Rapture? What's that? - Irrational Games releases original BioShock pitch document

Big Daddies. Little Sisters. Plasmids. Rapture. These are the things that come to mind when someone mentions BioShock.

The original BioShock pitch? Yeah, you can turn it upside-down and shake it all you want; you still won't find a single one of those iconic features.

As Ken Levine has suggested in the past, BioShock - as it was initially conceived - was a very, very different game. How different? Well, there were lobster people.

Starting with the first nine pages, Irrational plans to release the original pitch in its entirety.

"In the next few installments of From the Vault, we will divulge the myriad departures BioShock took from its original vision, but also show our readers just how much the game’s heart and soul stayed constant.   You will be made privy to our very first design concepts and original drafts of back-story.  You will read about game modes and features that fell by the wayside during the many years of production.  And you will stand in awe of visual interface mockups crafted by Mr. Ken Levine himself!" reads a post on the Irrational Games blog.  

Some of the pitch's highlights - like on-the-fly weapons modification and environmental manipulation - were probably simplified and rolled into the final product. The story, though, is a different beast entirely, more about religious cults, creepy islands, and science than the - now that we think about it - incredibly odd coupling of philosophy and dudes with drills for hands.

Click through the link for the first nine pages. It's enlightening stuff. Game developers, more of this, please.