Rapture has never looked better, thanks to one BioShock fan.
That fan, Ross Littlejohn, took the first game in the BioShock franchise and gave it a fresh update by recreating the game's Medical Pavilion in Unreal Engine 4, and the result makes Rapture look as crisp and clear as ever: it's almost as if you can reach out and touch that fictional world.
BioShock first released in 2007, and at the time, the game's graphics, built with Unreal Engine 2.5, were top-notch. The title took players under the sea to the abandoned city of Rapture, where gamers had their first encounters with Big Daddys, Little Sisters and Splicers. That title launched a sequel, BioShock 2, as well as a third game in the franchise, BioShock Infinite.
In BioShock, players become Jack, the only survivor of a plane crash that lands him in the middle of the ocean. Jack finds his way to a nearby lighthouse, which sends him underwater to what's left of the 1960s idealistic city of Rapture. There, Jack uncovers what happened to the city and why it, ultimately, failed.
Here's a video of what an updated version of BioShock would look like:
Littlejohn also posted several screen shots of the recreated environments of the game.
Littlejohn recreated this part of BioShock as part of a university course. A lot of love and attention went into his work.
"I modeled and textured all assets, aside from the foliage and some original Bioshock artwork such as the posters and vending machine decals," he wrote on the Unreal Engine forums.
This could give fans of the franchise an idea of what a remastered BioShock might look like, especially considering that it's likely that a BioShock Collection will head to the PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. There's no confirmation of that collection existing yet, but rumors persist, along with game ratings and retailer leaks, that gamers will see it soon.
If this is what that collection ends up looking like, BioShock fans will throw their money at retailers for a chance to revisit the new and improved Rapture, as well as Columbia, the city in the clouds of BioShock Infinite.
