‘BioShock: The Collection’ Will Make You Work For Director Commentary Reels

BioShock: The Collection doesn’t just bundle up the three first games in the franchise and spiffy them up to 1080p and 60 frames per second for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. It comes with a series of director commentary videos featuring former Irrational Games co-founder Ken Levine. Players will have to do a bit of exploring through the three games to unlock them, however.

2K Games has been releasing teaser videos of the director commentaries hosted by Geoff Keighley, titled Imagining BioShock, over the past week. The first four were shared via the publisher’s YouTube channel, while episode five and episode six debuted on the Xbox YouTube channel and the PlayStation Blog respectively.

Each of the six videos give brief insights into the development process for the BioShock titles. Episode six, for example, deals with a disastrous focus group test for the first game while episode four reveals how Atlas had to be recast and rewritten.

These videos are only snippets though, with the full versions locked away in BioShock: The Collection. Golden Reels have been hidden around the game’s various levels and it is up to the player to find them so they can unlock and watch the videos from the game.

Episode One Trailer: Making Rapture Real

Episode Two Trailer: Behind the Pitch

Episode Three Trailer: The Deeper Shooter

Episode Four Trailer: The Creative Process

Episode Five Trailer: Community Theatre

Episode Six Trailer: Reality Check

There are clues at the end of each trailer on where the Golden Reel for the full video might be located. Of course, BioShock fans can bet other more enterprising fans will quickly hunt these down and post the full videos to YouTube or elsewhere within a day or two of The Collection‘s release. It should be interesting to see if 2K Games attempts to have these taken down or allows them to stay up.

BioShock: The Collection will be released on September 13 in North America and September 16 internationally. The collection is being developed by Blind Squirrel Games and comes with remastered versions of BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite running at 1080p and 60 fps for the PS4 and Xbox One. The PC version of the release will only remaster the first two games as Infinite already runs at current-gen standards for the PC.

The release will include all of the single-player DLC from all three titles as well as a new video series featuring the director of BioShock and BioShock: Infinite, Ken Levine. The “Director’s Commentary: Imagining BioShock” series will provide insights from Levine on the creative and design process for the games along with tidbits on the story and plot.

The one thing the remastered collection does not include is multiplayer from BioShock 2. This will be a single-player only experience for the launch price of $59.99.

PC gamers who already own a Steam copy of BioShock and BioShock 2 will receive a free upgrade to the remastered versions of the game. This turns out to be a fantastic value, as both titles are regularly on sale via Steam. The only thing that will be missed is the director’s commentary from Ken Levine.

BioShock

• The video series, “Director’s Commentary: Imagining BioShock,” featuring Ken Levine, creative director on BioShockand BioShock Infinite and Shawn Robertson, animation lead on BioShock and animation director on BioShock Infinite.
• Museum of Orphaned Concepts: Walk through a Rapture-inspired virtual museum that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at discarded concepts that never made it into the original game.
• Challenge Rooms: Outside the story of BioShock, tackle puzzles, splicers and Big Daddies. And achievements, of course.

BioShock 2

• Minerva’s Den: A self-contained BioShock story, presenting a side of Rapture you’ve never seen before. Use expanded combat abilities with the experimental Ion Laser and chaotic Gravity Well Plasmid, unique to Minerva’s Den, as you face off against the Lancer Big Daddy.
• Protector Trials: Take control of an Alpha Series Big Daddy woken out of hibernation just before the events of BioShock 2.

BioShock Infinite

• Burial at Sea – Episode 1 & 2 Add-On Packs: This major two-part DLC pack completes the BioShock trilogy by taking the series back to where it all began. Return to Rapture just before the events of the original BioShock!
• Clash in the Clouds Add-On Pack: Face 60 waves of challenges across four additional maps for leaderboard glory and unlock areas to explore in The Columbian Archaeological Society hub museum.
• Columbia’s Finest Pack: Combines the contents of the Industrial Revolution Pack and the Upgrade Pack and includes 500 Silver Eagles, five Lock Picks, six unique Gear items, and two weapon upgrades: Comstock’s China Broom Shotgun and Comstock’s Eagle Eye Sniper Rifle.

How do you think of needing to hunt down the director commentary videos in BioShock: The Collection? Sound off in the comments below.

[Image via 2K Games]