10 Ways Video Games Blew Your Mind (Without You Even Realising)
4. First Shots From Enemies Always Miss - Bioshock
Bioshock is littered with incredible design, and has inspired countless games which came after it. There's no shortage of retro-futurist sci-fi action games available these days, and it's Ken Levine's undersea shooter which arguably started the trend.
One lovely, lovely little detail however is one that no one would have known had Levine not revealed it on Twitter back in 2017. You know that feeling when you walk into a new area only for a gunshot to crack and a bullet to whizz past your ear, giving you just enough time to snap round and locate your aggressor and engage in another pulse-pounding firefight?
It turns out that the first shot from a leadhead splicer is programmed to miss every single time. This pulls double duty in that it gives the player that adrenaline high present in a cinematic shootout but also because it stops you from ever being blindsided by an enemy you couldn't possibly have known was present.
There are many other features present in the game which balance it nicely, such as enemy AI slowing down when behind the player and a brief period of invulnerability before a killing blow, but it has to be those near-misses that take the prize.