BioShock: The Collection

The BioShock Collection released for PS4, PC and XONE is a bundle of remastered editions of the first three installments in the BioShock FPS series and their DLCs.

Story

The trilogy starts with BioShock from 2007. In this game you play as a man who survives a plane crash. Shipwrecked in the middle of sea, he manages to reach a lighthouse, which turns out to be a gate to the underwater city of Rapture. It was designed to be a true utopia, where people would be free to run their businesses and develop science, without having to worry about the limitations of the surface world. However, the dream collapsed when a substance called Adam was discovered, which gave humans superpowers. Ultimately, this led to a war between several conflicting factions. As a result, Rapture was reduced to ruins, now roamed only by lunatic, mutated individuals.

The story of BioShock 2, released in 2010, begins several years after the first part. Once again you get to explore the beautiful yet dangerous corridors of Rapture. However, this time you do this as the original, prototype Big Daddy, i.e. one of the big creatures that you fought in the original game. Your task is to face the woman who took over the control of what remains of the city.

The BioShock trilogy concludes with BioShock Infinite from 2013. This title departs from the former entries' location and characters. Instead, the game takes you to the early 20th century, into the sky city of Columbia. You play as Booker DeWitt, a former employee of the Pinkerton detective agency. He is sent into the floating metropolis in order to rescue a woman named Elizabeth.

The bundle also contains a two-part story-driven DLC to BioShock Infinite, Burial at Sea. This takes you back into the city of Rapture, and its plot binds all the games together.

Gameplay

The BioShock Collection is consistent in terms of gameplay mechanics. All of the games are first-person shooters supplemented with RPG elements. Most of the time, the player is engaged in combat, in which he uses both firearms and superpowers gained through modification of the character’s genetic code. Exploration is essential too, as it creates many opportunities to find useful items as well as various logs and records left by the citizens, that reveal additional aspects of the story.

Technology

The biggest change in The BioShock Collection, evident in comparison with the original editions of the games, are the improved graphics. Using the computing power offered by PS4, PC and XONE allowed the developers to increase the resolution to 1920x1080 without compromising the frame rate, set by default at 60 frames per second. Besides, the overall quality of textures and visual effects was improved, and loading times between game levels are now significantly shorter.

Last updated on 17 March 2016