Why We Remember Bioshock's Fort Frolic

The city of Rapture is filled with freaks and weirdos. Most of the major levels in Bioshock feature some psychopathic villain who taunts you over the radio, and then tries to kill you in a climactic boss fight. DR. STEINMAN: Ugly! Ugly! There's mob boss Frank Fontaine and the city's founder, Andrew Ryan. There's the smuggler Peach Wilkins, and the plastic surgeon Dr Steinman. But there's one who stands out amongst the rest: the tortured artist Sander Cohen. This gross dude - with his pancaked makeup and waxy moustache - is perhaps the most unhinged of them all. And more than any other character, Cohen dominates his level, Fort Frolic.

This part of the game is often held up as one of the best in Bioshock 1, if not the whole series. So in this video I want to look closely at Sander Cohen and Fort Frolic, and figure out why they became so beloved. This is Game Maker's Toolkit, I'm Mark Brown, and welcome... SANDER COHEN: To an evening with Sander Cohen. Fort Frolic is Rapture's neon-lit shopping and culture district which houses record stores, tobacco shops, theatres, and casinos. It's meant to be a short stopover on your journey from Arcadia to Hephaestus, but Sander Cohen hijacks your bathysphere - replacing it with a giant rabbit mask and cirque-du-soleil dancers.

And he hijacks your radio, too, shutting off Atlas and Andrew Ryan. SANDER COHEN: Atlas, Ryan. Atlas, Ryan. Time was, you could get something decent on the radio. The radio is one example of how Fort Frolic is all about Sander Cohen. Also, the shops and rooms are filled with his twisted artwork, including a plaster cast family, and ballet dancers with bin bags on their heads. Plus, almost all of the radio diaries are by, or about Cohen.

SANDER COHEN: Of all the worthy artists in rapture, why you continue to devote column inches to this musical gremlin is beyond my imagination. And, of course, he calls the shots and sets your goals, and your first job is to go to Fleet Hall theatre. Here you'll meet Kyle Fitzpatrick, a poor sap strapped to a booby trapped piano. He tries to escape and... Cohen asks you to photograph Fitzpatrick's body, then return to the atrium and place it in a creepy photo frame. You're rewarded with a crossbow.

This provides a nice tutorial for what you'll be doing in the rest of Fort Frolic, because Cohen asks you to hunt down three of his protégés, murder them, take their picture, and put them on the frame. He then opens up the door to Poseidon Plaza and now, after being trapped in the atrium, the entirety of Fort Frolic is open to you. You can wander as you see fit, take on the three targets in any order you like, and that cheeky compass arrow disappears so you have to explore the shops on your own, and simply stumble upon the three men.

Before we get to them, let's talk about Poseidon Plaza. For one, the level makes good use of massive signs and the sensible layout of a shopping mall to help orientate the player. After exploring a shop you'll return to the central area, then find somewhere new to explore. But while the architecture is helpful and familiar, the enemies aim to destabilise you. Instead of picking stronger or faster enemies for the seventh level in the game, Fort Frolic matches Cohen's unhinged personality with creepy and unpredictable foes.

The mall is crawling with spider splicers - the ones that scuttle about on the ceiling. And with the dark recesses of the mall's lower floor and the game's excellent audio design you're more likely to hear these enemies than see them. SPLICER: Come on! I just wanna talk to somebody! That's not the case for the plaster splicers. So you go to Sinclair Spirits and there are six plaster statues of splicers. Which are pretty creepy. There's another one here and one on the chair here.

And a gun upgrade station! These are very valuable as they're one use only and there aren't many in the game so you use it, and you turn around, and oh my god. Okay, jump scares are a bit cheap but when used sparingly they're powerful. And things are much more subtle from there. All those statues are now gone and Poseidon Plaza is now crawling with the creepiest enemy in the game. These splicers don't cackle and chatter and sing and yell. They're silent. The only way you'll hear them is if you hear ceiling tiles cracking and falling.

And plaster splicers are programmed to randomly spawn where you're not looking, in static, statuesque poses and likely in a place where you've already explored. And they get you in this basement too - wade through the water, get these items, turn around and - yeah. Spooky. And the funny thing is that they only spawn if you use that gun upgrade station, and you'll never see them if you don't. Other splicers trigger only if you pick up upgrades or only if you loot safes. They have a habit of catching you unaware.

This general air of creepiness is not surprising when you learn that Fort Frolic is designed primarily by a man named Jordan Thomas, who made the infamously creepy Robbing the Cradle level in Thief 3. LAURYL: I can hear you breathing. Nobody here in the Cradle does that anymore. Anyway, back to our quest. The three men you have to kill give you three very different encounters. Martin Finnegan is in the frozen tunnel and he psyches you out by hiding amongst a group of ice statues. Silas Cobb offers a more traditional battle, as you fight off a bunch of splicers before offing Cobb himself. And Hector Rodriguez has no big battle - but he only appears after you hit a poignant narrative moment, that ties into the larger BioShock story.

Each time you take their picture and place it on Cohen's artwork - you can go back and forth or just collect all three pictures and then return them in one go. Up to you. But each picture you place grants you a reward. Though, after the third picture, Cohen takes a turn and throws a bunch of enemies at you. This isn't quite what it seems, though. For one, it's set to music - Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker - and the enemies have purposefully been given very little health so they die almost instantly.

You realise that you're putting on a show for Cohen, performing a twisted ballet. According to Thomas, some "players did pick up on the joke and, despite being creeped out by the level, would time their wrench strikes to go with each crescendo, recognising that they were being asked to dance". And I think this is what really makes Cohen's level so interesting. You don't fight Sander Cohen - you collaborate with him on his snuff photography project, and perform for him on this deadly dance. And throughout the level, a spotlight chases you, lighting you up like a theatrical actor. You're always part of his show.

And so, after placing the fourth photo and finishing the piece, Cohen doesn't try and gun you down like all the other antagonists in Bioshock. He appears, he admires your joint efforts, he awards you a prize, and he lets you go on your way. He's one of the only humans in Rapture who just... stands there. Not behind bulletproof glass and not trying to kill you. You can kill him. The fight's hard but you'll get a key to his other treasure. Or you can leave him be. And there isn't some obvious press this button or press that button moral choice that you might get in a completely different game like... uh... Bioshock.

Sander Cohen is different to the other bosses. Later, Andrew Ryan says... ANDREW RYAN: And now, he rots in that never-land, waiting for someone to come and tell him he's still got it. I suppose that's why he let you live. Cohen is afraid of not being appreciated, and he has pushed away anyone who didn't see eye to eye with his vision and his ideals. And so you bypass him, and exit Fort Frolic, not by murdering him and his goons - but by respecting his artistic vision. No matter how twisted it is.

And this relationship with Cohen doesn't happen in a cutscene, but through the game's most basic mechanics. And, remember, Bioshock is a shooter. It doesn't have a dialogue system where you can talk the murderous psychopath around with logic or pheromones. This is a game where you interact exclusively through shooting things with bullets or bees, or maybe a camera you got earlier in the game that makes it easier to murder things.

And so yes, the game involves violence and yes you have to kill people. But you don't have to kill Sander and he doesn't try to kill you. SANDER COHEN: Oh yes, you may avail yourself of one of my lesser works as a token of our time together. Even later in the game, if you happen to find his apartment, he'll only attack you if you disrupt these dancing splicers. SANDER COHEN: Don't dare rattle their rhythm! If you respect his art and leave him be, you and Sander Cohen will go your separate ways.

So with Sander Cohen, and in Fort Frolic, Bioshock managed to find a very different way to explore a very different type of antagonist. You got to see the world through his eyes. You had to perform for him. You got to collaborate with him. All through the usual mechanics of killing and mayhem. And then, at the end, you got to make a choice. Does he deserve to die for what's he done? Or do you have some sympathy for him? Is he any worse than you?

And with all that - the creepy enemies, the varied encounters, the smart level design, a unique relationship with an antagonist told through shooter mechanics, and an organic moral choice - I don't think it's any surprise why Fort Frolic has cemented itself as one of the most memorable parts of the entire Bioshock series. SANDER COHEN: Now... GO. Thanks for watching. You can help the show by liking the video, commenting on it, subscribing to my channel, and - of course - supporting the show on Patreon. Here are this month's top tier supporters.