Games Like BioShock
Quick Answer
The closest games to BioShock are BioShock Infinite, Prey, System Shock 2, Dishonored and SOMA. Below are 9 picks with the reason for each — what carries over from BioShock, and what does not.
What Made BioShock Work
BioShock is a shooter you play for the place. Rapture explains itself through audio logs and set dressing, the plasmids give you two very different hands, and the twist works because the systems set it up. What people want next is atmosphere and an immersive sim, not simply a first-person shooter.
BioShock is Irrational Games' 2007 first-person shooter, created by Ken Levine for Xbox 360 and PC and released on PS3 in 2008. It is set in 1960 in Rapture, an underwater city built by Andrew Ryan that has collapsed into civil war. You fight with guns and plasmids, genetic powers such as electricity and telekinesis, and learn the city's story through audio diaries and its environment. Fans usually want the atmosphere and the choice of approach — what the genre calls an immersive sim.
9 Games Like BioShock
1.BioShock Infinite
The sequel in spirit, and Columbia is as strong a setting as Rapture.
Why it fits: Irrational Games' 2013 game, also directed by Ken Levine, moves the series to Columbia, a flying city in 1912. Booker DeWitt fights with guns and vigors, the successor to plasmids, alongside Elizabeth, and the story ends up connected to BioShock's.
More about this game →2.Prey
The best immersive sim of the last decade, and the closest thing to a BioShock successor.
Why it fits: Arkane Studios' 2017 game, published by Bethesda, is set on the space station Talos I, overrun by shape-shifting aliens called the Typhon. Morgan Yu gains alien powers through neuromods, and the station can be explored and solved in many ways, much like Rapture.
More about this game →3.System Shock 2
Where BioShock came from, and still frightening.
Why it fits: Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios released it for PC in 1999, with Ken Levine among its writers. On the starship Von Braun you face the AI SHODAN using weapons and psychic powers, learning the story through audio logs — the model BioShock was built on.
More about this game →4.Dishonored
Powers plus a city with a coherent, dreadful history.
Why it fits: Arkane Studios' 2012 game, published by Bethesda, puts the assassin Corvo Attano in the plague-ridden city of Dunwall. Supernatural powers such as Blink combine with weapons and stealth, and levels can be completed without killing anyone.
More about this game →5.SOMA
For the underwater setting and a story that genuinely unsettles.
Why it fits: Frictional Games' 2015 horror game is set in PATHOS-II, an underwater research facility. There is almost no combat, and the story about consciousness and identity is told through the environment and recordings, which fits players who liked Rapture's setting and themes most.
More about this game →6.Half-Life 2
Environmental storytelling as the whole design philosophy.
Why it fits: Valve's 2004 shooter follows Gordon Freeman through City 17, a city under alien occupation. Its story is told almost entirely through the environment and characters rather than cutscenes, and the gravity gun made physics a weapon.
More about this game →7.Atomic Heart
Openly modelled on BioShock, down to the arm-mounted powers.
Why it fits: Mundfish's 2023 shooter is set in an alternate Soviet Union in 1955, where robots have gone rogue. Its polymer glove gives powers such as telekinesis and freezing, and its retro-futuristic world and utopia-gone-wrong story follow BioShock's model directly.
More about this game →8.Control
A building that is a character, and powers to tear it apart with.
Why it fits: Remedy Entertainment's 2019 game follows Jesse Faden inside the Oldest House, the shifting headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control. Telekinesis and other abilities combine with a changeable service weapon, and documents and recordings flesh out a strange world.
More about this game →9.Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
If the systemic freedom was the part you loved.
Why it fits: Eidos-Montréal's 2016 game follows Adam Jensen, an augmented agent, mainly in a near-future Prague. Stealth, hacking, talking and combat are all valid routes through each mission, which is the choice-driven side of BioShock taken further.
More about this game →
Where to Start
If you have not played BioShock Infinite, start there — it is the most direct follow-up. If you want the immersive-sim side, Prey is the best modern example and very close in spirit. For the history, System Shock 2 is where BioShock's design comes from.
How We Picked These Games
Every pick had to offer at least one of BioShock's key ingredients: a strong setting that tells its own story, combining powers with weapons, or the freedom to handle situations in different ways. We left out straightforward shooters, however good, because they miss what makes BioShock memorable.
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How These Picks Match BioShock
BioShock is catalogued here as a first-person shooter on the Xbox 360. Eight of the nine picks share at least one of its genre tags — eight shooters among them. The other one — SOMA — is a different genre and is on the list for one specific thing BioShock did, so read the reason before ruling it out.
SOMA is from a small or self-published studio.
| Game | Genre | Shares with BioShock |
|---|---|---|
| BioShock Infinite | Shooter, Action, Adventure | Shooter |
| Prey | Shooter, Action, Adventure | Shooter |
| System Shock 2 | Shooter, RPG, Adventure | Shooter |
| Dishonored | Action, Shooter, Adventure | Shooter |
| SOMA | Adventure, Action, Indie | Different genre — see the reason above |
| Half-Life 2 | Shooter, Action, Adventure | Shooter |
| Atomic Heart | Shooter, Action | Shooter |
| Control | Action, Shooter, Adventure | Shooter |
| Deus Ex: Mankind Divided | Shooter, RPG, Action | Shooter |
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