The Video Game City Week: Rapture got the monsters it deserved

Rapture’s Big Daddies

As a fan of Batman, you’d expect my favourite city to be Gotham City in the Arkham series. But… “I rejected these answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose Rapture!”

The underwater city of Rapture in Bioshock is my favourite city in games, and it’s due to the presence of the iconic Big Daddies.

Try to cast your mind back to Bioshock. What do you think of? Easy for me: the introduction of the Big Daddy in that game was utterly terrifying, watching it easily turn a splicer into chum using its drill demonstrated the true strength, speed and power of this terrifying brass-clad monster. The constant threat of these lumbering mini-bosses adds an intensity to the game as they will easily summon the Angel of Death to separate you from your earthly body. So nasty.

They’re iconic. I’m sure that anyone who has played Bioshock remembers the sound of those diver’s boots thumping around Rapture. The booming thud, thud, thud letting you know that a Big Daddy is close.

And I think the reason they work is down to AI. The Splicers of Rapture automatically attack you, but this lumbering, terror of the deep is more complicated. They are not hostile on sight, unless first attacked or if you get too close to their Little Sister, the children they protect as they go about their harvesting. As long as you give the Big Daddy space, he’ll leave you alone, allowing you freedom to determine the precise state which you fight the Big Daddy in and giving you the chance to prepare the environment with life-saving traps.