Atlas (BioShock)

Levine originally thought of Morgan Freeman as a potential voice actor for Frank Fontaine and his alter ego Atlas, but did not act on recruiting Freeman due to budgetary concerns.[10] The character's original voice actor spoke like Freeman with a Southern drawl; this version of Atlas was featured in an internal critical playtest of BioShock which occurred in January 2007.[11][1] In the first game, the character is voiced by two different voice actors, Karl Hanover voices the character in his Atlas persona, up until the game's plot-twist, while Greg Baldwin voiced him when he is revealed to be Frank Fontaine. The decision to have Atlas voiced by two voice actors at the same time was to prevent players from guessing that Atlas and Fontaine are one and the same before the revelation in the plot-twist. Greg Baldwin did not reprise Frank Fontaine in the sequels, as a result, Karl Hanover continued to voice the character in the sequels, both as Frank Fontaine and Atlas. Karl Hanover was not credited for the first game as he was not a member of the Screen Actors Guild at the time of his hiring.[10]

When Hanover initially auditioned for the role, he was given a brief written paragraph of Atlas talking about in-universe concepts, and was asked to do an impression of an alcoholic Australian man as the character was originally written that way.[10] Although Hanover is from Dublin and his exposure to spoken Australian English was limited to his childhood memories of the long-running television show Neighbours, he was chosen for the role over several Australian actors who had auditioned as his performance was judged to be the most authentic by developmental team members who are based in Australia.[10] Levine was surprised by Hanover's shortlisting, but decided to choose him as the voice of Fontaine as well after he asked Hanover to record some lines of dialogue based on his own idea of how Danny DeVito would sound like.[10] Levine decided to accommodate Hanover's actual cultural background, and had the character of Atlas rewritten to be an Irishman after he was impressed with Hanover's line delivery in his normal speaking voice. Certain lines of dialogue were also altered to include more explicit mentions of Atlas' supposed Irish identity.[10] To develop the character's voice, Hanover was inspired by Gabriel Byrne's performance in the 1990 Miller's Crossing, where Byrne also delivered his lines in his native Dublin accent, but took care not to attempt an impression of Byrne in any way.[10] For Fontaine, Hanover was instructed to perform with a Chicago accent and use J. E. Freeman's Miller's Crossing character Eddie Dane as an archetype in order to convey his intimidating tone.[10]

The copy of the script which Hanover collected from his agent was about 40 pages long: aside from a collection of seemingly random lines spoken by Atlas and Fontaine, it did not include dialogue from any other characters, or any information about the in-game world of BioShock.[10] To record his lines, Hanover stood before a music stand and a script with a big window in a recording booth that is about twice the size of a typical phone booth, with his recording work overseen by Levine and a group of technicians.[10] Because he had no knowledge of any context behind the dialogue from reading the script, he had to be briefed with an overview of what they were trying to do prior to a recording session.[10] During each recording session, he was personally guided by Levine through the recording headset he wore: Levine would tell him what was happening during a given scene, and Hanover would say a line in response.[10] The recording lasted between four and five 8 hour days, as well as a few short supplementary sessions which he had to attend as a result of technical issues by caused the studio's mixing boxes.[10]

Hanover was unaware at the time of BioShock's development that his character's most famous line, "Would you kindly", was intended to be a plot device or that it is repeatedly used as a tool of manipulation with the player character because Levine never told him of its in-universe significance during their recording work.[10] Hanover noted in an interview that he would have framed it differently if he had the benefit of hindsight, but appreciated that Levine's direction for him to speak that phrase in a consistently nonchalant manner was a "clever" decision creatively.[10] Hanover had an overall positive experience working with Levine and the rest of the BioShock development team, and was excited at the prospect of working on further BioShock projects.[10] Hanover described his return to the role of Atlas/Fontaine in Burial at Sea and the expansion of the character's backstory as "wonderful", and that he had a better idea of how the world and the characters are supposed to look like.[12]

In BioShock, Atlas first makes contact with Jack, the sole survivor of a plane crash who discovers a bathysphere terminal in a nearby lighthouse that transports him to Rapture, via radio upon his arrival in Rapture. Atlas guides him to safety and claims that he is motivated to help Jack so that he could reach his wife Moira and son Patrick, who have been hiding out on a submarine in the Neptune's Bounty area, on his behalf. He tells Jack that the only way he can survive is to use the abilities granted by plasmids, and encourages him to kill the Little Sisters to extract their ADAM. Often using the phrase "Would you kindly..." in his messages to Jack, Atlas also regularly provides combat advice against Andrew Ryan's forces, which consist of Rapture's automated security systems and pheromone-controlled Splicers, human residents of Rapture who are physically mutated and mentally crazed as a result of excessive use of ADAM.

As Jack makes his way through the city, he learns about Rapture's history and fate through recovered audio logs, genetically induced ghostly playbacks of past events, and radio messages from Atlas. As a result of Ryan's strict ban of contact with the outside world in order to safeguard the secret of Rapture's existence, a black market in smuggled goods arose, which is dominated by a mobster named Frank Fontaine. Fontaine's wealth, combined with his access to scientific breakthroughs from the Rapture-based scientists Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum and Dr. Yi Suchong, soon gained him enough power and followers to challenge Ryan for control of the city. Following Fontaine's apparent death in late 1958 by Ryan's forces, Atlas emerged and took Fontaine's place as the leader of his opposition. On New Year's Eve that same year, Atlas and his ADAM-augmented followers started a riot. This sparked a civil war between Ryan and Atlas, ostensibly representing a class conflict between the upper and lower classes respectively, that eventually spread to all of Rapture, crippling the city.

When Jack arrives at a submarine which supposedly contains Atlas' family, Ryan has it detonated, which prompts an enraged Atlas to demand Ryan's death as reprisal. Jack eventually reaches Ryan, who reveals that Jack was in fact Ryan's son, born in Rapture only two years prior and was genetically modified by Suchong to mature rapidly. Ryan informs Jack that he was designed to obey orders from Atlas when addressed with a trigger phrase, then sent to the surface after the civil war in Rapture began. Ryan, determined to die on his terms, compels Jack to kill him using the trigger phrase "Would you kindly...".

Atlas, now in control of Rapture, reveals his true identity as Fontaine, who faked his death and disguised himself. With Ryan dead, Fontaine no longer needs Jack, and leaves him at the mercy of the reactivated security systems. Tenenbaum and her Little Sisters intervene and help Jack escape through a ventilation duct. Tenenbaum deactivates some of Jack's mental conditioning and assists him in breaking the remainder, including one activated by Fontaine that would have eventually stopped his heart. During Jack's subsequent pursuit of Fontaine, Tenanbaum instructs Jack to assemble a Big Daddy bodysuit, and follow the rescued Little Sisters through the passageways that only they can open. By the time Jack reaches Fontaine, he has injected himself with vast amounts of ADAM, severely mutating his body. Jack manages to defeat Fontaine, while the Little Sisters swarm and stab him to death with their ADAM needles.

In the 2010 sequel BioShock 2, the player character may encounter a handful of voiced diary recordings by Atlas/Fontaine as collectible items. In one recording, Fontaine muses about Sofia Lamb's status in Rapture and her falling out with Andrew Ryan. In another recording, he reflects on his decision to adopt the guise of Atlas.[13]

BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea, set before the events of the first BioShock, reveals that Fontaine's forces are confined to a building that housed Fontaine's Departmental Stores, which has been forcibly sunk to the bottom of the ocean on Ryan's orders. Having already assumed his Atlas guise by the events of Episode Two, he discovers an unconscious Elizabeth and a Little Sister named Sally following the events of Episode One. Atlas was prepared to order her death, but Elizabeth claims that she is Dr. Suchong's assistant and knows where to find him. Atlas allows Elizabeth to leave on her way, but takes Sally as a hostage. Elizabeth discovers Suchong's secret laboratory where a portal to Columbia can be opened, and makes an offer to Atlas: in exchange for Sally's safe return to her, she would retrieve the same technology that keeps Columbia afloat to lift the Fontaine building off the sea floor.

Although Elizabeth successfully completes the task of returning the building back to Rapture's depth, Atlas reneges on their agreement. He orders his followers to incapacitate her, and starts a civil conflict against Ryan. Desperate to locate Suchong and his "ace in the hole" to be used against Ryan, Atlas interrogates and tortures Elizabeth about Suchong's exact whereabouts, but fails to glean any useful information from her on each occasion until he directly threatens Sally. Elizabeth has a momentary vision in response to the stressor, and realizes that Suchong is in his clinic guarded by Ryan's security systems that are keyed to repel Atlas and his men by their DNA. Atlas sends Elizabeth in to retrieve Suchong, only to witness his murder by a rogue Big Daddy. Fearing the "ace in the hole" lost, she finds a piece of paper with a coded message, has another vision, and realizes she has found what Atlas is looking for. She returns the paper to Atlas, and decodes the message for him: "Would you kindly?" Atlas realizes this is the trigger phrase that Suchong has implanted in Jack, the illegitimate son of Ryan that Atlas has sent to the surface. Atlas orders his men to make arrangements for Jack to come to Rapture, and then delivers a fatal blow to Elizabeth, leaving her to spend her final moments with Sally.

Ryan Lizardi found that BioShock presents a complication of the traditionally accepted view of the 1950s and 60s in the United States. Highlighting the fact that theorists who assessed media representations from that era as being overly optimistic and idealistic about its own perceived wholesomeness, Lizardi notes that Bioshock players are presented with an underwater dystopia where the ideologies of the objectivist Andrew Ryan and nihilist Frank Fontaine are counterposed as a subversive examination of that era's accepted ideologies.[24]