Ken Levine apologises for BioShock's final boss battle

Earlier this year, Pip asked: More than a decade on, does BioShock still hold up? I mean, it's no secret that its final boss battle was a bit of a stinker. Somewhat surprisingly, Ken Levine has now apologised.

To mark this year's Day of Atonement—the holiest day of the year in Judaism—the series director expressed sorrow "for the naked Atlas boss battle" at the end of the first game.

Today is the Jewish day of atonement, it seems. So I'm here to apologize for the naked Atlas boss battle at the end of BioShock. pic.twitter.com/UeaEWV717QSeptember 19, 2018

The seriousness of the tweet is hard to gauge, but I imagine it's said tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless, the apology follows Levine's admission last year that the game's ultimate set-to was "terrible."

In conversation with Glixel, Levine said: "You have this great game, and then you end up fighting this giant nude dude. We didn't have a better idea."

Which seems almost too obvious now. As for the apology, I'm taking Levine on his word.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Sarah started as a freelance writer in 2018, writing for PCGamesN, TechRadar, GamingBible, Red Bull Gaming and more. In 2021, she was offered a full-time position on the PC Gamer team where she takes every possible opportunity to talk about World of Warcraft and Elden Ring. When not writing guides, most of her spare time is spent in Azeroth—though she's quite partial to JRPGs too. One of her fondest hopes is to one day play through the ending of Final Fantasy X without breaking down into a sobbing heap. She probably has more wolves in Valheim than you.