It's 1960. You're enjoying a cigarette on board a small plane headed across the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night. You admire the family picture in your wallet and take a quick look at the gift you're carrying from "Mom & Dad" before the unthinkable happens - an explosion rocks the plane and you crash into the dark sea. Flames lick the surface of the water, but luckily there's just enough room for you to swim to a nearby... tower? With your life in peril, you'll cast aside any questions you have about the convenience of a tower being nearby and slog your way inside.

The tower's ominous doors shut behind you and you're left in pitch darkness for a brief second before the lights turn on and you're able to examine your surroundings. An enormous bronze likeness of a man you'll come to know as Andrew Ryan hangs before you, clinging to a banner that reads "NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MAN." An old tune from the 1940's plays in the background. The staircase before you leads down into a circular room with plaques that celebrate man's greatest achievements - art, science, and industry. At the base of the chamber, resting on a bed of water, is some sort of spherical transportation device. With nowhere else to go, step inside and pull the bathysphere lever.

As you descend deep into the ocean, you're treated to a short film narrated by Andrew Ryan. Posing the question, "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?," Ryan describes his reasons why he chose to do the impossible - to build a city on the bottom of the ocean. Rapture, as it's called, is a place where the earth's hard-working people can come to truly earn back what they're willing to put into it. No government, no church, no boundaries. Instead, Rapture was designed to provide its residents whatever it is that they're willing to work for.

When the film finishes, you'll finally get to marvel at Rapture's amazing construction as the bathysphere begins to navigate its structures and head into the main Rapture Transit Authority tunnel. The tunnel's inscription of "All Good Things Of This Earth Flow Into The City" is the last thing you'll see before the bathysphere reaches the final stretch of your journey and the game officially begins. Welcome to Rapture, Jack.