In 2007, multiple publications heralded 2K Games' immersive shooter, BioShock, as game of the year. Now, off in the distance comes the highly anticipated sequel, BioShock 2. But what gamers didn't expect from this continuation of the previous game's enthralling story was the inclusion of a multiplayer mode, handled by developer Digital Extremes. This year at E3, we took a look at this multiplayer, given the subtitle "Fall of Rapture," behind closed doors and came out relatively satisfied.

Contrary to the single player mode, which takes place ten years after the civil war that sends Rapture into chaos, BioShock 2's multiplayer is set one year before the event at a time where tensions are high but hell hasn't completely broken loose. As a citizen of rapture, you volunteer yourself to test for the side effects of splicing for a company known as Sinclair Solutions in a manner fitting for these destructive enhancements: combat. You start out in your ritzy Rapture apartment, which functions as a fully navigable menu/lobby of sorts. Utilizing the various various luxuries located in your apartment, you can switch out your inventory along with your character model--each of which has a different personality and utters different lines during a match, listen to audio recordings that help fill in this chapter of BioShock's story, and jump into a multiplayer match, the latter being possible through the use of your own personal bathysphere, which sends you to find a match automatically based on your skill and ranking.

When you begin, Sinclair Solutions gives you a starter kit containing a pistol, a wrench, and three plasmids: Electro Bolt, Incinerate!, and Winter Blast. These serve as your initial tools of destruction, but the game features an experience system that rewards you with new weapons, tonics, and plasmids along with audio recordings that help to detail the world with every rank you gain. But enough about that; let's get into the actual gameplay.



BioShock 2's multiplayer features 3 different modes: basic death match, team death match, and a third mode which the team decided to keep a secret. The demo (which we didn't get to try out, unfortunately) showed off the basic death match, which puts you in one of multiple Rapture locales and pits you against other players. We didn't get an exact number on how many players there can be in a match, but the demo showed that the number is at least six. The multiplayer maps are based off locations in the original game but with some changes, one change being the fact that the locations aren't torn up and messy since the multiplayer takes place before all the ensuing chaos. The demo featured the Kashmir Restaurant as the map, looking clean and fancy minus the bloodbath contained within it.

The combat mechanics are relatively the same aside from a few big changes. For one thing, the wrench is now quick-drawable, meaning that you can whip it out on the fly much like a secondary weapon--I'm assuming it now has its own dedicated button. The team said that this new equip scheme is being implemented in the single player mode as well. Also, you now have the ability to charge your plasmids, increasing both the damage dealt along with the effects of the plasmid. Charging Electro Bolt, for example, stuns your enemy for a longer amount of time. As for the general effects of the other plasmids, Incinerate! does burn damage over time and Winter Blast freezes your enemy in place.

Strewn throughout each map are the game's beloved vending machines. Though you cannot actually buy items from them in multiplayer (or hack them), you will find essential pickups in their vending slot. Stationary turrets make an appearance as well, though the hacking process has changed. Instead of going into the puzzle to hack a turret, you now just hold a button. A progress bar pops up, and when the bar is full, the turret becomes yours.



Quite possibly the biggest addition to BioShock 2: Fall of Rapture is the inclusion of a big daddy suit, which spawns randomly on the map from time to time. Acquiring this suit turns you into a big daddy, essentially making you both a walking tank (with a ridiculous amount of health) and target.

At the end of each match, the game tallies up various statistics, one of which being how many big daddies you killed, and awards you experience that goes to the ranking system previous touched upon.

Though the idea was off-putting at first, seeing BioShock 2's multiplayer in action swayed my opinion to thinking it was an excellent addition to the game. Gameplay seems relatively balanced aside from the inclusion of the big daddy suit, which at the moment looks to be incredibly overpowered with not enough reward for taking down a big daddy-fied player. Nevertheless, it looks like Digital Extremes has put in good effort toward making the multiplayer mode as fluid and story-driven as the single player, and I personally can't wait to be wrenching other players when BioShock 2 releases on October 30th internationally and November 3rd in the US.

Note: All pictures contained within this article are from the single player mode and do not accurately display the multiplayer mode.