You are the only survivor in a North Atlantic plane crash, floating in the icy water as the fuselage sinks beneath you. Your only hope is a lighthouse in the distance, inside of which sits a submersible capsule. You climb in and you begin your decent into Rapture, a city hidden beneath the sea. Originally constructed as an idealistic society for a hand picked group of scientists, elite individuals, and industrialists, the idealism is no more. Now the city is littered with corpses, wildly powerful guardians roam the corridors as little girls loot the dead, and biologically mutated citizens ambush you at every turn. Now you're trapped, caught in the middle of a genetic war that will challenge both your capacity to survive and your moral allegiance to your own humanity.

• Biologically mod your body with plasmids: genetic augmentations that empower you with dozens of fantastic abilities. Send Electrobolts storming from your fingertips, unleash a swarm of hornets hatched from the veins of your arms, strategically turn enemies against one another with irritants.
• Take control of your world by hacking devices and systems: reprogram enemy security bots into personal bodyguards, modify vending machines to change prices, and transform machine gun security turrets into powerless pieces of metal.
• Upgrade your weapons at Fire-For-Effect stations located through Rapture. Craft variants of ammo and plasmids by picking up materials in the city to modify them at U-Invent kiosks.
• Turn everything into a weapon: the environment, your body, fire and water, and even your worst enemies. BioShock's free form combat options allow gameplay scenarios to be approached with a variety of weapons, active and passive plasmids, environmental objects utilization, exploitation of political alliances, or a combination of techniques. Find your style but know when to adapt.
• Explore an incredible and unique art deco world hidden deep under the ocean, vividly illustrated with realistic water effects and truly next generation graphics.
• Make meaningful and mature decisions that culminate in the grand question: do you exploit the innocent survivors of Rapture to save yourself…or risk all to become their savior?