Cult of Rapture

Do you want to know more about the upcoming single player DLC for BioShock 2, called the Protector Trials? Today Steve Gaynor, a Designer at 2K Marin who has been neck deep in Protector Trials as of late, gives you an overview of what to expect when you fire up the newest content and venture back into Rapture.

Hi, I'm Steve Gaynor, a Designer at 2K Marin working on BioShock 2's singleplayer DLC. By now you've seen the announcement and trailer for the Protector Trials, the first singleplayer DLC to be released for BioShock 2. That gives you the basics - it's a challenge package, based on protecting your Little Sister from waves of Splicers - but what makes the Protector Trials more than what you've already played in BioShock 2?

The short answer is that we've taken the ambush sequences from the game and built a whole new arcade mode around them, based on using specialized loadouts of weapons and Plasmids to fight for a perfect rank, unlocking special rewards.

How does it all work? There are six Trial Arenas, each based on an area you'll remember from BioShock 2. These areas have been reworked from the ground up to look unique and, above all, provide a new gameplay flow specially crafted for the Protector Trial challenges. Like the announcement said, each level has three difficulty settings, which we call "Trials." These aren't just extra waves of tougher Splicers though - each Trial in a level requires you to use a different, unique loadout, and devise how to use it most effectively. So the one-star Trial might give you your trusty shotgun, machine gun, Incinerate!, and some nasty alternate ammos. But on the toughest difficulty, we might only give you the Hack Tool and a couple of manipulation Plasmids like Decoy and Hypnotize to fight off the same horde. You'll have to master every tool in the BioShock 2 arsenal to pass these challenges.

Then there's the multiplier: Once you set down your Little Sister to gather, the multiplier starts ticking up - 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x - the longer she gathers uninterrupted. The higher the multiplier, the more efficiently she gathers ADAM, but if a Splicer grabs her it's back to 1x. The total amount of ADAM she's gathered by the end of the Trial determines your ranking, and a higher ranking mean greater rewards, so the only way to attain a perfect rank is to keep the Splicers away from her from start to finish. It's a tactical challenge that values not just twitch shooter skills, but your ability to combine the available tools into an unbreakable defensive perimeter.

What do you unlock by getting top rankings in each challenge? New achievements - 7 of them - as well as concept art (including teaser images for the upcoming story DLC) and animatics for story scenes that were cut from the main game. Finish every Trial and you can go back and wreak havoc on any arena with all your tools unlocked, including the ability to summon Eleanor to your side. To top it all off, by proving your mettle in the Trials, you'll unlock an exclusive tonic in an upcoming DLC which, when equipped, will cause twice as many Splicers to pile on for each ambush, but will reward you with double the ADAM you'd normally get (which trust me, you will need if you are going to stick around in Rapture.)

I hope you're looking forward to the Protector Trials! You might want to get a bit of practice in before its release on August 3rd if you've gotten rusty - believe me, these Trials are no cakewalk.

steve