BioShock 4 Should Make Hay With Its Protagonist

The Bioshock series is well known for its complex narratives, intriguing settings, and mysterious protagonists. From the silent Jack to the reality tearing Elizabeth, each Bioshock game has introduced and subsequently concluded well-written protagonists’ stories, bolstered by engaging gameplay from Irrational Games and 2K Marin.

While most of Bioshock’s protagonists are silent, allowing players to immerse themselves in the underwater metropolis of Rapture, their actions and impact on Rapture and Columbia speak louder than their words. However, most of Bioshock’s protagonists’ stories end in rather glum or negative ways. With Bioshock 4 currently in development, 2K could strive to break the mold by ending its protagonist’s story in a definitively hopeful way.

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The Many Endings of Bioshock’s Protagonists Explained

In Bioshock 1 and 2, the player’s actions in the game ultimately decide the fate of Jack and the Big Daddy Subject Delta. Throughout both main campaigns, players will encounter roaming Big Daddies protecting ADAM-collecting Little Sisters and have a choice to harvest, rescue, or ignore the Little Sisters. If players harvest one or all the Little Sisters’ ADAM in both games, it will result in “bad endings” depicting Jack taking over Rapture and invading the surface world, while Subject Delta either refuses to die by Eleanor’s hand or sacrifices himself to begin Elenaor’s conquest of the surface. Bioshock 2 additionally had Subject Delta choose either to save or kill select NPCs throughout Rapture, resulting in the death or survival of Eleanor’s mother, Sofia Lamb.

If players rescue all the Little Sisters, Jack adopts the girls and raises them as his family on the mainland, while Subject Delta allows Eleanor to extract his conscience and to guide her and other surviving Little Sisters into a better, peaceful life beyond Rapture. Jack and Subject Delta weren’t the only protagonists in Bioshock 1 and 2, however. In the Bioshock 2 DLC, Minerva’s Den, players embody Subject Sigma, an Alpha Series Big Daddy. Charles Milton Porter guides him to recover Rapture’s mainframe computer—The Thinker—from Porter’s rival, Reed Wahl. Unlike the main campaign, harvesting or rescuing Little Sisters has no impact on Subject Sigma’s ending, always resulting in him returning to the mainland.

The Endings of Bioshock Infinite

In contrast to Bioshock 1 and 2, Bioshock Infinite has no alternate endings based on the player’s actions. While several iterations of Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth are shown throughout the multiverse, Bioshock Infinite’s main story ends with Elizabeth attempting to end DeWitt’s multiversal cycle of violence and turning into Zachary Comstock by killing him. In Infinite’s Burial at Sea DLC, DeWitt and Elizabeth are killed by a Big Daddy in Rapture, but another version of Elizabeth travels here and inadvertently loses her reality powers attempting to save a Little Sister named Sally. This Elizabeth is later killed by the criminal Atlas after she discovers how to have Big Daddies imprint on Little Sisters.

A Potential Positive End for Bioshock 4

Bioshock 1 and 2 don’t have definitive canonical endings, leaving players to wonder if Jack and Subject Delta impacted Rapture for the better or not. While Bioshock Infinite‘s Burial at Sea DLC does seemingly end with Jack rescuing all the Little Sisters, this scene is more portrayed as a vision of a possible future than an actual event. Unless Bioshock 4 directly addresses and confirms the true endings for Bioshock 1 and 2, both their good and bad endings could be considered canonical or at least canonical for certain universes in the multiverse. Given that most endings in the Bioshock series end rather negatively for its protagonists, Bioshock 4 could break tradition and surprise players with a far more definitive, positive ending for its lead character.

Little is currently known about Bioshock 4’s story or setting. The upcoming entry in the series was first announced in 2019, though no trailers or images were released alongside the announcement. Rumors since then have suggested that the game may be set around the 1960s once more, taking place in an Antarctic city, and connect at least partially to prior Bioshock games. Further rumors suggest that Bioshock 4 may be partially open-world, which could lead to the game either featuring more alternate endings or a singular, definitive ending, as other open-world games have done before. Despite this lack of detail, it would be nice for some characters to receive a truly happy ending after surviving the many traumatic horrors the metropolises of Bioshock are known for.