20 Most Intense Video Game Moments Of The Decade

BioShock’s ending was controversial, to say the least. The reveal not only that player character Booker was central antagonist Comstock, but that through a multiverse consistency was also essentially BioShock 1 baddie Andrew Ryan was deeply divisive.

For some, it was a brilliant twist which played perfectly into the game’s key themes of fate, destiny, and the concept of free will. For others, it was a load of old nonsense.

It does require you to take a few leaps of faith, and in retrospect the lack of romantic connections between Booker and his alternative universe daughter Elizabeth should have been a red flag. Regardless of how you took to it though, the moment Booker’s head is shoved under the water during the game’s extended ending is one of claustrophobic intensity.

The lasting effect of it does depend upon your reaction to ‘always a lighthouse, always a man, always a city’, but in the immediate instance it was so sudden and raw.

It’s this moment which apparently causes the rift in time, and sets Booker on his path to become Comstock, or not. Booker rejects and fights against baptism, while Comstock accepts it and builds himself anew.