The spec of BioShock changed so much over the course of development that we spent the majority of the time making the wrong game- an extremely deep game, and at times an interesting one, but it was not a groundbreaking game that would appeal to a wide audience. We ended up with fewer choices overall, but each one of those choices was infinitely more functional, understandable, and fun than the previous ones. We also put more polish time into the core interactions of the game, such as the weapons, plasmids, and user interfaces. Once we recalibrated the game to be more like a shooter, we simplified many of the deeper systems tremendously so that the user would be able to understand them. To put it another way, nerdy RPG-like stat changes just didn't seem meaningful in the vibrant and dangerous world of Rapture. This was because we hadn't been thinking as much about making a shooter as we should have, and many of our key interactions (weapons tuning, plasmids, length of AI engagement) were designed and tuned for a slower and more cerebral experience. Around the time that the game went into alpha, we took a hard look at that gameplay and realized that, although there were many choices, they weren't very compelling. In terms of design, we created a depth and density of game systems that fit into a game about character building and choice, but would not have been competitive as an FPS. The product focus changed from RPG hybrid to shooter. The team and the game changed remarkably over the course of development.
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