Andrew Ryan (BioShock)

Andrew Ryan
BioShock series character
Andrew Ryan in BioShock (2007)
First game	BioShock (2007)
Created by	Ken Levine
Voiced by	Armin Shimerman

Andrew Ryan is a fictional character in the BioShock video game series developed by Irrational Games. He serves as the primary antagonist of the first half of the first BioShock and a minor character in its sequel, BioShock 2. Ryan is an idealistic business magnate in the 1940s and 1950s; seeking to avoid scrutiny from governments and other oversight, he ordered the secret construction of an underwater city, Rapture. When Ryan's vision for a utopia in Rapture collapsed into dystopia, he hid himself away and used armies of mutated humans, "Splicers", to defend himself and fight against those resisting him, including the player-character Jack within the first game.

Ryan was created by Irrational Games' Ken Levine, based on figures like Ayn Rand, Howard Hughes, and Walt Disney. The character has received significant praise from critics, with Electronic Gaming Monthly ranking him ninth on their list of top ten video game politicians. He is voiced by Armin Shimerman, whose voice acting was cited as one of the contributing factors to the success of BioShock as it won "Best Use of Sound" from IGN. Ryan has been compared to several different real-life and fictional figures, his world of Rapture compared to the world of Galt's Gulch in the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged.

BioShock director Ken Levine described Andrew Ryan as a character of ideals, in contrast to the game's other antagonist, Frank Fontaine, who has no ideals. Designing the encounter between the player and Ryan was a controversial decision for the developers, due to the question of what the player's motive is at this point. Ryan taking his own life to prevent Jack, the protagonist, from accomplishing this, was described as the "ultimate insult" by Levine. The scene took a long time for the developers to finish. Levine stated that they figured out who the character of Andrew Ryan is too early, adding that they underestimated the impact that this would make. While he is saner than the opponents the players encounter before him, including a plastic surgeon who takes his ideal of beauty too far, he is as unmovable as they are, unwilling to change his ideals. When discussing how many people would get the good ending to BioShock, he commented that Ryan would not, choosing to take the easier path.