This real-life Andrew Ryan is building a Rapture for hamsters

An underwater hamster enclosure — (Image credit: Alex Beyman)

Is a hamster not entitled to the seeds in his cheeks? No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. To the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God. Novelist, YouTuber and undersea exploration enthusiast Alex Beyman rejected those answers.

Beyman chose something different. He chose Hampture.

We spotted Beyman's undersea rodent utopia on Twitter earlier today, where he defiantly responded to a Vox article claiming they'll "never take [his] aqua hams". That's a hell of a line, accompanied by a photo of two submerged enclosures dolled up to look like Bioshock's undersea city—complete with phasmid dispensers and appropriate neon signs.

Further digging reveals that Beyman's been working on putting together this elaborate enclosure for almost a decade, posting regular updates on YouTube and occasionally running live Twitch "Hamcams". For now, the enclosure currently consists of two sealed rooms connected by a pipe, but Beyman has grand plans for his libertarian hamster nightmare.

"One day I awoke with the inexplicable desire to build underwater hamster cities," Beyman writes on his Patreon. "But underwater living space is expensive, even when scaled down, so I've had to start small. With sufficient funding, the habitats will become larger and more elaborate."

Beyman stresses that this isn't the hamsters' permanent home, normally living in a more traditional enclosure. Hampture itself reportedly has numerous alarms and failsafes in case of leaks or depressurisation and is only used for short periods (though appears has been used for up to a month in some cases).

Besides increasing the scope of Hampture, Beyman's stretch goals suggest creating a hamster submersible, a time capsule to "confuse future archaeologists" with the complete lore of Hampture, and eventual plans to create a small, Human-scale underwater enclosure for patrons to come visit.

Perhaps mercifully, his actual Rapture is only 11% towards reality. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with Hampture. Perhaps he'll add a lobby greeting new rodents with the portent: "No gods or kings, only Hams."

20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.