"No Gods or Kings, Only Man." No higher authority than that of reason and rationality. A place where "the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small." As videogame intros go, few are as ambitious, or as forthright, as the protagonist's descent into the murky depths that envelop Bioshock's underwater city of Rapture. Fewer still are as effective nearly a decade on. Whether players realise it or not, those words—No Gods or Kings, Only Man—plastered above the golden visage of the game's big bad, Andrew Ryan (an interesting contradiction in itself), set a tone that's carried through the entirety of the game.

It's a mighty ambitious tone too. Objectivism—a controversial political philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand in the mid-20th century—is what stands between Bioshock having a hokey sci-fi plot, and one that gives it worth well beyond its now-waning technical offerings. What is objectivism? In short, it's the idea that society flourishes if each of its members focuses on their own self-interests over the interests of others, and without heavy-handed intervention from the state. In doing so, the theory runs that each person creates a personal situation where they feel accomplished and happy. Ultimately, society rules itself, "without Gods or Kings."

Objectivism in Bioshock is seemingly presented as a failure. When you arrive in Rapture, the city has already fallen into chaos and decay, the vast majority of its surviving inhabitants having been consumed by the gene-altering "plasmids" that instil both superpowers and insanity on its users. But the real message of the game goes deeper than this simple warning. Rapture's founder and ruler, Andrew Ryan, is Bioshock's less-than-subtle embodiment of Ayn Rand. Both Rand and Ryan grew up in the Soviet Union under strict communist governments, experiencing the kind of poverty and injustice that sometimes results from a system where individual liberty is side-lined in favour of helping the whole.

In Bioshock, Ryan moves to the United States to escape communism, and in doing so uses his intelligence and foresight to become a wealthy businessman in the comparatively free West. His American Dream doesn't last long, though; in the face of the economic depression caused by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the US government takes more control over its financial systems in order to prevent the same economic catastrophe from happening again. Ryan's days of being able to act as pleases in his pursuit of his own self-interests are over. Having seen the pain that he believes communism and an active state can cause, Ryan concocts a plan to build the ultimate objectivist paradise, an underwater city free from the stranglehold of state influence, where the best and brightest are free to do as they see fit.

For a while, as depicted by the backstory that the player uncovers throughout the game, Rapture is the thriving, progressive place that Ryan dreamt of. Scientists are free from ethical complaints, while capitalists are unbound from overwhelming taxation and bureaucracy. Of course, it all goes wrong.

But it isn't the idea of working towards self-interests that brings Rapture down, nor is Bioshock necessarily the scathing critique of objectivism as which it is so often portrayed. Instead, as is often the case, what destroys Rapture is succinctly summed up by that most famous of sayings: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ultimately, it is Andrew Ryan and his abandonment of objectivism that brings Rapture to its knees. Ryan is so fearful that Rapture is going to be influenced by the outside world that he bans any interaction with it, and becomes suspicious to the point of madness. The city must be self-sustaining, he thinks, just as each person within must work to sustain themselves.

The very idea of placing limits on what can and can't be thought, or what can and can't be bought and sold, stands in conflict with two objectivist principles: that the government shouldn't have too much influence over its citizens, and that people should be able to act in whichever way best serves their own interests. If importing something not created in Rapture, or interacting with a person outside of the city, is the way in which an individual can make best use of their skills, then objectivist theory runs that the government shouldn't be allowed to prevent that from happening.

Ryan's abuse of power—at least in the context of objectivism—results in Rapture's population becoming disillusioned and coming to believe that his goals are more aligned with retaining power than they are about providing the truly free society they've all moved there to create. It's here that Frank Fontaine, arch enemy of Andrew Ryan, comes into play. This master criminal is able to take advantage of people's desire for foreign imports by setting up a lucrative black market, eventually becoming so rich and influential that—in the guise of Atlas, an explicit reference to Ayn Rand's influential novel Atlas Shrugged—Fontaine engages Ryan in the civil war that brings down Rapture.

Again, Bioshock should be read not so much as an attack on the idea of objectivism as as an attack on the way that the power and control required to build something like Rapture invariably corrupts the individual that wields it. If Ryan had been prepared to relinquish that power and allow objectivist ideas to truly flourish, then it's possible Rapture could have continued unhindered. If there's no power to fight against, then Fontaine would have had nothing to use as a galvanising force to cause Rapture's population to rise up. Objectivism made Ryan the man he was, and it made Rapture the incredible place that it was. It was the abandonment of objectivism that destroyed both, and turned Ryan into the type of king that he had so desperately despised in his former life.

It's interesting to note that one of the events in Ryan's backstory that triggers him to lose belief in America is the country's use of atomic weaponry against Japan. To Ryan, the atomic bomb and the idea that science could be harnessed for destruction to serve the many (or the "parasites," as he calls them), is the ultimate corruption of his ideals. And yet it's Ryan who seeks to destroy Fontaine as soon as he can't be controlled.

Ryan seems to have believed that he was working under the principles of objectivism by retaining power over Rapture as a means to serve his self-interests. Is that really the case? Does clutching to power inherently serve your interests when the refusal to give up power is what causes your demise? Bioshock questions the ability of those seeking power to serve their own interests, let alone the interests of those they have power over. Objectivism states that you should work towards personal happiness first, and the happiness of others second. But If you're in a position of power, in which you are expected to provide a framework (Rapture) for others to work towards personal happiness, how can you do that if you've not found happiness yourself?

If we abandon rationality and lose sight of our wider goals then we're always in danger, as Ryan found out, of destroying that society into which so much hard work has already been ploughed and so much success already been harvested. As a piece of literature depicting this most self-destructive trait of mankind, Bioshock continues to stand as a rare example of a game worth playing today and tomorrow.

BioShock: The Collection, a remastered collection of BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite, is set for release September 13 in the US and September 16 in the UK for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.