14 DAY TRIAL // BioShock 2 has spent quite a lot of time in the media spotlight these days, as its publisher, Take Two, has announced that it won't be available this fall, due to the fact that the teams at 2K Marin, which is designing the single player game, and at Digital Extremes, which is handling the multiplayer side, need more time to complete their work.
However, a recent podcast was posted on the official website of the game's community, The Cult of Rapture, in which details about the upcoming title's multiplayer mode were discussed. The post tackled topics that were already known, like the fact that it would act as a prequel, but also new subjects, like what multiplayer types we will see in this mode.
“Singleplayer is actually the sequel to the first BioShock, set about ten years ahead, but the multiplayer component to BioShock2 is actually a prequel, set a full year before the events of the first BioShock,” said M. E. Chung, the multiplayer designer from 2K Marin. “So, it’s taking place at the onset of the civil war in Rapture. You are a citizen, trying to survive, and you partner with this shrewd corporation called Sinclair Solutions, to test out all the brand-new advancements in terms of weapons, plasmids, and tonics, because they are trying to profiteer from the civil war, and that’s how you’re surviving.”
The new mode will seem quite similar to the single player experience, says Mathie Berube, the lead designer from Digital Extremes. “We have three modes in the game. One is FFA, and the other is team DM, and the third mode that we can’t go into specifics today, is another team mode. The details will follow later. Sorry about that. As far as how we came upon choosing these modes for the game, we started out with this big experiment to have this one big mode with a lot of different players, but the complexity was a really big problem that we couldn’t solve, and at the same time, we found out that the best part of BioShock was not about creating some weird rules that are hard to grasp, it’s about using new powers in combination in a familiar gameplay style. That’s the unique thing about BioShock”
Overall, the game is shaping up quite nicely, but until 2010 we still have a long time to wait until we can get back to the underwater city of Rapture.