10 Essential FPS Levels Every Fan Must Play

Bioshock is Rapture. Yes, the combat does not disappoint but Andrew Ryan’s underwater dystopia remains one of the most expertly realised, thematically dense, and intensely unsettling settings in the history of shooters.

And Fort Frolic is its perfect microcosm. As the city’s entertainment hub it is Rapture at its most varied, a melting pot of shopping areas, fine dining, theatres, art galleries, even a strip club, that exhibits the city’s beautiful art-deco style to full effect. And over this is layered the story of the city’s fall, with the once welcoming space perverted by bloodied walls, crazed splicers and unique to Fort Frolic, plaster statues crafted from living people.

Which brings us to its patron, Sander Cohen. Like Fort Frolic itself, the insane artist is one of BioShock’s most memorable characters. Where others were driven to insanity by a lust for power Cohen cared only for his craft, transforming the location into his personal twisted artistic utopia, with the former citizens its unwilling performers.

It is a chilling space to be in, familiar yet horribly corrupted, with an overlord who is both frightening and strangely tragic. BioShock is a tour de force of sublime aesthetics, atmosphere and complex personalities, and Fort Frolic is where you can best experience it.