Ten years ago, millions of gamers swam out of the wreckage of a mysterious plane crash. Amidst the ruin of that plane, there was a solitary lighthouse and clues of a larger mystery. After entering, the lights slowly turned on to reveal an ominous phrase:

For many people, this was the defining experience of 2007. It was Andrew Ryan’s leering face, a message about politics and religion, and a world of lumbering, monstrous Big Daddys. It was defined by the insane splicers, wondrous advances in technology, and the mystery of how a perfect society went so wrong.

It has been ten years now, and games are in the midst of an open-world era, but there is something comforting about a game that seemed much less influenced by what was happening at the time and much more interested in what could be happening.

Nothing spoke more to this than the concept behind Bioshock. It was inspired by the politics of writer Ayn Rand as well as her ideas of what would happen if a capitalist genius did rule the world – or at least the world of Rapture.

Underwater worlds weren’t exactly in vogue at the time, so the decision to plunge the players into an underwater nightmare was pure inspiration. It formed the crux of how the player would interact with the world, but it also determined how the game world would be segregated as it slowly flooded and collapsed under the weight of corruption and violence.

Setting was obviously at the heart of Bioshock. From the first zone – the Welcome Center – the game was designed to introduce the player to the majesty and terror of Rapture, and each zone told a little more about the city. The Medical Pavilion explored what happens when a people become obsessed with perfection, whereas Neptune’s Bounty showed the simpler industrial side of the city – the two zones working together to show the people and the economy. From there, the players explore the gardens, markets, entertainment, and even luxury housing of the world. Each zone built the world more, explaining how it was run, how it was ruined, and a glimpse of how perfect it once was.

But the environment was also perfectly in sync with the enemies and level design. Big Daddies amaze as sympathetic, unstoppable behemoths that are both touching and terrifying. The floorboards shudder when they approach, but they ignore the player as long as they never bother the Little Sisters. This rhythm is immediately unbalanced if the player chooses to attack or draw too near, then the slow, lumbering of the Big Daddy is replaced by sudden explosive violence.

But what made Bioshock so special was the details. Everything about it was told subtly. Whether the player was watching a Big Daddy pound on the home of a Little Sister to call her out or exploring the murder of Andrew Ryan’s lover, the point of Bioshock was not to beat the player over the head with the experience but to surround them with it.

Take for example when the player first interacts with a Little Sister. The lighting is behind the player, casting the Little Sister’s shadow against the trunk that she backs into in a panic to flee. It’s at this moment that the game wonders – are you the type of gamer to be unaffected by such a scene and to take her life, or is the terror in her too real and the act of killing her too cruel?

This is also one of the reasons for the audio diaries. Unlike other games, which include books about the history of the world or random notes designed to add experience, the audio diaries were the key to understanding Rapture but without the boring process of halting your exploration to read a book. It was the perfect idea – fitting with the world, fitting with player experience, fitting with letting players choose to interact with the story or not.

And that is the beauty of a game ten years old. Graphics will get better, innovative new mechanics will be introduced, but the experience of a game will always linger, and that is what made Bioshock so innovative.

Now, would you kindly return to the world of Rapture, and once more remember that experience?