehow, we end up ... it's like ... 'Baby I'll never hit you again, I'm changed, I'm changed!' And then we did it!"

Irrational Games head and BioShock 1 creative lead Ken Levine struggled through that explanation this past weekend, pausing often, sighing a lot, and doubling back to be extra clear. His sentiment was certainly definitive, though: even he wasn't a big fan of the game's final boss fight with Atlas. "I think the boss battle in BioShock 1 -- the real boss battle -- is Andrew Ryan."

I had asked about how BioShock Infinite, the studio's next game, would deal with boss fights, as the Atlas battle in the first BioShock title was seen by many as the lowest point in an otherwise spectacular experience. "I think we need to stay in our wheelhouse," he explained. "We're not Shadow of the Colossus. Those guys have a genius for that. We don't have that particular genius." Without getting into anything specific, and recognizing that it would be a "missed opportunity" not to do something with Songbird (Infinite's airborne antagonist), Levine said gamers should expect something more akin to the Andrew Ryan resolution in BioShock 1.

"There are many ways to do it. I'm not saying we do it in the same way as Andrew Ryan, but there are more ways than jumping on his head three times like we did with Atlas," Levine added. He believes the concept of a "boss fight" is more about emotional context, resolution, and player satisfaction. "I think Andrew Ryan was a boss battle. I think you felt satisfied afterwards in the same way, or emotionally changed as you would, hopefully more, than boss battles."

So, how does Infinite establish emotional context and resolution with a giant winged protector ... thing? "I think we need to stay in our wheelhouse, and Andrew Ryan was in our wheelhouse. So, Songbird needs to be resolved, but it needs to be in our wheelhouse."

So there you have it: you'll beat Songbird to death with an inanimate object in some type of wheelhouse. Or something.

Tags: 2k-games, andrew-ryan, atlas, bioshock, bioshock-infinite, boss-fights, irrational, irrational-games, ken-levine, microsoft, nycc, nycc-2011, pc, playstation, ps3, take-two, take-two-interactive, xbox

Reader Comments (47)

Bioshock's final boss is Atlas? :(

I think I've been spoiler'd.

@slickie
Gloss over the part of the title that says "...Ken Levine on BioShock's final boss..."?

@slickie

Also, it's been 4 years and one sequel has already come out.

@slickie

Would you kindly read the title?

@slickie

LOL, Joystiq does it again! They are so good at spoiling games.

@slickie

Rosebud is a sled

Soylent Green is people

Darth Vader is Lukes father

@slickie You've had at least 4 years to play the game, not to mention the fact that it was obvious from the headline that you shouldn't read this article if you hadn't beaten the original game.

This is the part where I tell you your tears are delicious.

To be fair, at the very least they could have put the break just a TINY bit earlier and it would have been covered up.

@DethLocke

Bruce Willis is dead.

Snape kills Dumbledore.

They were on Earth the whole time.

Obviously you convince Songbird to fly into the sun.

Even the other boss fights (the art guy, the doctor, etc) were better than the final boss fight. Even if they were very much a video game boss fight, the setting and atmosphere matched the fight. Atlas just felt so far removed from everything else.

This game is gonna have some problems competing with Skyrim, Halo, and MW3 in my book. Anyone else agree?

@(Unverified)

Wut? It comes out next year.

@(Unverified)

No, No and No. First, it's not coming out until next year some time. Second, I'm still more interested in it than I am any of those games.

@(Unverified)

no way, it's coming out in 2012 and fans of story-driven games will welcome Infinite with open arms. If it has any problems, i pity the 6 year old kids playing MW3 on xbox come November 8th.

@(Unverified)

i have two problems with your comment.

1 bioshock comes out next year.
2 i don't think that i will be playing anything else but skyrim until next year at about the month of July

WE DON'T TAKE KINDLY to being asked "Would you kindly..."

Not that I finish many games, but of the ones I have most of the final boss fights haven't been able to live up to the expectations of the rest of the game. I think the Uncharted 2 boss fight is among the most disappointing of the ones I've experienced in a great game.

Perhaps it's just better to acknowledge that the journey to the final boss is where it's really at and reflect that by putting less emphasis on the final boss fight". Going back to Uncharted 2, I would probably view the running section after Lazarevic to be a much more satisfying boss fight, even though it doesn't have that much to do with the antagonist

@Crayola Q Pants ESQ

no ES4's final boss fight was the worst I've ever played. the questing was the funnest part of that game.

The Last Boss? Gravity.

@foxhound

LMAO

The "boss fight" was whatever. And I got no joy when killing Ryan, because the computer did it for you. It made sense story-wise, but as a person who bought and played through it, it was a little disappointing. And I think his definition of "wheelhouse" probably means that they'll do it as they can for it to still make sense and work with the rest of it.

@Piko

I think you kind of missed the point of the Ryan encounter, or how it fit into Bioshock's commentary.

P.S. I'm NOT trying to say you're stupid or anything! I don't mean any offense, I just meant that you should look up different thoughts on what Bioshock is saying and take another look at the encounter.

@Piko I actually agree with your point. One of the major idear of Bioshock was that you (the player) are just blindly following the orders of some complete stranger, a commentary on a typical video game trope. As soon as you take control away from the player and have a cinematic scene (i.e. NOT YOU) kill Ryan, this message is completely lost.

Do you remember in FFVII (*****SPOILERS*****, obviously) right before Sephiroth kills Aeris/Aerith? When you have control over Cloud, and every action you make leads him to get closer to Aeris, pull out a sword, and almost kill her yourself? That left a much stronger resonance with me than the following cinematic scene when Sepiroth deals the actual blow, because it was almost me who killed her. It felt like it was beyond my control WHILE I was still controlling the character. That is how I would have like the encounter with Ryan to have played out in Bioshock.

@Subcon

Or, even something like in Metal Gear Solid 3, where

***SPOILERS AGAIN OBVIOUSLY***

You actually DO have a final, climactic battle with The Boss, but it's really, really well designed and emotional, and really goddamn intense (she can COUNTER YOUR CQC!!) rather than the Atlas fight, which was just goofy and dumb and kind of tacked on. And then after the boss fight you get a cutscene that nicely resolves their relationship, followed by the player being forced to actually press the square button to put the final bullet in your mentor/friend/lover/surrogate mother. Geez, I'm getting all choked up again just thinking about it.

I think that's a great example of keeping a traditional "boss-fight" format while retaining emotional impact and relevance to the story.

@ToastyBiggins I'm sorry, you lost me at "Metal Gear Solid" and "good boss fight."

(Haha just kidding, it's just that I've just never liked the MGS controls. Pretty much all boss encounters turn into me running around in circles, fighting with the camera to actually get a good view of the other person shooting at me, until I eventually die. But the pulling-the-trigger part was exceptionally well done.)

@ToastyBiggins

MSG is how to not make games.

Decent interactive movies though.

I had completely purged the memory of the Atlas boss fight from my memory. When I think back about that game it ends with Andrew Ryan.

@BigE4284

I played through Bioshock again about a year ago and I seriously thought the game ended after killing Ryan... Somebody had told me about that boss fight and I couldn't for the life of me remember it, so I decided playing though again would help spark that memory.

I still like to believe that the game ends with Ryan's death. Everything after that was absolute trash, and seriously made me like the game a lot less.

glaf to hear it

Gotta admire a man that can criticize his own invention, learn from it, and not make the same mistake again. Makes me even more certain that Infinite will be one of the greatest games of 2012.

@Pure Black World Tendency You speak great truths.

@Pure Black World Tendency
Gotta admire a game that can criticize its own inventor, learn from him, and not make the same mistake again. Makes me even more certain that Ken Levine will be one of the greatest men of 2012.

Bioshock is one of the greatest games ever made - and the final boss was not too big of an issue. In fact, I think it's one of the more "fair" boss battles in recent memory - it's challenging, but not stupid challenging.

@Axcalibur

It might be challenging, but it's freaking stupid!

It's all good. I understood what they were doing with it. I guess I was just speaking on personal preference of doing it myself. Even if it was the same scenario. Lock you in until you kill him. Something. I don't dislike it though. Still worked real well for the story.

Say whatever you want about the game but one of the best final sequences/final boss fights is in MGS4

Well we can all agree the final boss, which I honestly can't even remember, wasn't the greatest. And that's probably why I don't remember. I remember almost every other detail about the game except for the boss. But I also agree that Andrew Ryan was more of a boss too. Yea it wasn't a mjor showdown, but the way the story played out gave you a sense of... let's say relief. But that's just me

Domestic Abuse is THE BEST metaphor!

@Assmar
Glad I'm not the only person who caught that. Hope you don't get flamed for pointing out that normalizing something that for many people is a very real horrible cycle of abuse isn't cool.

In Bioshock I didn't think they needed a final boss after Andrew Ryan, although I feel that it would benefit Bioshock Infinite somewhat if you were in a battle or chase with Songbird. It doesn't have to be the final boss, but some interaction with Songbird would benefit the game. I think.

I appreciate what he's saying, but I think that Levine is selling himself a bit short. While it's true that the game's brilliant rewrite of what "free will" looks like in a videogame breaks after you cure yourself of Atlas's mind control, and after that you (narratively speaking) should be going after him for pure revenge for using you the way he did (except once again, you have no choice to do otherwise), I didn't consider the Atlas bossfight to be too overwrought, and considering how the Little Sisters came to play in the end and tying the story up it wasn't like I came away from that ending thinking "wow, what a train wreck to an otherwise brilliant game." If anyone needs taking out behind the woodshed for a sound thrashing, it's the writers for BioShock 2.

@Mighty Ponygirl
Would you rather he acted like Peter Molyneux and pretend everything he ever did was genius and that he can do no wrong; people just don't understand his brilliance is all.
Is that what you want instead?

Is this a roadhouse wheelhouse? Cause that would be pretty Swayze!

Honestly I remember thinking that everything after Andrew Ryans death felt tacked on.
It was as if someone said:
"Well crap, the main boss is dead and we only have an 12 hour game."
Would have been best if your guy actually did just shoot himself when ordered too.
Now that would have been an ending no one would ever forget.

It's true, game design is just like punching your girlfriend.

BioShock Infinite

Irrational's Ken Levine on BioShock's final boss and how Infinite's solution is 'more in our wheelhouse'

Reader Comments (47)

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:29PM slickie said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:39PM jesus lol said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:45PM Courtney said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:08PM Dhexodus said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:29PM Axcalibur said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:35PM DethLocke said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:40PM jtrjuwrue5iiejie5ijeie3i5 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 5:23PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 4:08AM Drago Dracini said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:30PM Celery Moon said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:31PM Courtney said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:34PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:41PM The Scout said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:43PM Courtney said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:46PM hkpwnage said

Posted: Oct 20th 2011 9:00AM SKYRIM111111 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:36PM Hirsbrunner said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:40PM Crayola Q Pants ESQ said

Posted: Oct 20th 2011 9:03AM SKYRIM111111 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:51PM foxhound said

Posted: Oct 20th 2011 9:05AM SKYRIM111111 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 3:58PM Piko said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:33PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:35PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 10:04PM Subcon said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 12:29AM ToastyBiggins said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 3:39AM Subcon said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 9:21AM akeso said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:04PM BigE4284 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 5:21PM liquidsoap89 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:20PM Sonny009 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:23PM Pure Black World Tendency said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 7:55PM zx3junglist said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 4:48AM mcnichoj said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:31PM Axcalibur said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 5:21PM liquidsoap89 said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 6:25PM Piko said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 4:37PM IronGlint said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 6:22PM SonyPS said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 7:48PM Assmar said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 10:32PM Mighty Ponygirl said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 10:19PM AzumaNinja said

Posted: Oct 18th 2011 10:30PM Mighty Ponygirl said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 9:24AM akeso said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 2:06AM Its X with Guns said

Posted: Oct 19th 2011 9:23AM akeso said

Posted: Oct 21st 2011 12:40PM (Unverified) said

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