BioShock 3D is a 2010 port of the original game developed by Studio Tridev - part of Indiagames - for mobile phones. Not iPhones with proper graphics processors, but the old Verizon kind of phones. Only the first four levels were ever publically released, but a YouTube video has surfaced with more levels, even protagonist Jack's meeting with Andrew Ryan. TheGamer reached out to former Tridev developer Poornima Seetharaman who confirmed the footage is real.
The new footage was first spotted by GamesHub, and doesn't have any audio from BioShock 3D - it uses sound from BioShock Remastered for emphasis. It shows Jack wandering through Rapture before arriving at Andrew Ryan's residence, where that very famous twist occurs and a cutscene involving a golf club plays out - The Last of Us Part 2 eat your heart out.
TheGamer reached out to former Tridev developer Poornima Seetharaman, BioShock 3D's lead designer. "Yes, these are the levels we had made," Seetharaman confirmed.
Seetharaman was fairly sure the released footage was from the final build of the levels, but due to the iterative nature of game design couldn't be 100 percent certain. "Not sure if they were the finally final ones, you know how it is with game development. But yes! If memory serves right, these are almost final if not 100%."
In an interview with IGN, Seetharaman and more of the Tridev developers spoke about the challenges and obstacles faced with managing a triple-A studio's expectations for what a port of a critically acclaimed game should look like and the technological limitations of mobile phones back then.
"From the design side of things, I had actually cut down a few levels that weren’t contributing to the main storyline," Seetharaman told IGN. The newly released footage is from planned levels that simply never made it to the public, not cut content, but Seetharaman told TheGamer she's "glad to see [the levels] after so many years," she lamented the fact the Tridev team "never finished making the final boss level," so it's unlikely we'll ever see clear footage of Jack's fight with a monstrous Fontaine.