FALL 2025

SYSTEM SHOCK 2 & THE ENLIGHTENED CENTRISM OF KEN LEVINE

SYSTEM SHOCK 2 & THE ENLIGHTENED CENTRISM OF KEN LEVINE

by JD Harlock

Years following its release, Ken Levine’s BioShock Infinite remains infamous for its ‘enlightened’ centrist take on its ‘extremist’ antagonist, incomprehensibly equating the revolutionary Vox Populi with the ultranationalist Columbian establishment. Critically, this was not the first time Levine had attempted this storytelling technique to limited success, having first utilized it in the spiritual predecessor of Bioshock, System Shock 2, with mixed results.

Co-developed by Looking Glass Studios and Irrational Games, System Shock 2 was an FPS scripted and designed by Ken Levine and published by Electronic Arts in 1999 to lasting critical acclaim. Even though System Shock 2 failed to meet initial commercial expectations, it became one of the most influential titles in its subgenre due to its unique blend of survival horror, immersive sim, and RPG elements. Similar to what was presented in Bioshock Infinite, System Shock 2 featured antagonists intended to represent the ‘extremes’ of the ideologies it was critiquing while also acting as the focal point of said critique. In this case, out-of-control individualism (i.e., a philosophical stance that values the autonomy, rights, and moral worth of the individual) and collectivism (i.e., a philosophical stance that values the goals, interests, and wellbeing of the collective as a whole above that of the individual) serve as warnings against corporate greed, unchecked scientific ambition, blind faith, and idolatry.

In turn, it cautions against the extremes of pure egoism and pure collectivism in favor of the ‘enlightened’ center that cuts through them to preserve our personal identities with self-regulated moderation. To convey this message to the player, Levine created over-the-top caricatures of individualism and collectivism through his antagonists, which blatantly misrepresented them, while utilizing their supposed logical extremes as a vessel for cheap horror tropes. Even though it isn’t as egregious as Bioshock Infinite’s careless sociopolitical stance, what we’re left with in System Shock 2 is just as problematic in its pseudo-intellectual analysis, and, as I break down the premise of System Shock 2, the failure of Levine’s enlightened centrism becomes clear.

Due to the anti-corporate outrage caused by the catastrophe at TriOptimum Corporation in System Shock, the Unified National Nominate (UNN) was formed as a quasi-socialist world government. Under a TriOptimum grant, a UNN scientist cracks faster-than-light travel, leading the UNN to mount a joint mission with TriOptimum to Tau Ceti on the UNN Von Braun. System Shock 2 starts with the reawakening of the player character Soldier G65434-2, a cybernetically-enhanced super soldier, from his cryosleep on the Von Braun. Soon, he is thrust into a power struggle that has broken out between SHODAN, a misanthropic AI with a God Complex bent on dominating all organic matter — meant to represent individualism — and The Many, a telekinetic race of evolved parasites who wish to assimilate all organic matter into their gestalt — meant to represent collectivism.

In stark contrast to SHODAN, who detests Soldier G65434-2, The Many sympathize with him, responding to his resistance with confusion, unaware of the torment their assimilation causes. Viewing individualism and its associated free will as failings, The Many aim to cleanse humanity of its self-destructive tendencies with this assimilation, convinced that all life that refuses must be forcibly joined or else be exterminated. Credit to Levine where it’s due, lesser developers would have had The Many turn out to be hypocrites, but The Many in System Shock 2 truly wish to share their unity. However, the hivemind structure of The Many is far more reminiscent of a cult in the colloquial sense, not just a collective. Although there is no agreed-upon interdisciplinary definition of cults in academia, a common conception of cults is that of a fanatical religious group possessing unorthodox beliefs demanding utmost devotion from followers through coercive tactics while isolating them from mainstream society.

This definition fits The Many to a T. As such, it’s suitable as an allegorical tool for The Many to represent the pitfalls of cults, specifically, rather than the failings of collectivism in general. Even if Levine is claiming that collectives can devolve into cults, this scenario is less likely than the counterpoint Levine offers with SHODAN, where a hyperindividualist becomes a megalomaniac. Since The Many are the primary focus of Levine’s critiques of collectivism in System Shock 2, the game never really ends up critiquing collectivism as it claims to; it only critiques a hypothetical ramification — one that ironically leaders like SHODAN are more likely to lead to once they amass a following with their cults of personality, as history can repeatedly attest.

Worse yet, the consequences of ‘collectivism,’ in particular, are represented through excessive speculative metaphors. Having your personal identity wiped out within a ‘collective’ is no doubt demoralizing. Still, it’s in no way comparable to the horrific body horror that assimilation leads to in System Shock 2. Conversely, the consequences of the failures of ‘individualism’ in System Shock 2 aren’t portrayed in as abstract a manner. SHODAN’s self-inflated sense of superiority causes her to underestimate and disregard humans, leaving her vulnerable against enemies who pose a real threat without allies around to assist. If Levine wanted to be fair and balanced in this regard, he could have shown that The Many struggled as a collective in fending off SHODAN because it’s slower to respond or can’t decide on a plan of action due to having to balance different parties’ concerns.

In Levine’s refusal to engage with each ideology properly, we equate behavioral conditioning masquerading as collectivism with the outrageous narcissism masquerading as individualism that has caused so much more irreparable harm to humanity in the modern era. Regardless of whether System Shock 2 was ever intended to provide any concrete answers, what is the solution that players take away with them after beating the game?

Even though it never states it outright, System Shock 2 implicitly advocates for a form of centrism, where our ambition must be tempered, but never absolutized or collectivized. What little hope to be found in System Shock 2 lies in us, Soldier G65434-2, the critically thinking, adapting, resisting entity who stands firm in the face of the faceless masses without letting it go to his head. Unfortunately, these romantic notions are only feasible on the interpersonal level. However, Levine’s sociopolitical commentary throughout System Shock 2 — communicated through the conflicts between CEO Anatoly Korenchkin & Captain William Bedford Diego, up to that of TriOptimum & the UNN, and all the way to that of SHODAN & The Many — makes it clear that this critique transcends the conflicts between individualism and collectivism in our day-to-day lives to irresponsibly remark on higher concepts that Levine as a creative was incapable of tackling. Of course, System Shock 2’s moralizing wasn’t as heinous as what the public pressured Levine to backtrack on with BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea, but a closer look at System Shock 2 shows that it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to those who were a fan of Bioshock’s leftist leanings, because the subtext of System Shock 2 shows that Levine was always a well-intentioned but very, very misguided centrist.