The game can be completed in between three and five hours.

Opposing the player are enemies known as splicers-Rapture's residents who overused genetic modifications -along with other Big Daddies and automated security. The player must work with the scientist Charles Milton Porter to acquire the plans of his creation, a supercomputer known as the Thinker, and escape Rapture. The player character, Subject Sigma, is a Big Daddy, a person fused with an armored diving suit. The story takes place in the underwater city of Rapture in 1968, eight years after the events of BioShock and concurrent with the events of BioShock 2 's story mode, in the technological district of Minerva's Den. Like BioShock 2, Minerva's Den is a first-person shooter game. The experience of creating a small, story-focused project inspired Gaynor and other 2K employees to form The Fullbright Company and create Gone Home (2013).

It was well received by critics, who praised its story, characters, and gameplay reviewers, including those writing for Kotaku and Paste, considered it one of the best video game expansions of all time. Minerva's Den was initially released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in August 2010, and was later released and reissued on other platforms. The team decided upon a small, personal story about identity and free will, which explores an unseen part of the underwater city of Rapture. Minerva's Den was created by a small team within 2K Marin led by Steve Gaynor, who partly based the setting on ideas he discussed in his hiring interview. Gameplay is similar to that of BioShock 2, with new enemies and weapons. The player assumes the role of Subject Sigma, an armored human or ' Big Daddy' Sigma must travel through Minerva's Den, the technological hub of the underwater city of Rapture, to download a schematic of the city's supercomputer.

BioShock 2: Minerva's Den is a single-player downloadable content (DLC) campaign for the 2010 first-person shooter game BioShock 2, developed by 2K Marin and published by 2K Games.

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