Your journey begins simple, a plane flight across the Atlantic Ocean in the year of 1960. A cigarette in your hand is a defining sign of the times, and the gift in your other hand is for your parents who you are going to see. At least you are until it happens.

Everything goes black, and when you awaken things are not as they should be. For starters, you are no longer in a plane, but underwater with pieces of luggage and plane parts go crashing past. Your plane has taken a dive into the ocean.

Struggling, you make your way to the only land you can see, a single building on a tiny man-made island. The lights turn on as you enter, as if it was expecting you to arrive at just that moment. You continue on into the depths of this building to find a bathysphere.

Seeing as you don't have much else to do, being in the middle of the Atlantic and all, you get in and pull the switch. The bathysphere door closes, and it begins to be lowered into the water, going deeper and deeper as you watch, until as screen raises in front of your eyes.

A pre-recorded message comes up from a man named Andrew Ryan. He speaks of injustice for the common man done by governments and religion. He speaks of a better life, one that can wisp them away from the confines of life on the surface. He speaks of his city he has created, Rapture.

As the film ends and the screen lowers you are given your first view of the city of Rapture, here on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Rapture itself seems like it will be a great place, that is, until you actually get into Rapture and see what is really happening.

You arrive in the bathysphere just in time to see a man pleading for his life against what may or may not be a human. It's hard to tell in the dark; all you can see for sure is that it isn't friendly. Whatever he is pleading with quickly kills him, making sure to give him a good look in the eyes as he dies. That's when you hear the radio.

A small radio inside the bathysphere starts making noise, and you pick it up. The man on the other end introduces himself as Atlas. He offers to help you, as long as you are willing to trust and help him. First, he guides you out of the bathysphere, and tells you that what you have just seen is a Splicer. It used to be human, but genetic modifications have made sure it isn't anymore, even if it still speaks like one.

After making short work of the Splicer you go deeper into Rapture, and this is where you discover your first little thing known as a Plasmid. You inject it into your arm, and before you can even react, you have fallen over the ledge onto the ground. This is when you see a strange little girl being followed around by something in a big suit of metal.

When you finally come around back to the world of the living, Atlas explains to you about your new powers, the power of the Plasmid. You use your new found powers to progress further into Rapture, and Atlas explains that his wife and child are still trapped in the city and need your help. Fair enough, he did help you live through the Splicer earlier.

As you are walking along, you see one of those little girls again. Atlas comes back on the radio and explains that what you have seen is a Little Sister, and the big thing that follows her around is a Big Daddy. He explains that Little Sisters carry Adam, the key to life in rapture, the key to the plasmids and the mutations.

As you progress into the city of Rapture you will meet many colorful characters, both working with you and against you. The story of Rapture and its people will unfold, and things will begin to slowly make more sense. Rest assured that the storyline here is very deep and engrossing, but writing about it further would only harm the experience for you, and I just don't feel right doing that to you on such a fantastic story.