Shack: Our reviewer for BioShock, Carlos Bergfeld, wanted me to ask about the sea slug stem cell thing. It's interesting in that it's a topical subject, but he also felt it was maybe shoehorned in. How long has that been a part of the story?

Ken Levine: Well, it's shoehorned in probably because my scientific background is about as deep as the liquid in this drink. For me, it was never about science, it was more like, "Okay, buy into the stem cell thing, and let's move on." I'm not a scientist and, honestly, I don't care about that aspect. I cared about it being pseudo-believable, but I think if you can suspend belief past that, and you can throw the word "plasmid" at them, you're there.

We did some research; one of our artists was a pre-med, and my brother's a doctor, so my research was talking to them. I needed the total starting course in genetics. Tenenbaum was vaguely based on someone from the period working parallel to Crick and Watson. I did some research but, frankly, to get to people shooting fire out of their hands takes a little bit of doing. There's no practical way, especially given the limits of exposition in video games, you could make that totally believable. [laughs]

Shack: Just to be clear, the player is Ryan's illegitimate son?

Ken Levine: The stripper in Fort Frolic--did you see that room?

Shack: Yeah.

Ken Levine: That ghost scene--her diary there reveals that Fontaine paid her to get impregnated by Ryan, who was already her mistress, and then they harvested her egg. Ryan's invulnerable to the security system, and only he could use the bathysphere, so you needed his genetic material. You're half of Ryan, so you're somewhat vulnerable to the security. These are things that are relatively tertiary, but I really wanted a game in which everything could be answered.

Shack: What are your thoughts on contextual richness of the world versus exposition? Most games just deliver narrative straight, but some of the most successfully atmospheric games, like BioShock, tend to present the world in a much more subtle, less movie-like fashion.

Ken Levine: There's a goal there, which is tell the player enough of the story so he gets it in the world and the cutscenes, but then if he wants to dig, let him dig. There's an insane amount of detail in the story if you want it.

I sat there, and the way I structured it basically every character covers a plot thread. McClintock's there to talk about what happened to average people in Rapture and the rise of Atlas, McDonough talks about Ryan's ideological decay, Sullivan and Peach are there to talk about the rise of Fontaine and the criminal area.

That was relatively easy to do, because I'd come up with a theme--I didn't want to confuse people, because it's such a complicated story--and then just keep each character on one theme. This guy talks about this, that guy talks about that. Really keep it focused.

Shack: The main antagonist characters--the "boss" characters--had very specific artistic and creative obsessions. What went into their creation?

Ken Levine: They're all reflections of Ryan. They're all people who take an ideal. With the plastic surgeon, it was physical beauty. He would take his ideal and, with the plasmids, push too far. Is it the plasmids or is it him? With Cohen, it was his art he took too far, and with Ryan it was his philosophy he took to far.

They're all essentially foreshadowing Ryan. Ryan's saner than they are--he had his shit together more--but at the end of the day he's just as unmovable as they are, convinced of their own correctness. These guys have no doubt at all about what they're doing, not a shred. That to me is always very scary. A little doubt is a helpful thing.

Shack: There were clearly a lot of people in Rapture who represented the "have-nots" and who seemed probably deliberately out of place in this kind of affluent utopia.

Ken Levine: When I started talking internally about the game world, it was hard for people to understand exactly what I meant by "utopia." I didn't mean a place where everyone holds hands. It was hard to get across what I wanted. Even little things like the medical area. They started building a hospital, and I said, "No no no, it has to be thirty competing businesses, really crass advertisement." This isn't...

Shack: It's the ultimate free market.

Ken Levine: Exactly. There's no central administration. Everything's about competing businesses. That was really hard to do, because System Shock 2 wasn't like that at all. It was like, here's the engineering deck, here's the medical deck. It was a constant struggle, because it's not how gamers think about things. I think we did a great job in the end, coming up with all these places that are very unique.

But the other thing people thought is, "Oh it's a utopia, everybody's happy together," but in reality, why do you have plumbers? Not everybody's going to make it. Some people are going to fall to the bottom.

Shack: I remember one of the audio logs pointed out, somebody's got to scrub the toilets.

Ken Levine: Right. That's what it is. Somebody's got to clean the toilets. Right from the second level, at the fisheries, Peach Wilkins cleans the toilets, and Fontaine takes advantage of those people. He sees these people, and creates a charity. That's his shtick. He gives you a bed and a cup of soup, and you'll give him everything.

I got the idea for that whole thing watching Syriana. Did you ever see that movie?

Shack: Yeah.

Ken Levine: They find disadvantaged people, they make them feel welcome, then they strap a bomb onto them. It's very powerful. Fontaine is a predator. He finds the disenfranchised, makes Fontaine's Home for the Poor and the Little Sisters Orphanage, and he recruits all his people through charity. Which is ironic, because Ryan hates charity.

He becomes his father of the community, but he's just doing it for his own advantage. People fall through the cracks, and he takes advantage, and he makes it worse for them. All the people in Fort Frolic get caught up in his smuggling ring, and he says, "You better continue to work for me, or I'll turn you in." He's a criminal mastermind. Very ideological people can be very easy prey for a guy like that.

Continue to the next page for Ken's thoughts on the ending of the game and the treatment of Little Sisters.