I love Bioshock as much as the next guy, but I most definitely wouldn't categorize it as "survival horror".

Didn’t the remaster have a ton of issues? Like framedrops and bugs etc

Bioshock is neither horror nor a survival game.

It is made with that concept in mind though, part of the dev team are no less than the people who created the first thief series.

I can't speak for the second one because I never played it, but bioshock infinite is not the same type of game as the first one.

are you talking about the first one?

It applies to all 3 of em.

I can't say I never played the remaster, I played the pc version back in the day though.

I recently played it and I got no issues what so ever. It played like the masterpiece that it is

yeah that is far from the case for the first one

from wiki

The game includes elements of role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, additionally, the game and its biopunk theme borrow concepts from the survival horror genre, notably the Resident Evil series.

I mean, that's cool if that concept was in their minds when they developed it, but Bioshock isn't anywhere near survival horror. It's just misleading to people who read this and then go spend money on it.

Survival horror games are games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Amnesia, Soma, The Forest, etc.

It was like that at launch. I think it's been fixed up since.

from wiki

The game includes elements of role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, additionaly the game and its biopunk theme borrow concepts from the survival horror genre, notably the Resident Evil series.

I am talking about the first game only.

oh man i'm playing thru this right now, it's a trip

If you keep reading it talks about them taking inspiration from survival horror games like RE and tried to implement a similar progression system, not that it's a survival horror game.

I used the switch one and the first two kicked me out like twice. But other than that they were great. That’s how I learned not to trust autosaves.

Well, I've played the game a ton of times. I don't need a Wiki telling me what kind of game it is. Besides, the excerpt you chose doesn't really help your case.

>borrow concepts from the survival horror genre

It borrow concepts or uses ideas from that genre, but it doesn't make it a part of that genre.

Edit: I also want to point out that the wiki that you are trying to quote from, classifys it as an FPS game, not a survival horror.

You're cherry picking information.

Everywhere i go, i see it...

[deleted]

Yes but you can class dead space as a third person shooter as well. They just don't do it because it's pure survival horror.

Bioshock is also a partly a role playing game, it's like with skyrim, you can play it as a first person sneaker, they won't class it as such (like they do with thief) because you have multiple ways of playing the game.

So he's like... a minor?

You're trying way too hard my dude. It's cool to love the game, it's a great game. It's just not a survival horror.

What is the point of this post?

You're making this more about semantics than about anything else, they made surival horror as part of the game, it is more than that sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't part of it.

So hence the title, if you like sci fi survival horror you can find it in bioshock.

I would even dare to say that they do it better in some ways, since you can use stealth.

This is certainly the best of the franchise, the game is a piece of art!

Ok man. Whatever you say.

I bought this when it was on sale with steam. The graphics are amazing

Yeah, my immediate response “have you tried dead space? I barely can play the fucking game”. BioShock is awesome , but I mean by the time we got BS3 I was like “wow, what a cute animation!”.

Bioshock has vending machines which give ammo and health and respawning enemies that give money, meaning you can get an infinite amount, which alone means it isn't a survival game since survival games rely on finite resources.

well I don't mind debating it , and I know where you're coming from, but if you're looking for a game that classifies as sci fi survival horror, what would be the first thing that comes to mind.

For me it was this, and a part of that was also because it's also a masterpiece.

Metro better in this category

Yeah, that might be the case but this piece is purely about the survival horror part.

which one?

I’d argue it belongs somewhere in the horror genre. That opening part when you first emerge from the metal elevator thing or whatever it was and that fucked up girl is like crawling around making weird noises and shit, definitely set a tone for the rest of the game

Then you have tiny children being guided buy murderous robots, lunatical survivors trying to kill you in dark rooms, it’s definitely some type of horror game.

Childhood me was scared shitless the first time I played this game

The whole series, pick it up on steam for 13 bucks when on sale and have fun

yeah I made this post because dead space gets so much attention , I don't think people missed dead space at this point.

I did not like infinite because it's so different from the first one, I never tried the second one though.

By literal definition it can't be survival horror if it has no survival features, it's half the genre that's literally in the name, I'm astonished I have to explain that.

Finished the first and 2nd. Still haven't played the 2nd game DLC. The sudden crash is just horrible 😭 Lucky yall who didn't have that issue.

Great games tho 👏

that's kind of an odd explanation, games like dead space and resident evil rely on a scarce recources to create that, but there are other survival horror games that rely on more, sneaking for instance.

Alien isolation is classed exactly like that

Alien Isolation has scarce resources.

It's right there. On his right "arm".

It's an FPS.

No, it's not. Alien Isolation can be called sci-fi survival horror.

When the game released I tried getting into it but was kind of put off by the lore.

I remember I got stuck on the first one in an area with a gasmask on, I couldn't get outside, tried for hours. Never tried the other games because of it.

Sorry, but Bioshock is not a survival horror game in any sense.

Whatch a video of someone experienced do it and copy his route, that helped Me with lots of games back then

I don't think they class it on exactly that, if you type in survival horror games in google, you get bioshock as a part of that. Same for system shock 2 (bioshock is the spiritual successor of that game)

Besides, it's not like bioshock doesn't have any resource management either.

There were definitely a lot of horror elements throughout the entire game. I would say it’s somewhat in the horror genre.

>not a horror game

you sure about that?

"Does anyone else remember this le gem?"

Outlast took me a few years because I hid in a locker and was too scared to come out.

I literally didn't play again until I moved my gaming computer out of the basement years later.

Bioshock is cute.

Outlast 2 went even farther holy shit.

Noone missed BioShock either, dude.

No official marketing or description lists the game as survival horror.

Super Mario RPG borrows concepts from platformers, but it isn't a platformer. Call of Duty borrows concepts from RPGs, but it isn't an RPG.

If you're going to farm karma by posting a picture of a beloved old game, at least get your facts correct

No also the reason why I posted it. It is specified as a first person shooter but so is call of duty.

They aren't even comparable.

yeah these dudes just look at wiki and look at the description, which says first person shooter.

It's like call of duty

A lot of people haven't played dead space, so I don't see why this would be any different with bioshock.

So the games wasn't marketed as a survivor horror, the isn't described as one, we've explained that it doesn't have any survival features whatsoever, all logic points to it not being comparable to the survivor horror genre, you're just being willfully ignorant at this point.

type in survival horror games in google and look what results you get.

You will find bioshock in there.

Also I love it quite a bit less when after a decade of being released it suddenly needed a launcher..

It is the spiritual successor of system shock 2.

which is known to be action role playing survival horror game, and a landmark in video gaming history.

Also the reason why google lists as such.

You're right it isn't known or marketed like that, and it's also the reason why I posted it.

Because not a lot of people know about this.

So your post is here because as you said, noone missed dead space, but also you say a lot of people haven't played dead space? Confusing stance, mate.

People don't know about it because it isn't true. You're really trying as hard as you can to remain ignorant. Who are you to decide a games genre above the people who made it?

Lol this clown really likes to start arguments, y'all took his bait.

They don't know about it because it's so long ago. I played system shock 2 back in the day and I was already in my twenties, I know the history behind it. I know the history behind the dev teams and how many of these genres originated.

You're right it isn't marketed as such, I can't debate you on that.

But system shock 2 is still known to be a survival horror game and bioshock is pretty much the successor of that game. It uses similar elements what system shock 2 was known for to create a survival horror experience.

It's also the reason why google lists is as such.

That's because of the marketing of the remake.

Prey

I literally can't play it, because it is to scary for me. Tried it 3 times in the last years since release.

However I played Bioshock infinite 2 times including all dlc. I can't play resident evil my self, too. But watching someone else playing this games is OK. The last of us for example is one of my most favorite games series, but it's scary, too.

I don't know exactly the problem with Bioshock, but I can't play it. Maybe I should change something, while playing It? Idk.

did you know bioshock is the spiritual successor of system shock 2.

Look up system shock 2, it's known to be a survival horror game.

I hate this game, I never played this game before Bioshock Infinite, after Infinite I was curious about the the first 2 Bioshock, then I played Bioshock remastered at 2022.....and It feels awful.

Bioshock's gameplay is awful, It reminds me of FPS game from 2000. At the 2022 standard, it's just bad, boring and repetitive.

Stop treating old game like GOD MADE MASTERPIECE, they are not

There's clearly no reasoning with you, you don't get to decide a games genre the people who made it do and they didn't make a survival horror game, you are just a troll.

I don't need to look up anything, because I've actually played both System Shock games. Being a spiritual successor to something doesn't mean it's the same thing. Also, System Shock 2 is known to be a action rpg with some survival horror mechanics.

Survival games are defined by their scarcity of resources. Horror games are supposed to be scary. Bioshock is neither (maybe a bit creepy at times).

Spiritual succesor does mean it shows a lot of similarities and is inspired by it.

I quit my playthrough when I got that bug with the spider splicer in fort frolic because my auto saves were all after the level started

Still isn't survival horror, due to lack of survival mechanics and horror.

I don't need to decide this, you can find this on the internet.

Also no need to get agitated. You have a point, but I have a point as well.

The creators of bioshock worked on thief the dark project, which also contained survival horror elements. They continued this with system shock 2 who contained a lot more and by this was also classed as such.

But it wasn't classed as this because of the same reasons resident evil and dead space are classed as survival horror (which you refer to as resource management) it was more focussed on stealth gameplay.

A part of the dev team of looking glass studios left and created irrational games, which created bioshock.

I really don't understand how you can't see bioshock as horror, maybe I'm just soft I don't know, but I personally find bioshock more scary than dead space.

sorry to hear that, you were about halfway through, maybe restart?

or isn't there anything you can do via the console

man no wonder gaming is trash right now all they are doing is remastering everything? 😲🤣

Unpopular opinion here…

I thought Bioshock was a boring very predictable game.

The story wasn’t the predictable part. The story was absolutely fantastic. Would make a better show/movie imo.

The gameplay was so predictable. Almost as if you could visibly see the trigger points for all the fights and such. I was bored playing such an interesting game.

maybe you should have tried to increase the difficulty

Survival horror?

I was under the impression that you got sufficient weapons and ammo

In Alien Isolation you literally can't kill the Xenomorphs and are being actively hunted down by them. On Nightmare mode resources are really scarse

I never finished Bioshock 1 like you. Just too fucking scary. I mean. I played Resident Evil 7. This Game is also scary, but you know what you get.

But in Bioshock 1 you are walking around in a dystopia and there are Big Daddy who like to smash you.

I remember in one part of the game you entered a room and then the room started to get full of fog. I guess I started to scream lol.

How on earth did you get through RE7 and not BioShock? 😅

I think you meant Remake, if it’s anything like the RE2 & Dead Space remakes then I’m all in for it.

I can't really tell.

I mean you know what you will get, when you start RE.

But if you play Bioshock you maybe just expect some Pew Pew with Weapons.

But this whole world in Bioshock is just scary. You hear the dripping in a "canalissation". Little Steps and only got Andrew (?) via your Radio.

0/10 game evil Irishmen don’t exist

Because bro was bioshook

Interesting. BioShock definitely has it's creepy moments but compared to RE7 it's bloody sunshine and rainbows to me 😂

need unpack my ps3 for replay

Tell me you haven't played Bioshock without telling me you haven't played Bioshock

Then you need to get your head checked, because bioshock isn't a horror game. It's never been categorized as a horror game by anyone, even by the developers. It's a first person shooter. Having some horror elements doesn't make it a horror game, it just means it has some elements of horror to make the player feel uneasy.

Your comment looks like it had been written by a bot.

yes but you can pretty much define a lot of games as first person or third person shooters.

It is the spiritual successor to system shock 2, and that is classed as an action role playing survival horror game, and in many ways that is what bioshock is as well.

But it does has a lot more action though, and further in the game, when your character gets stronger, that action becomes a much bigger part, so that's why the devs kept things simple and they just called it a first person shooter, but so is call of duty, and those games aren't even comparable.

Bioshock might not be a pure horror game there a lot of references to it, even by the devs itself, from wiki.

The game's lead level designer was Bill Gardner. He cited Capcom's survival horror series Resident Evil as a significant influence on BioShock, stating there are "all these nods and all these little elements that I think you can see where Resident Evil inspired us". The team were particularly influenced by Resident Evil 4, including its approach to the environments, combat, and tools, its game design and tactical elements, its "gameplay fuelled storytelling" and inventory system, and its opening village level in terms of how it "handled the sandbox nature of the combat" and in terms of "the environment".

Well bioshock is a lot more timeless than other titles from that time. I for instance played it on a 8800 gtx back in the day and that card was simply double as powerfull as what you got in x360 and ps3, and the game did make use of that extra power for graphical fidelity, resolution aside.

That's one thing, the game is also known for its amazing art direction even more so than dead space.

So while this is only a remaster, you won't be dissappointed. Heck you can even still play the original and it will hold up better than the original dead space, because of the amazing art direction. In that sense the game is way better than dead space or resident evil 2 remake for that matter.

By many it's considered as the best game of all time. I would still have to give that to resident evil 4 personally, but this game does hold up way better than re 4 though but that's also because it's part of the x360/ps3 generation, resident evil 4 is made for the wii, which is basically a glorified gamecube (xbox original/ps2 generation)

No bioshock is not an immersive sim go back to bed grandpa joe

Tired of remasters wish they put the time effort into dlcs or new content if they want to use the same game it's like watching the same movie in "4K"

Man I hate when that happens. Same thing happened to me with Far Cry 2, the savegame got corrupted after reaching the second map (about halfway through the story). I think I returned to it after 2 yesrs, but I'm glad I did, because it ultimately became my favorite Far Cry.

Still one of the finest games of the century so far. Admittedly we're still early in that century but it still counts! If you like the game you should read the prequel book. It's an excellent read.

Great game but this ain't horror buddy.

it was just an example for comparison sake

oh I'm not much of a reader actually but I might give it a go.

I understand that but many of the games of the x360/ps3 era do benefit from the higher resolution though, especially if you want to play them in this day and age.

They did some improvements on the artwork as well.

I bought this when it was on sale with steam.

from wiki

The game's lead level designer was Bill Gardner. He cited Capcom's survival horror series Resident Evil as a significant influence on BioShock, stating there are "all these nods and all these little elements that I think you can see where Resident Evil inspired us". The team were particularly influenced by Resident Evil 4,
including its approach to the environments, combat, and tools, its game
design and tactical elements, its "gameplay fuelled storytelling" and
inventory system, and its opening village level in terms of how it
"handled the sandbox nature of the combat" and in terms of "the
environment

Maaannn, I'm still hiding in a cabinet in that game. Only game I couldn't handle.

Even later on the wiki page , the influence of survival horror becomes a lot more apparent

The game's lead level designer was Bill Gardner.[37] He cited Capcom's survival horror series Resident Evil as a significant influence on BioShock, stating there are "all these nods and all these little elements that I think you can see where Resident Evil inspired us". The team were particularly influenced by Resident Evil 4,
including its approach to the environments, combat, and tools, its game
design and tactical elements, its "gameplay fuelled storytelling" and
inventory system, and its opening village level in terms of how it
"handled the sandbox nature of the combat" and in terms of "the
environment

It's also the spiritual successor of system shock 2, which is classed as a action role playing survival horror game.

Bioshock has more action in it though, hence that's probably why they classed is as an fps game, but that's a very broad description, call of duty is also a first person shooter.

I've beat the original before but it really just turned me off the full playthrough to have no saves at the start of fort frolic to just repeat like an hour of time on the remaster :(

"Does anyone else know of this under-appreciated gem?"

Seriously fuck that shit. Steam won't refund me for them either.

One of the best survival horrors ever. I remember playing this game with a similar feeling to the first F.E.A.R.: it scared me a bit (rarely and way less than f.e.a.r.) but it was too good to drop it.

Unfortunately the game, despite the remaster, has not aged that well. A next gen remaster/rework would have me with my pants down day one for sure.

Would Netflix kindly not fuck up their adaptation of this games

Uhhh sure kid

Good to know, I’ll check it out

They should remake this game! I tried it out recently as someone completely new to it and was wowed by it. However I couldn’t get over it feeling a little outdated and only got half way through.

Bio shock 1 definitely felt like a horror game playing it as it came out,definitely not survival but still

Cmon Take Two... where's the VR version of these games? It's such an obvious WIN.

Bioshock was never labeled as a horror game, it just has a lot of dark twisted things in it but nothing was ever scary about bioshock.

Bioshock is absolutely a horror game. The residents of Rapture are meant to be scary... the noises and feeling of dread, the environment / sounds invoke are strong horror vibes.

It's just not as scary as it would have been b/c of the plethora of abilities afforded your character to deal with the denizens of Rapture.

Restrict the player to what they can carry at any given time and give them less resources and you'd have a Survival Horror game.

But as it stands I'd say it lands closer to Action Horror.

Lol more scarier than dead space? Are you serious right now? bioshock is pretty much a dark twisted action shooter with some rpg elements, it’s creepy buts it’s not scary dude.

Karma farming Wh0re.

I agree if you play on normal it becomes more action horror than survival horror quickly.

But if you up the difficulty level...

yeah I understand what you mean, but how bioshock creates the atmosphere is more of psychological horror.

Dead space is very good in what it does obviously, but the story doesn't have the depth bioshock has.

Recently finished all 3 in the franchise. It never gets old. This is how games should be made.

While I wouldn't say the remaster is perfect, it was enjoyable to play on a 4K television. I had no complaints. A few areas where fps dropped, but not to the point of being unplayable.

Survival horror? Hmm. Not sure I'd go with this description, though I will admit its bleak atmosphere really does imbue a sense of horror. The entire game is designed around its immersive design, including the low lighting, and tight areas to feel constricted, especially when going up against a Big Daddy. Masterfully crafted design, frankly.

And damn, that opening. Welcome... to Rapture. *cue freaky music.

Only thing survival about bioshock is ammo isn't plentiful

You can class this as that, but they dont"

You're trying to class it as survival horror, but they don't.

Have you tried playing it on survivor difficulty?

I loved it for being such a good story, like a movie that is a game. Hard to do that and have a ton of variability I suppose.

I really enjoyed the first and third games. I really play first person games, but this was a great adventure altogether. Now that i got an OLED display i may just do another run!

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow

yes they class it as fps, you what other games are fps?

almost every 3d game out there that isn't a third person shooter.

re7 isn't that scary if you don't believe in ghosts.

Not all games are shooters man.

Pointless, like most posts on this sub these days

Maybe I've misunderstood, but I don't think horror has to be scary, but that it can be disturbing in some way. Now Bioshock is light horror in that regard, but I would count it as a form of horror for the dark and creepy atmosphere coupled with disturbing story elements.

Nice bait m8

Remaster my brain so it’s 2007 and I’m playing Bioshock again for the first time without the next 16 years of gaming knowledge in my head. There was nothing like this game in 2007. A masterpiece. I wish it was possible to get back that first time feeling.

I don’t know man. I was like, this game just came out, why would it need a….oh god I’m old.

I played it with my oculus DK2 years ago, spent most of my time in the lockers terrified

[deleted]

I love Bioshock but I stopped playing this because my saved file has the stupid glitch/bug when I’m supposed to take pictures of the splicers and one of them never shows up. :( This glitch has been affecting this game since the Xbox 360 games and it’s never been patched.

Let me put it to you this way, my first time playing through Bioshock I didn't die single time. The game gives you more than enough ammunition, gives you all the tools you need to survive, You never scrapped for supplies. And there's absolutely no penalty to dying if you play the game with all of its default settings because you always respawn at a vita chamber and everything is exactly as you left it when you died so you can just brute force your way through everything.

If it's a horror game, then it fails at being a horror game because there's no penalty. The game can have scary moments but still not be a horror game.

Yea early on you might be a little more strapped for everything, but even then it's not difficult. Going through and playing the game with primarily the wrenche is just as doable it's going full throttle with the shotgun or Tommy gun. If I remember correctly, you can pretty much two shot most enemies with the wrench.

Compare that to horror games, using melee is only a viable strategy if you know the ins and outs of the game. Like in Dead space for instance, shooting at their legs to get them crawling on the ground, using stasis on them to slow them down, then stomping like crazy. Or doing the same thing in resident evil 2, except with the knife. Your melee attacks are always the last resort or an advanced strategy to save on ammunition. But in BioShock you don't ever have to worry about that, you can two shot most enemies with the wrench. And if you can't two shot them, it's not really detrimental to just keep smacking them until they go down. After all, death isn't really much of a roadblock when you just respawn at the nearest buy to chamber and the enemy you were just wailing on is still standing where he killed you.

I don't dislike BioShock. It's a game that I go back and play every now and then because I love the atmosphere, setting, and themes. The game plays a lot of fun. Both BioShock 1 & 2 are some of my favorite games of that generation. But I really wouldn't classify them as horror games. Just first person shooters with horror elements. Probably the scariest scene in the first BioShock was that one flooded room with the mannequins and a single spotlight. Pretty sure just by saying that everyone that's played the game knows what I'm talking about. It's a really memorable scene and shows that if the BioShock developers wanted to make a horror game, they could pull it off pretty well. But horror wasn't the focus for BioShock, which is the reason why moments like that are few and far between.

Good game played it with gamepass and bought the dlcs on sale (didn't try them yet because I bought so many other games on new years sale)

I guess the reason I don't call it a horror game is because it doesn't have tons of scary moments. It just has scary moments sprinkled here and there. Horror doesn't feel like the main drive of the game, it just uses some horrific elements to sell its world and atmosphere. It does a good job of making you feel uneasy, especially on your first playthrough. But nothing that really makes you jump out of your seat. It also doesn't help that there's really no penalty to dying when playing the game on its default settings. Yeah, you can turn off the Vita Chambers if you really want to make the game more tense. But beyond that the ability to save wherever you want kind of mitigates that too.

By the way, if you want to play a game that's more of a spiritual successor to system shock/2 then even BioShock, play prey from 2017. Severely underrated game for the time. The amount of player choice you get is insane, then feels insanely tense because one of the basic enemy types can transform into everyday objects around the game world, so you're always going around wondering if that chair in the corner is actually a chair or if that teacup on the desk is actually a teacup. Really drives home the paranoia.

Cool story, get blocked.

We were talking about survival horror, not horror in general.

There’s some good jumpscares and stressful moments for sure, but I would def chalk it up as just a fucking great story. with neither survival or horror being an overtone. I would say suspense or thriller maybe? Very good plot twist for sure.

I would categorized it as heckin awesome

Dead space had me stressed the entire game. They did excellent world design to make it stand out with horror. And the scarcity of items only made it worse lol. I will also say fear 2 had some pretty scary moments as well 😂

Depends on the settings you play on. Try the hardest difficulty with no vita chambers

These guys telling you it’s not survival horror haven’t played through it on the hardest difficulty with no vita chambers

Doesn't like everyone know this game? Also is bioshock really a horror? Never gotten spooked personally.

Can we all appreciate that as of the time of writing this comment, this comment by OP has a higher negative score (-88) than OPs post which has a positive score of 65 when I wrote this.

Lol why do you care so much if he thinks of the game as a survival horror ? Who are you to tell someone what they should think of a game ?

Let me introduce you to an Italian plumber with a big mustache and a heart for saving a princess - most underrated gem of all time

Outlast, SOMA, Visage are horror games. Bioshock is action thriller. Great game though and your post more than likely will make me start up the first game again tonight.

Thrillers don't involve monsters and this much blood and gore.

OF course the game difficulty setting makes it bit too easy to call it survival horror across the board, but that changes if you put it on the survivor difficulty setting.

It's not a matter of opinion, it's literal facts and logic.

Yeah, I if you like a scifi survival horror you should actually play one: Prey 2017. The spiritual successor of System Shock 2 that actually keeps the survival horror aspect.

Lol ok so what are the facts and logic that determine that it isn’t a survival horror?

I wouldn't say this is survival horror. Like I never feel like I am hiding constantly and super underpowered/ overwhelmed.

I’m older, own many firearms, been in enough fights when younger, camp solo in grizzly bear country, Have also took shrooms in them mountains solo and camped over night, done a few things that some would feel is crazy or scary, and for some reason, I can’t play a damn horror game by myself at night… lol.

Hahaha… I’ve never played it, but seems funny as hell to me. I can definitely see myself playing a horror game, finding a safe place in it, peeking out here and there, and refusing to go out from that safe place..

Hahahahahaha, this is because of all the deadspace remaster good memes, isn’t?