BioShock: The Collection announced for PC, PS4, and Xbox One

As with any medium, videogames are a diverse lot – some are good, some are bad, and some tend to permanently occupy a spot in our heads. Kind of like BioShock, which just so happens to be getting the remaster treatment later this year.

BioShock: The Collection packs BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite, and their respective single-player DLCs, into an all-inclusive US$59.99 (S$81) package that’s perfect for newcomers. And yes, you should play this if you haven’t.

Irrational Games bathed in critical acclaim following the release of BioShock in August 2007. Beyond the horrors of its underwater dystopia was a thinking man’s shooter, one that weaved excellent storytelling and production to present questions on morality. It sounds like a tired claim to make but Ken Levine and his team succeeded, and for a moment videogames were more than just about shooting digital people in the head.

Naturally, we got sequels out of it. BioShock 2 revisited the city of Rapture, albeit in the hands of a different protagonist and development team, while Irrational worked on crafting the floating city of Columbia for BioShock Infinite. Both, as it turns out, were masterful in their own right.

The games do have their share of problems though it doesn’t jeopardize their status as historic icons.

So what makes this bundle even more exciting is the inclusion of the following:

“The video series, “Director’s Commentary: Imagining BioShock,” featuring Ken Levine, creative director on BioShock and BioShock Infinite and Shawn Robertson, animation lead on BioShock and animation director on BioShock Infinite.”

This isn’t the first remaster the series has seen but it is the first for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. 2K worked with Blind Squirrel Games to reskin and retexture for modern hardware.

Yet they did leave the PC version of BioShock Infinite untouched as it “already meets current-gen console standards and runs smoothly on high visual settings.” It’s also worth mentioning that BioShock 2’s multiplayer mode is not included.

The question then is whether fans and current owners would be swayed by the remastered visuals and exclusive commentary. It’s a tough sell especially for PC gamers, who have the option of picking up all three games at steep discounts these days — provided they’re willing to troubleshoot potential OS compatibility issues, that is.

BioShock: The Collection releases on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 13, 2016.