Bioshock: The World of Rapture & Ayn Rand's Objectivism View

Bioshock is a revolutionary game that altered the landscape of video games for its time and onward. One of the key components of Bioshock's mastery is the development of Rapture. The entire game is focused on Rapture, the city Andrew Ryan built under the sea, and how Rapture is meant to be his perfect world. From the opening moments of the game, the beautiful landscape is put on display as you are involved in a plane crash and then given a tour of rapture while slowly descending in the elevator. The exquisite images of the fish swimming, bubbles forming, lights shining, and massive building structures gives the initial idea that the scenic experience in this game will be important. Additionally, while in this elevator the world of Rapture is further described by Andrew Ryan on the television screen. Throughout this explanation you receive a full breakdown of his philosophy and purpose of building Rapture, which ultimately becomes the driving force in the game because he believes you have come to disturb his rule of Rapture, so he intends to kill you.

Throughout each singular mission, I was dragged into the beauty of Rapture and the scenery of the game as a whole. One main characteristic of Bioshock that strongly displays the setting is how everything around you continues to move and happen even when you are not involved in the situation. For example, you watch a big daddy kill a doctor or watch splicers kill innocent people, even though you are not involved at all. Also, the fact that if you look out into the ocean, everything is as realistic as you could imagine. There are fish swimming, seaweed moving with the ocean current, and visuals that properly represent what an underwater scene would be. All of the little details are done so well that it is nearly impossible not to be in love with the development of the world in Bioshock.

When examining Ubik's criticism of Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy, I would agree with most of the points he makes. When looking in depth at the ideas Rand follows, there is a clear difference between those believes and what Bioshock's world represents. While Andrew Ryan's initial plan for Rapture may have been in line with Rand's Objectivism philosophy, the current state when you enter that world in Bioshock is in direct conflict with this philosophy; every point listed in the article about what Objectivism stands for is conflicted by events within the game. Looking at the first point, the philosophy says "facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes, or fears." Andrew Ryan created Rapture to fulfill his own wishes and hopes and wanted to avoid his fears. The other aspect of Objectivism that is most evidently disregarded, states that "it is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. While this may have been Ryan's hope with Rapture, each moment within the game it is easy to see that this is not the case. Splicers killing each other and others to harvest adam from little sisters, big daddies killing anyone who attacks their little sister, and Andrew Ryan sending splicers after both you and Atlas all directly conflict Rand's idea.

The world and setting of Bioshock is beautifully done, and the ongoing world inside that beauty is a terrible land where people tear each other apart and harvest each other for their own personal gain. Ayn Rand's belief of objectivism is completely challenged by the world of Bioshock because people were given complete freedom, but everything Rand believed would happen did not. Instead, Rapture became a place filled with death and destruction, entirely proving Objectivism to be incorrect. Till next time, when I discuss the successful reviewing style of the great MatPat. Talk soon.