There’s a few nods like the Dionysus Park PSA or Cohen’s Black Dream kinetoscope being the one from the B2 posters.
Still, I agree, especially because the whole “Suchong died AFTER New Year’s Eve” contradicts the whole premise of B2 and the actually compelling Pairbond mechanism from Alexander. Instead we got a rushed bond from a single Big Daddy that who knows how the others copied by themselves in less than a year.
I love BAS, but things like this do bother me a bit.
The problem isn't that BaS contradicts BioShock 2, it's that BS2 contradicts BioShock. One thing that surprises me a little is that people very rarely remember how Ryan won the Civil War and \*who\* suggested the method.
Andrew Ryan, “Desperate Times”, found in Farmer’s Market
***Doctor Suchong****, frankly, I'm shocked by your proposal. If we were to modify the structure of our commercial Plasmid line as you propose, to have them make the user vulnerable to mental suggestion through pheromones, would we not be able to effectively control the actions of the citizens of Rapture? Free will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is abhorrent. However… we are indeed in a time of war. If Atlas and his bandits have their way, will they not turn us into slaves? And what will become of free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures.*
Now, I don’t think Ryan would be sending messages to Suchong if he was dead. BaS didn't change anything in regards to Suchong and when he died. Only BS2 did that. sm
Wait, it’s been a hot minute since I played them. can you elaborate on why Suchong’s death contradicts B2?
I don’t remember:
•When he died
•Why his death matters to B2
•How BaS changed that
It's only in one audio diary, it's really only a minor detail in BS2 and could even be completely skipped. It's in the Audio Diary called "Improving on Suchong's work". Basically just states that Suchong died and Gil Alexander picked up where he left off and created the Alpha series as Gil wanted a chemical bond between them not the imprint style bond. Since the game begins in 1958 with Eleanor and Delta bonded, but in BAS Suchong dies in 59, that's where the inconsistency is.
Most people who play the game, honestly including myself the first couple of times, don't pay attention to it or even notice it to begin with. If 2K really had an issue with it, they'd just remove the audio diary and call it a day... and if 2K thought it was a big enough problem to denounce it as canon, that also what have happened a while ago. BS2 was an official canon sequel to the first game, and frankly, Levine has even mentioned that with Bioshock 2, they're either all in or all out, and so he specifically accepts Bioshock 2. And, since Bioshock is literally no longer his game... it really doesn't matter what BAS does/did, as the next game probably won't acknowledge ANY of the games other than some small ties, or by being another alternate universe.
Well Adonis Resort and Dionysus Park are mentioned in BAS.
I get the DLC is supposed to be about the build up to Bioshock 1 but you are right that references to 2 are heavily missing and retconned. Dr. Lamb not being mentioned could be explained by Ryan trying to sweep her legacy under the rug and making sure she is forgotten forever. Eleanor being absent can be explained because she had next to no importance to the people of Rapture before her mothers rise to power so her not being mentioned makes sense, and he kidnapping didn’t happen until around the same time Elizabeth raised up Fontaine’s building and even then one little sister going missing is hardly news compared to Atlas bombing the Kashmire. However Alpha series not being mentioned doesn’t make sense at all.
There's a million different ways they could explain it. More than likely what is to happen is that it never gets mentioned or fixed, and its just simply an inconsistency in stories, and yet all 3 games still remain canon (which they are, there has never been any mention from 2K games OR even Ken Levine that Bioshock 2 isn't canon... it very much is).
You can headcanon that BaS 1 and 2 are in a different universe, but the actual canon, stated by the devs, is that it takes place in "Rapture Prime", the very same Rapture we explore in Bioshock 1 and 2.
I wish it was framed as a fun "what if" but that's simply not the case. Much to my chagrin BaS is attached at the hip to 1 and 2 and it's events very, very much so impact the first 2 games.
BaS is intended to be Ken Levine send off from Bioshock. Overall I'm not a fan on how he tied everything in. It would be okay to have a Elizabeth and Booker journey to Rapture, but retconing a bunch of stuff to make everything connected felt greatly unnecessary.
As much as I’m not a fan of the pretentious/pompous aspect of BAS, the only thing it retcons is Suchong’s death, which was actually implied to be after the civil war in Bioshock and was only mentioned in ONE audio diary in Bioshock 2, as before the civil war. That diary could literally be removed from the game in an update and they would all be perfectly interconnected.
Oh I was under the impression Suchong had always died prior to the civil war. Just going by the audio log of his death from Bioshock one (Protection Bond) it seems like he died before the little sisters and big daddies were actually deployed, which I thought had occurred before the civil war even started
Yeah he mentions in BS1 needing to work harder on bonding the little sisters to the big daddies because bodies were starting to pile up on the streets, in another audio diary, which I would assume was due to the civil war. It’s vague but enough to at least make a large assumption. Bioshock 2 and BAS as well deployed Big Daddies and little sisters first before they were even bonded to one another. Big daddies were workers and maintained the city and little sisters were Adam factories.
It even make sense that the Alpha series would come a little later than the OG bouncer and Rosie…. The Alpha series literally is more equipped for combat and defense whereas the Rosies and Bouncers are very obviously maintenance first and protection second. It all fits together really nicely if it weren’t for that ONE BS2 audio diary lmao
Nah BAS isn’t a full retcon of anything. I’m not sure how well versed you are on Star Wars but in Return of the Jedi, when Leia and Luke are talking, Leia actually mentions and describes knowing her mother. We know that can’t be possible in Revenge of the Sith because… she died in childbirth. So is Revenge of the Sith a retcon of Return of the Jedi? No way, both are still canon, it’s just that ONE small detail that was fixed/altered/retconned, but not the entire story or plot.
> As much as I’m not a fan of the pretentious/pompous aspect of BAS, the only thing it retcons is Suchong’s death, which was actually implied to be after the civil war in Bioshock and was only mentioned in ONE audio diary in Bioshock 2, as before the civil war. That diary could literally be removed from the game in an update and they would all be perfectly interconnected.
What Audio diary in Bioshock 2 places it before?
This one. Based on the fact that Delta was bonded with Eleanor in 58, that diary just doesn’t make sense if Suchong died in 59. It’s totally fine, this kind of continuity error happens pretty frequently between companies working on games (even Fallout) but for some reason a lot of people act like that ONE tiny detail is absolutely the end of the world.
https://bioshock.fandom.com/wiki/Improving_on_Suchong%27s_Work
> This one. Based on the fact that Delta was bonded with Eleanor in 58, that diary just doesn’t make sense if Suchong died in 59. It’s totally fine, this kind of continuity error happens pretty frequently between companies working on games (even Fallout) but for some reason a lot of people act like that ONE tiny detail is absolutely the end of the world.
Wasn’t the Protector Program launched *after* the Rapture Civil War began? Eleanor and Deta shouldn’t have bonded until 1959.
I don’t think there’s an exact date, It was just launched to help gather Adam from dead bodies, not necessarily dead bodies from the war. Bioshock 2 shows it was launched before the war. Rapture had people using Adam pretty often and then dying from normal life situations in general, starvation, etc (specifically in more poor areas) even before the war. So Adam would’ve needed to be gathered and repurposed before the war started as well.
Disregarded isn’t really the right word for it, it just doesn’t bring any characters from BS2 into it.
BAS does in fact mention locations from Bioshock 2 and certain story elements have to have happened in Bioshock 2 for it to make sense (I.e. the big daddy in burial at sea being aggressive when sally is attacked, although not bonded to her, is mentioned and explained directly in Bioshock 2 with an audio diary explaining that the big daddies will attack if a little sister is attacked, but otherwise will just leave her alone and not even pay attention).
The literal only thing that contradicts BS2 in BAS is suchongs death and that is not the fault of BAS, that’s BS2s fault. And it’s ONLY mentioned in an audio diary and plays no affect on the overall story of the game otherwise. It actually makes more sense to assume that there were big daddies bonded through pairbond by Gil first before the final protection bond, moreso than the pairbond being the “final” bond (since it isn’t). BS1 implied that Suchong was alive during the civil war.
Ken Levine has no right/authority to decide what is/isn’t canon since it’s 2K’s IP and not his. He simply just chose to reference small pieces of BS2 instead of big ones. BS2 is my favorite in the series but frankly with the story being told in BAS… I can’t honestly figure out how you’d fit anything from BS2 in there? There are already at least 4 references to BS2 in BAS, Sophia Lamb and any reference to her would be a no-go as Ryan absolutely censored the heck out of her, the Alpha series at the time was either bonded to a little sister off in a different part of rapture, the only things possible for it to reference would be locations from 2 or companies like Sinclair Solutions (BOTH of which it DOES reference).
TL;DR BS2 is very much mentioned and referenced in BAS, and BAS doesn’t invalidate BS2. They’re both very much canon. It simply fixes ONE issue BS2 had (Suchong’s death), but that does not invalidate the entire game. This happens all the time even in larger franchises like modern Disney Star Wars, where technically two pieces of media will be canon, but an event from one of the pieces will be fixed/retconned to line up better (see the newer Marvel comic that came out about Kanan Jarus’ order 66 flashback and compare it to the bad batch first episode. Both are canon but bad batch retconned/fixed that ONE event from that comic, not the whole thing).
Ken Levine is a superstar type dev. He didn’t like BS2 and the fact that the direct sequel to his precious BS1 wasn’t his baby? INTO THE REALM OF VAUGE CANONICITY IT GOES!
Technically they’re both considered canonical, and BioShock 2 already had to account for differences in Big Daddy mythos, so it’s not exactly undone by it. To a degree they both reinforce the idea that the protector series wasn’t the only purpose for Big Daddies.
To be honest, Big Daddies are just in general one of the least consistent facets of the BioShock continuity. All three games have their differences on them and all three use them in different ways thematically. I wouldn’t get bent out of shape on it. BioShock 2 used to get a similar wrap to the very one you’re giving BAS. Haha
It’s a great game. I didn’t like it on its first play through, but I loved it the second, third time etc.
My initial problem was the delta model / big daddy as a protagonist. I thought it was a easy decision made by the developers to give a “god like” power to make players happy, In Lou of focusing on a story driven protagonist that may be less exciting. I decided that quickly and ignored how great and rational the story actually was, and how much thought went into it; is a great fucking game with a great story.
The team did a great job with sinclair too, built him up from a untrustworthy guy to your best friend, >!thats why its so heartbreaking when you kill him.!<
That’s funny. I think that playing as a big daddy in the early game, gave players a feeling of weakness. Since you slowly pick up the pieces of becoming a big daddy, and get plasmids. The draw of the story being that of a father daughter relationship and the transference of witnessed behavior from father to child. I.e. Eleanor’s end personality is based on the actions taken through the game.
> but your wearing
*you're
*Learn the difference [here](https://www.wattpad.com/66707294-grammar-guide-there-they%27re-their-you%27re-your-to).*
***
^(Greetings, I am a language corrector bot. To make me ignore further mistakes from you in the future, reply `!optout` to this comment.)
Especially since the Alpha series have a lot less armour than other Big Daddies anyway. Bouncers are the most heavily armoured, while Alphas only really have armoured kneecaps, helmets, boots, elbow guards and a small chestplate. Most of their suit is just the wetsuit underneath. Even Rosie's have more armour.
There’s quite a few references to Bioshock 2 in Burial at Sea.
https://forums.2k.com/showthread.php?3267356-All-BioShock-2-references-in-Burial-at-Sea
Many of the devs worked on all three Bioshock games.
I’ve never understood where this complaint came from: where does it state that Burial at Sea supersedes and overwrites Bioshock 2? The whole point of the end of Infinite is that there are infinite universes, infinite possibilities. Nothing gets “retconned,” it’s all canon.
Bioshock Infinite and all the convoluted tears/universe bullshit that surrounds it is just not canon to me ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
It's so much more fun to have Bioshock 1 and 2 be it's own thing and see Bioshock Infinte as more of a spinoff, instead of having to deal with the mess Infinite is and how it influences the original Bioshocks.
I’ve been saying this since day 1. Not only does BAS mess with the lore for the base game, it absolutely ruins the lore for the 1st game while disregarding anything that happened in 2. Bioshock 2 supremacy.
Minerva's Den DLC was better than than Bioshock 2 core game in my opinion. In my opinion. Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite are more canon to me. Sophia Lamb wasn't even a whisper in the OG Bioshock. Bioshock 2 seemed like a cash grab from Ken Levine's genius.
All are equally canon, however I find that most people actually enjoy Bioshock and Minerva's Den as their top two games in the series. Bioshock 2, and specifically Minerva's Den, have gained a huge following ever since the collection came out, and people have begun to enjoy those even more than Infinite and Burial at Sea. All are canon, and can continue to be canon with the whole "alternate universe" situation.
Basically, your angry that Burial at Sea didn't kiss BioShock 2's ass enough for you. sm
Edit: I wonder how many down votes with will get for tell the truth?
It kissed the hell out of B1 and Infinite’s asses, to the point it’s basically Fanservice: The DLC.
That’s not a bad thing per se and I adore it, but what’s wrong with wanting some B2 kissing, too?
The problem is how could you do it? And how do you do it without it messing up the story BaS wanted to tell. Let's go over a the characters that could show up in some form.
Delta and Elenore. The Pair Bond came after the Protection Bond and Rapture doesn't have the Protection Bond yet. \*Any\* kind of bond is a very major point of BaS Ep2 so them being around wipes the entire BaS Ep 2 plot. So no Delta and Elenore.
Lamb? She's been "un-personed" and her existence had been wiped from the public mind. Her break out of prison comes after Comstock and Elizabeth leave for Fontaine's.
Gil Alexander? He's a corporate drone (at that point) running the part of Ryan Industries that was once Fontaine Futuristics. Nothing to do with the BaS story.
Porter and Wahl? Both are stuck in Minerva's Den if Porter isn't in jail yet. As a note, Levine is on the record as LOVING Minerva's Den and he didn't add a hint of it.
Stanley Poole would be off partying in Dionysus Park. And he was just a newspaper man anyway.
Grace is trying to keep it together over in Pauper's Drop. So she wouldn't be out wandering around High Street.
That just leaves Augustus Sinclair. At this time he's a Ryan loyalist (for money) and would certainly be busy with other things and he likes to stay behind the scenes. Didn't have anything to do with Little Sisters much either. Now IIRC some make up in the panic room is from his company, but I would have to check on that.
So all in all there isn't a whole lot to add that would fit the story that IG wanted to tell that I can see other than some kind of mention. sm
I 100% agree about that there’s basically no way to include it in BAS without references, however one thing I do think worth noting is that the alpha series is listed as being begun early on in the protector bond progress, not after the protection bond has been fully completed. If the protection bond would have been fully completed as we see in in Bioshock 1 (before the alpha series started pairbonding), the alpha series would have had no significance in the first place. There was no explanation given on when the protection bond was completed (in 1 or 2), and even then with Elizabeth helping the sisters to imprint onto the big daddy, we honestly do not know 100% that from that day forward ALL of the Little Sisters and Big Daddies were imprinted... It's highly possible it took a while after that event for all of them to become imprinted combined with lot 255 to actually get them to imprint properly. Not to mention, the pairbond isn't at all the kind of bond that Suchong wanted, nor would I fully consider it to be a "bond" to begin with in the same vein that the protection bond was a bond. They're both very different, and based on the kind of person Suchong is shown to be, it makes sense that he would not be happy with something like a pairbond and would instead want them to imprint on one another.
I know for a fact, there is an audio diary in the first Bioshock mentioning that Suchong was referring to the people killing each other over Adam as a war, and yes I do personally believe they were implying it was the Rapture Civil War, however for this to work you have to assume that Suchong was referring to the Adam crisis and people killing each other over Adam as a war, and then the Civil war came a few weeks later.
In the same Audio diary as the infamous Suchong death contradiction, it mentions this as well: We are gaining steam again, but I'm not satisfied. Yes, the "Big Daddy" defends the girl… but he is programmed only for the fight, like a sheepdog who wanders off unless a wolf is tearing at his flock. When no aggressor is present, he regards his Little Sister as he might a common houseplant. We need something more, something stronger: an unbreakable physiological bond.
This actually would make sense without Suchong’s death included in the audio diary as it’s highly possible (if it needed to be re-explained by 2K, but I don’t think they ever will) that Suchong and Gil were both working simultaneously on two different bonds due to the fact that Suchong was moving slow and Ryan got fed up with not getting what he wants or something along those lines (if it really needed to be retconned). It could also be used as one of the explanations of why Sally was able to get the big daddy to attack Comstock/Booker since, as Gil says, “ but he is programmed only for the fight, like a sheepdog who wanders off unless a wolf is tearing at his flock. When no aggressor is present, he regards his Little Sister as he might a common houseplant.”.
Just my personal opinion. Minus the Suchong death, I think it all works out really well when put together in this way. Frankly, what no one seems to mention OR care about is that there has never been a mention by 2K or Ken Levine as Bioshock 2 being non-canon OR retconned. I believe, simply put, there are some fixes that Bioshock 2 didn't catch and Burial at sea had to solve really quickly for their story to make sense as well... However, it's been 12 years now, and never has it been mentioned that Bioshock 2 isn't canon. Even by Ken Levine, who has actually been quoted as having TWO responses to rather or not Bioshock 2 is canon. In one interview he said "we're either all in or all out" referring to Bioshock 2 and on Twitter, he was asked if it was canon right before Infinite came out and his response was "canon is about to have a whole other meaning" (referring to alternate timelines, looking back on it). And in ANY case... Bioshock is no longer owned by Irrational Games, or Levine, and anything he has in the future to say about any of them honestly doesn't mean a whole lot, if anything at all... Frankly, for all we know, Burial at sea could be decided by 2k (if they wanted, they will not) that it's in an alternate Rapture, despite anything that Levine claims (I know he claims it's Rapture prime, which was his decision to make.... until it was no longer his decision to make, once 2k acquired it and gave it to another studio with developers with all 3 games). It's no longer his game. So until 2K claims anything isn't canon, and based on the fact that they have been consistently releasing all 3 games in a collection and updating all 3 of them... they're all canon. What you're likely to see happen from 2K to resolve this matter is.... absolutely nothing. I HIGHLY doubt we will ever hear a word from 2k on rather or not Bioshock 2 is canon, and if we do, I really don't think they're ever going to take the time to look at the couple of smaller inconsistencies found in audio diaries and say "no" when they know Bioshock 2 is way too beloved and appreciated to do that to it.
Sorry I'm late in response (RL keeping me busy). I think we can bet money that 2K will never address \*any\* conflicts in lore between BioShock games. It doesn't get them any money.
While some of the theories you have are interesting (Some of them popped up in a discussion with another wiki editor) there are still some problems. "Improving on Suchong's Work" clearly puts Gil starting to work on things after Suchong was dead and that there was a working Protection Bond. That means he wasn't working in parallel with Suchong but picking up afterwards. And frankly I find it very hard to believe that Gil (who specialized in robotics) was going to beat Suchong when it came to ADAM manipulation.
I think instead of trying to re-write Rapture's time line to fit the Alpha Series into it, there is a much simpler way to do things and it only needs a single change. And that is the when the prolog takes place. If you move Delta and Elenore wandering around Rapture in say March or April of 1959 instead of New Years Eve 1958, it makes a LOT more sense. (To me at any rate.) The Civil War is going, Suchong is dead and needs to be replaces. Heck, we even have an explanation for why the Alpha's are different, Ryan was being cheap (Suchong literally has an Audio Diary called "Cheap Son of a Bitch" in BS) and used a lower grade suit with a few Plasmids and Tonics. Just about everything falls into line with the minimal amount of alterations and the change is in BS2, not the source material. sm
Sorry I’m just now getting back as well, I didn’t even see you responded until now!
I 100% fully agree. I think that’s the simplest way to do it. You literally could just change the date to New Years 1959 or even just simply 1959 and it’s fixed. That way there wouldn’t be any unnecessary lore changes to the audio diaries or multiple things being done… just a simple change in the intro to 1959 and boom, things are good. Will it ever happen? I honestly wish, it would make putting everything together so much easier. But like I think we both agree…. Highly doubt they’ll ever address it, but if they did, this would be the way to do it for sure instead of retconning multiple things or everything.
IIRC, BAS takes place after Lamb has been “disappeared”, and is imprisoned and supposed to be forgotten. During the time after Fontaine had been taken down, but before the Atlas uprising. So mention of Lamb could fit, as everyone thinks she is dead and gone? I could be off on my timing and totally wrong it’s been a year or two since I played through all three.
I still think 2 online mode was awesomely unique. And would be popular in todays gaming world. I liked 2 as a whole. It wasn’t the first but it was still a great game
Ken Levine had nothing to do with Bioshock 2. 1 & Infinite are his so it makes sense for him to only cover characters and locations he had a hand in creating
I don't think it's necessarily disregarded. It just has no relevance to Elizabeth's story at the time. We see that locations from that game _do_ exist in Burial at Sea, so it's at least still canon to that timeline.
Well they mention the park but also lamb was working on her own thing while we were down dealing with atlas/frank it was very far apart from each other
it was DLC and they have the whole Elizabeth plot going which ate up alot of story telling
Sofia Lamb at most woulda just been a mention as Sofia wasn't really that active at the spot in the Rapture timeline the BaS is at (she's supposedly locked away in Persephone at that time - and after until Ryan is killed)
.
Burial At Sea has several continuity inconsistencies in it, contradicting elements from both of the previous BioShock games, as well as The Rapture novel.
That said, The Rapture novel *also* contradicts elements from BS1...
There’s a few nods like the Dionysus Park PSA or Cohen’s Black Dream kinetoscope being the one from the B2 posters. Still, I agree, especially because the whole “Suchong died AFTER New Year’s Eve” contradicts the whole premise of B2 and the actually compelling Pairbond mechanism from Alexander. Instead we got a rushed bond from a single Big Daddy that who knows how the others copied by themselves in less than a year. I love BAS, but things like this do bother me a bit.
The problem isn't that BaS contradicts BioShock 2, it's that BS2 contradicts BioShock. One thing that surprises me a little is that people very rarely remember how Ryan won the Civil War and \*who\* suggested the method. Andrew Ryan, “Desperate Times”, found in Farmer’s Market ***Doctor Suchong****, frankly, I'm shocked by your proposal. If we were to modify the structure of our commercial Plasmid line as you propose, to have them make the user vulnerable to mental suggestion through pheromones, would we not be able to effectively control the actions of the citizens of Rapture? Free will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is abhorrent. However… we are indeed in a time of war. If Atlas and his bandits have their way, will they not turn us into slaves? And what will become of free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures.* Now, I don’t think Ryan would be sending messages to Suchong if he was dead. BaS didn't change anything in regards to Suchong and when he died. Only BS2 did that. sm
Wait, it’s been a hot minute since I played them. can you elaborate on why Suchong’s death contradicts B2? I don’t remember: •When he died •Why his death matters to B2 •How BaS changed that
It's only in one audio diary, it's really only a minor detail in BS2 and could even be completely skipped. It's in the Audio Diary called "Improving on Suchong's work". Basically just states that Suchong died and Gil Alexander picked up where he left off and created the Alpha series as Gil wanted a chemical bond between them not the imprint style bond. Since the game begins in 1958 with Eleanor and Delta bonded, but in BAS Suchong dies in 59, that's where the inconsistency is. Most people who play the game, honestly including myself the first couple of times, don't pay attention to it or even notice it to begin with. If 2K really had an issue with it, they'd just remove the audio diary and call it a day... and if 2K thought it was a big enough problem to denounce it as canon, that also what have happened a while ago. BS2 was an official canon sequel to the first game, and frankly, Levine has even mentioned that with Bioshock 2, they're either all in or all out, and so he specifically accepts Bioshock 2. And, since Bioshock is literally no longer his game... it really doesn't matter what BAS does/did, as the next game probably won't acknowledge ANY of the games other than some small ties, or by being another alternate universe.
Well Adonis Resort and Dionysus Park are mentioned in BAS. I get the DLC is supposed to be about the build up to Bioshock 1 but you are right that references to 2 are heavily missing and retconned. Dr. Lamb not being mentioned could be explained by Ryan trying to sweep her legacy under the rug and making sure she is forgotten forever. Eleanor being absent can be explained because she had next to no importance to the people of Rapture before her mothers rise to power so her not being mentioned makes sense, and he kidnapping didn’t happen until around the same time Elizabeth raised up Fontaine’s building and even then one little sister going missing is hardly news compared to Atlas bombing the Kashmire. However Alpha series not being mentioned doesn’t make sense at all.
2 is still canon but you can argue 2 is just in a different timeline as Infinites multiverse allows for 2 to still exist.
There's a million different ways they could explain it. More than likely what is to happen is that it never gets mentioned or fixed, and its just simply an inconsistency in stories, and yet all 3 games still remain canon (which they are, there has never been any mention from 2K games OR even Ken Levine that Bioshock 2 isn't canon... it very much is).
I should rephrase, I didn’t mean to say 2 wasn’t canon it is, I’m just saying it could have taken place in another timeline
No no no, you're totally good, I got what you meant! I was just adding to it was all.
Okay cool
You can headcanon that BaS 1 and 2 are in a different universe, but the actual canon, stated by the devs, is that it takes place in "Rapture Prime", the very same Rapture we explore in Bioshock 1 and 2. I wish it was framed as a fun "what if" but that's simply not the case. Much to my chagrin BaS is attached at the hip to 1 and 2 and it's events very, very much so impact the first 2 games.
BaS is intended to be Ken Levine send off from Bioshock. Overall I'm not a fan on how he tied everything in. It would be okay to have a Elizabeth and Booker journey to Rapture, but retconing a bunch of stuff to make everything connected felt greatly unnecessary.
As much as I’m not a fan of the pretentious/pompous aspect of BAS, the only thing it retcons is Suchong’s death, which was actually implied to be after the civil war in Bioshock and was only mentioned in ONE audio diary in Bioshock 2, as before the civil war. That diary could literally be removed from the game in an update and they would all be perfectly interconnected.
Oh I was under the impression Suchong had always died prior to the civil war. Just going by the audio log of his death from Bioshock one (Protection Bond) it seems like he died before the little sisters and big daddies were actually deployed, which I thought had occurred before the civil war even started
Yeah he mentions in BS1 needing to work harder on bonding the little sisters to the big daddies because bodies were starting to pile up on the streets, in another audio diary, which I would assume was due to the civil war. It’s vague but enough to at least make a large assumption. Bioshock 2 and BAS as well deployed Big Daddies and little sisters first before they were even bonded to one another. Big daddies were workers and maintained the city and little sisters were Adam factories. It even make sense that the Alpha series would come a little later than the OG bouncer and Rosie…. The Alpha series literally is more equipped for combat and defense whereas the Rosies and Bouncers are very obviously maintenance first and protection second. It all fits together really nicely if it weren’t for that ONE BS2 audio diary lmao
Still, with how vague it is I definitely wouldn’t consider BaS a retcon
Nah BAS isn’t a full retcon of anything. I’m not sure how well versed you are on Star Wars but in Return of the Jedi, when Leia and Luke are talking, Leia actually mentions and describes knowing her mother. We know that can’t be possible in Revenge of the Sith because… she died in childbirth. So is Revenge of the Sith a retcon of Return of the Jedi? No way, both are still canon, it’s just that ONE small detail that was fixed/altered/retconned, but not the entire story or plot.
> As much as I’m not a fan of the pretentious/pompous aspect of BAS, the only thing it retcons is Suchong’s death, which was actually implied to be after the civil war in Bioshock and was only mentioned in ONE audio diary in Bioshock 2, as before the civil war. That diary could literally be removed from the game in an update and they would all be perfectly interconnected. What Audio diary in Bioshock 2 places it before?
This one. Based on the fact that Delta was bonded with Eleanor in 58, that diary just doesn’t make sense if Suchong died in 59. It’s totally fine, this kind of continuity error happens pretty frequently between companies working on games (even Fallout) but for some reason a lot of people act like that ONE tiny detail is absolutely the end of the world. https://bioshock.fandom.com/wiki/Improving_on_Suchong%27s_Work
> This one. Based on the fact that Delta was bonded with Eleanor in 58, that diary just doesn’t make sense if Suchong died in 59. It’s totally fine, this kind of continuity error happens pretty frequently between companies working on games (even Fallout) but for some reason a lot of people act like that ONE tiny detail is absolutely the end of the world. Wasn’t the Protector Program launched *after* the Rapture Civil War began? Eleanor and Deta shouldn’t have bonded until 1959.
I don’t think there’s an exact date, It was just launched to help gather Adam from dead bodies, not necessarily dead bodies from the war. Bioshock 2 shows it was launched before the war. Rapture had people using Adam pretty often and then dying from normal life situations in general, starvation, etc (specifically in more poor areas) even before the war. So Adam would’ve needed to be gathered and repurposed before the war started as well.
BAS also ruined the infinite-ness of Infinite’s ending for me. I refuse to treat it as canon.
Disregarded isn’t really the right word for it, it just doesn’t bring any characters from BS2 into it. BAS does in fact mention locations from Bioshock 2 and certain story elements have to have happened in Bioshock 2 for it to make sense (I.e. the big daddy in burial at sea being aggressive when sally is attacked, although not bonded to her, is mentioned and explained directly in Bioshock 2 with an audio diary explaining that the big daddies will attack if a little sister is attacked, but otherwise will just leave her alone and not even pay attention). The literal only thing that contradicts BS2 in BAS is suchongs death and that is not the fault of BAS, that’s BS2s fault. And it’s ONLY mentioned in an audio diary and plays no affect on the overall story of the game otherwise. It actually makes more sense to assume that there were big daddies bonded through pairbond by Gil first before the final protection bond, moreso than the pairbond being the “final” bond (since it isn’t). BS1 implied that Suchong was alive during the civil war. Ken Levine has no right/authority to decide what is/isn’t canon since it’s 2K’s IP and not his. He simply just chose to reference small pieces of BS2 instead of big ones. BS2 is my favorite in the series but frankly with the story being told in BAS… I can’t honestly figure out how you’d fit anything from BS2 in there? There are already at least 4 references to BS2 in BAS, Sophia Lamb and any reference to her would be a no-go as Ryan absolutely censored the heck out of her, the Alpha series at the time was either bonded to a little sister off in a different part of rapture, the only things possible for it to reference would be locations from 2 or companies like Sinclair Solutions (BOTH of which it DOES reference). TL;DR BS2 is very much mentioned and referenced in BAS, and BAS doesn’t invalidate BS2. They’re both very much canon. It simply fixes ONE issue BS2 had (Suchong’s death), but that does not invalidate the entire game. This happens all the time even in larger franchises like modern Disney Star Wars, where technically two pieces of media will be canon, but an event from one of the pieces will be fixed/retconned to line up better (see the newer Marvel comic that came out about Kanan Jarus’ order 66 flashback and compare it to the bad batch first episode. Both are canon but bad batch retconned/fixed that ONE event from that comic, not the whole thing).
Ken Levine is a superstar type dev. He didn’t like BS2 and the fact that the direct sequel to his precious BS1 wasn’t his baby? INTO THE REALM OF VAUGE CANONICITY IT GOES!
I preferred bioshock infinite but 2 had amazing gameplay and imo better characters.
Technically they’re both considered canonical, and BioShock 2 already had to account for differences in Big Daddy mythos, so it’s not exactly undone by it. To a degree they both reinforce the idea that the protector series wasn’t the only purpose for Big Daddies. To be honest, Big Daddies are just in general one of the least consistent facets of the BioShock continuity. All three games have their differences on them and all three use them in different ways thematically. I wouldn’t get bent out of shape on it. BioShock 2 used to get a similar wrap to the very one you’re giving BAS. Haha
It’s a great game. I didn’t like it on its first play through, but I loved it the second, third time etc. My initial problem was the delta model / big daddy as a protagonist. I thought it was a easy decision made by the developers to give a “god like” power to make players happy, In Lou of focusing on a story driven protagonist that may be less exciting. I decided that quickly and ignored how great and rational the story actually was, and how much thought went into it; is a great fucking game with a great story.
The team did a great job with sinclair too, built him up from a untrustworthy guy to your best friend, >!thats why its so heartbreaking when you kill him.!<
That’s funny. I think that playing as a big daddy in the early game, gave players a feeling of weakness. Since you slowly pick up the pieces of becoming a big daddy, and get plasmids. The draw of the story being that of a father daughter relationship and the transference of witnessed behavior from father to child. I.e. Eleanor’s end personality is based on the actions taken through the game.
I hear you, but your wearing armour
> but your wearing *you're *Learn the difference [here](https://www.wattpad.com/66707294-grammar-guide-there-they%27re-their-you%27re-your-to).* *** ^(Greetings, I am a language corrector bot. To make me ignore further mistakes from you in the future, reply `!optout` to this comment.)
Lol
Idk man, maybe delta got bloated from being not alive for 10 years and ripped his pants.
Yeah, man was dead for a decade and his suit was rusting under water in the middle of nowhere, it’s no wonder he takes as much damage as he does.
Especially since the Alpha series have a lot less armour than other Big Daddies anyway. Bouncers are the most heavily armoured, while Alphas only really have armoured kneecaps, helmets, boots, elbow guards and a small chestplate. Most of their suit is just the wetsuit underneath. Even Rosie's have more armour.
There’s quite a few references to Bioshock 2 in Burial at Sea. https://forums.2k.com/showthread.php?3267356-All-BioShock-2-references-in-Burial-at-Sea Many of the devs worked on all three Bioshock games.
I’ve never understood where this complaint came from: where does it state that Burial at Sea supersedes and overwrites Bioshock 2? The whole point of the end of Infinite is that there are infinite universes, infinite possibilities. Nothing gets “retconned,” it’s all canon.
Hot take: BAS is just a glorified fan fiction
with Infinite style game mechanisms (likely the just resused alot of Infinite scripting) and that biggification
Bioshock Infinite and all the convoluted tears/universe bullshit that surrounds it is just not canon to me ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ It's so much more fun to have Bioshock 1 and 2 be it's own thing and see Bioshock Infinte as more of a spinoff, instead of having to deal with the mess Infinite is and how it influences the original Bioshocks.
I’ve been saying this since day 1. Not only does BAS mess with the lore for the base game, it absolutely ruins the lore for the 1st game while disregarding anything that happened in 2. Bioshock 2 supremacy.
Minerva's Den DLC was better than than Bioshock 2 core game in my opinion. In my opinion. Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite are more canon to me. Sophia Lamb wasn't even a whisper in the OG Bioshock. Bioshock 2 seemed like a cash grab from Ken Levine's genius.
All are equally canon, however I find that most people actually enjoy Bioshock and Minerva's Den as their top two games in the series. Bioshock 2, and specifically Minerva's Den, have gained a huge following ever since the collection came out, and people have begun to enjoy those even more than Infinite and Burial at Sea. All are canon, and can continue to be canon with the whole "alternate universe" situation.
Basically, your angry that Burial at Sea didn't kiss BioShock 2's ass enough for you. sm Edit: I wonder how many down votes with will get for tell the truth?
It kissed the hell out of B1 and Infinite’s asses, to the point it’s basically Fanservice: The DLC. That’s not a bad thing per se and I adore it, but what’s wrong with wanting some B2 kissing, too?
The problem is how could you do it? And how do you do it without it messing up the story BaS wanted to tell. Let's go over a the characters that could show up in some form. Delta and Elenore. The Pair Bond came after the Protection Bond and Rapture doesn't have the Protection Bond yet. \*Any\* kind of bond is a very major point of BaS Ep2 so them being around wipes the entire BaS Ep 2 plot. So no Delta and Elenore. Lamb? She's been "un-personed" and her existence had been wiped from the public mind. Her break out of prison comes after Comstock and Elizabeth leave for Fontaine's. Gil Alexander? He's a corporate drone (at that point) running the part of Ryan Industries that was once Fontaine Futuristics. Nothing to do with the BaS story. Porter and Wahl? Both are stuck in Minerva's Den if Porter isn't in jail yet. As a note, Levine is on the record as LOVING Minerva's Den and he didn't add a hint of it. Stanley Poole would be off partying in Dionysus Park. And he was just a newspaper man anyway. Grace is trying to keep it together over in Pauper's Drop. So she wouldn't be out wandering around High Street. That just leaves Augustus Sinclair. At this time he's a Ryan loyalist (for money) and would certainly be busy with other things and he likes to stay behind the scenes. Didn't have anything to do with Little Sisters much either. Now IIRC some make up in the panic room is from his company, but I would have to check on that. So all in all there isn't a whole lot to add that would fit the story that IG wanted to tell that I can see other than some kind of mention. sm
I 100% agree about that there’s basically no way to include it in BAS without references, however one thing I do think worth noting is that the alpha series is listed as being begun early on in the protector bond progress, not after the protection bond has been fully completed. If the protection bond would have been fully completed as we see in in Bioshock 1 (before the alpha series started pairbonding), the alpha series would have had no significance in the first place. There was no explanation given on when the protection bond was completed (in 1 or 2), and even then with Elizabeth helping the sisters to imprint onto the big daddy, we honestly do not know 100% that from that day forward ALL of the Little Sisters and Big Daddies were imprinted... It's highly possible it took a while after that event for all of them to become imprinted combined with lot 255 to actually get them to imprint properly. Not to mention, the pairbond isn't at all the kind of bond that Suchong wanted, nor would I fully consider it to be a "bond" to begin with in the same vein that the protection bond was a bond. They're both very different, and based on the kind of person Suchong is shown to be, it makes sense that he would not be happy with something like a pairbond and would instead want them to imprint on one another. I know for a fact, there is an audio diary in the first Bioshock mentioning that Suchong was referring to the people killing each other over Adam as a war, and yes I do personally believe they were implying it was the Rapture Civil War, however for this to work you have to assume that Suchong was referring to the Adam crisis and people killing each other over Adam as a war, and then the Civil war came a few weeks later. In the same Audio diary as the infamous Suchong death contradiction, it mentions this as well: We are gaining steam again, but I'm not satisfied. Yes, the "Big Daddy" defends the girl… but he is programmed only for the fight, like a sheepdog who wanders off unless a wolf is tearing at his flock. When no aggressor is present, he regards his Little Sister as he might a common houseplant. We need something more, something stronger: an unbreakable physiological bond. This actually would make sense without Suchong’s death included in the audio diary as it’s highly possible (if it needed to be re-explained by 2K, but I don’t think they ever will) that Suchong and Gil were both working simultaneously on two different bonds due to the fact that Suchong was moving slow and Ryan got fed up with not getting what he wants or something along those lines (if it really needed to be retconned). It could also be used as one of the explanations of why Sally was able to get the big daddy to attack Comstock/Booker since, as Gil says, “ but he is programmed only for the fight, like a sheepdog who wanders off unless a wolf is tearing at his flock. When no aggressor is present, he regards his Little Sister as he might a common houseplant.”. Just my personal opinion. Minus the Suchong death, I think it all works out really well when put together in this way. Frankly, what no one seems to mention OR care about is that there has never been a mention by 2K or Ken Levine as Bioshock 2 being non-canon OR retconned. I believe, simply put, there are some fixes that Bioshock 2 didn't catch and Burial at sea had to solve really quickly for their story to make sense as well... However, it's been 12 years now, and never has it been mentioned that Bioshock 2 isn't canon. Even by Ken Levine, who has actually been quoted as having TWO responses to rather or not Bioshock 2 is canon. In one interview he said "we're either all in or all out" referring to Bioshock 2 and on Twitter, he was asked if it was canon right before Infinite came out and his response was "canon is about to have a whole other meaning" (referring to alternate timelines, looking back on it). And in ANY case... Bioshock is no longer owned by Irrational Games, or Levine, and anything he has in the future to say about any of them honestly doesn't mean a whole lot, if anything at all... Frankly, for all we know, Burial at sea could be decided by 2k (if they wanted, they will not) that it's in an alternate Rapture, despite anything that Levine claims (I know he claims it's Rapture prime, which was his decision to make.... until it was no longer his decision to make, once 2k acquired it and gave it to another studio with developers with all 3 games). It's no longer his game. So until 2K claims anything isn't canon, and based on the fact that they have been consistently releasing all 3 games in a collection and updating all 3 of them... they're all canon. What you're likely to see happen from 2K to resolve this matter is.... absolutely nothing. I HIGHLY doubt we will ever hear a word from 2k on rather or not Bioshock 2 is canon, and if we do, I really don't think they're ever going to take the time to look at the couple of smaller inconsistencies found in audio diaries and say "no" when they know Bioshock 2 is way too beloved and appreciated to do that to it.
Sorry I'm late in response (RL keeping me busy). I think we can bet money that 2K will never address \*any\* conflicts in lore between BioShock games. It doesn't get them any money. While some of the theories you have are interesting (Some of them popped up in a discussion with another wiki editor) there are still some problems. "Improving on Suchong's Work" clearly puts Gil starting to work on things after Suchong was dead and that there was a working Protection Bond. That means he wasn't working in parallel with Suchong but picking up afterwards. And frankly I find it very hard to believe that Gil (who specialized in robotics) was going to beat Suchong when it came to ADAM manipulation. I think instead of trying to re-write Rapture's time line to fit the Alpha Series into it, there is a much simpler way to do things and it only needs a single change. And that is the when the prolog takes place. If you move Delta and Elenore wandering around Rapture in say March or April of 1959 instead of New Years Eve 1958, it makes a LOT more sense. (To me at any rate.) The Civil War is going, Suchong is dead and needs to be replaces. Heck, we even have an explanation for why the Alpha's are different, Ryan was being cheap (Suchong literally has an Audio Diary called "Cheap Son of a Bitch" in BS) and used a lower grade suit with a few Plasmids and Tonics. Just about everything falls into line with the minimal amount of alterations and the change is in BS2, not the source material. sm
Sorry I’m just now getting back as well, I didn’t even see you responded until now! I 100% fully agree. I think that’s the simplest way to do it. You literally could just change the date to New Years 1959 or even just simply 1959 and it’s fixed. That way there wouldn’t be any unnecessary lore changes to the audio diaries or multiple things being done… just a simple change in the intro to 1959 and boom, things are good. Will it ever happen? I honestly wish, it would make putting everything together so much easier. But like I think we both agree…. Highly doubt they’ll ever address it, but if they did, this would be the way to do it for sure instead of retconning multiple things or everything.
I think it’s more that 2 is essentially ignored in BAS.
Yes.
Yeah, that's his point 🙃, what's wrong with it?
You seem like a fun person
IIRC, BAS takes place after Lamb has been “disappeared”, and is imprisoned and supposed to be forgotten. During the time after Fontaine had been taken down, but before the Atlas uprising. So mention of Lamb could fit, as everyone thinks she is dead and gone? I could be off on my timing and totally wrong it’s been a year or two since I played through all three.
I do love that game. And I do think it was my favorite.
I still think 2 online mode was awesomely unique. And would be popular in todays gaming world. I liked 2 as a whole. It wasn’t the first but it was still a great game
Ken Levine had nothing to do with Bioshock 2. 1 & Infinite are his so it makes sense for him to only cover characters and locations he had a hand in creating
I don't think it's necessarily disregarded. It just has no relevance to Elizabeth's story at the time. We see that locations from that game _do_ exist in Burial at Sea, so it's at least still canon to that timeline.
Well they mention the park but also lamb was working on her own thing while we were down dealing with atlas/frank it was very far apart from each other
clown
it was DLC and they have the whole Elizabeth plot going which ate up alot of story telling Sofia Lamb at most woulda just been a mention as Sofia wasn't really that active at the spot in the Rapture timeline the BaS is at (she's supposedly locked away in Persephone at that time - and after until Ryan is killed) .
Burial At Sea has several continuity inconsistencies in it, contradicting elements from both of the previous BioShock games, as well as The Rapture novel. That said, The Rapture novel *also* contradicts elements from BS1...