The other thread got a little out of hand with the spoiler blocks so I thought we might start over to make it more readable. It goes without saying that we will ruin the dlc for you if you have not finished it yet, so turn back right now!

So, what did you think? It's hard to top Infinite's ending, especially in dlc form, but I thought they did a good job with that little twist at the end. I went in thinking it would be a total spin-off with no ties to the main game, which it sort of is considering there's an infinite number of timelines, but they managed to integrate it pretty well and have it make sense (about as much as you can make a story about time travel and multiple universes make sense).

A few questions though.

• Why does Elizabeth go through the trouble of helping Comstock find the girl, when she could've just killed him in his office? Was it the only way to make him realize who he was and what he did? Why didn't she simply tell him?
• Who was that girl anyway? I didn't get that part (I also played very late so I might have missed some exposition).
• What do you think happens after that? Is Comstock dead? What will we be doing as Elizabeth in part deux?

I think the ending to the DLC actually horrified me more than the end of Infinite. Horrifying being the right word for it, for as dark as things got in the last game, Elizabeth took such a dark turn in this one.

I think she's basically punishing Comstock (I'll be calling him that, he's totally Comstock, not Booker). She wants to lead him down to find Sally again. She's willing to almost fry her alive in order to get them face to face. When she finally does, it's only then that he has his revelation and realizes what he's done. And it's in that moment she kills him, his blood flying around everywhere.

It's super dark and almost creepy to see her like this. She wants to see him come to the realization himself, it's almost sadistic in how she does it. It just looked like pure vengeance in action.

In the promo screenshot for part 2, it looks like Elizabeth is holding Sally, it could be that she's trying to protect and save her in the next game, maybe find a way to reverse the little sister process like there was in Bioshock 1. Comstock, again, tried to steal away someone else's child and live someone else's life. Elizabeth will probably see herself in Sally and want to save her to try and make things right.

I'm still a little confused on the existence of a Comstock, but I thought the ending was a pretty good twist.

My interpretation of the original ending was that Booker drowned himself in order to kill off all Bookers' (Comstocks') that would accept the baptism, leaving only those who survived Wooden Knee and didn't get baptized. In that, I think the Elizabeth we're with in Burial at Sea is the omnipotent Elizabeth that has met our Booker. But I don't know why there is still a Comstock that exists.

I agree with Foxillusion. It really was a very dark ending because, as he mentioned, it was basically Elizabeth showing Comstock who he was and then allowing him to be killed.

So, this was one of the Comstocks from an alternate timeline, I presume? Because when he tried to pull baby Anna through the portal her head was cut rather than her pinky. I think the ending confused me a bit overall. But, then again, I did just beat the game at just before 4 a.m. so perhaps I should sleep on it.

Elizabeth is killing off all the booker/comstocks inside the multiverse..... that kinda doesn't make sense, but that's what I gathered. Surprised none of the audiologs were as insightful as in normal infinite, but I do think being Comstock helps flesh out him then just Santa Claus which was the biggest problem with Infinite, but in Infinite they mentioned he suffered from Tumors and speed up aging through the tears, so he wouldn't look as handsome as Booker. Or maybe that's the alternative universe of this one rapture is still around, Fountain was taken out but they don't have plasmids they have vigors.

Or maybe the Prime Elizabeth is collecting all of the alternative Elizabeths in the multiverse?

@foxillusion: I agree with you, that was my reaction. I think the whole interaction of pressing a button in Infinite left me to be a goofball and let it linger. Her it just rolled..... wait? in that scene were there 3 bookers? The third one where Booker goes "I wouldn't have given my baby to this guy." Too busy kinda messuring the tear and head to notice if there was a third set of arms. And also the male Lutece is inside the portal not along with booker.

@rderosa: Actually I'm one of those who didn't buy into the whole Baptism was the source of him becoming Comstock as much as the original led us to believe. It just looked nice, the baptism was a way for him to forgive his own sins from Wounded Knee, and again we can clearly see an AD like how booker ran off from the baptism and branded himself. Which the Lutece Twins mentioned he was one of the few that they brought in from the countless times they did their whole wacky multiverse antics. So this is a Comstock that's like Booker and less like Comstock.... because he still did the whole Lutece twins antics to pull a baby out that he couldn't have...... no wait that makes no sense.

I think that really wounded knee is the source of this, if they had just shoot booker in the foot before the war, then he could sit out of all of wounded knee no guilt forcing him to have a baptism.

But anyway, Original Infinte ended with a hint there was one Elizabeth on each keynote. And clearly she keeps mentioning about Booker in the adventures while Loathing the player who is comstock

I think it's not really possible to deduce the intent of the DLC from just part 1 as there are too many unknowns. For all we know these are characters from a completely different reality with different motivations. They put a big emphasis on Elizabeth saying she's a "debt collector" but at the end of the DLC what has she collected? How did killing Comstock for kidnapping her from another reality collect a debt? An emotional I guess, but in that case the entire DLC seems somewhat superficial. Go through all that trouble just to get even? Hopefully part 2 will outline her exact motivation, IF we even play as that same Elizabeth.

This particular Booker is one that:

a. took the baptism?

b. beheaded (another) Elizabeth in the deal with the portal

c. felt guilty about said deal and went to Rapture looking for another life, another girl.

This Elizabeth is one that:

a. is PRIME! (check the other thread, I freakin' love the name "Beth Prime")

b. Prime meaning she is the Elizabeth from the main story of Infinite, as she references her events with main Booker often.

c. is vengeful as hell wanted to kill of this version of Dewitt.

#gatheredinfo

Sally was an orphan DeWitt née Comstock rescued off the streets then subsequently lost because he was too busy gambling.

@crithon: IIRC, Comstock didn't look as old during the baby stealing scene in the original game. His hair wasn't white, so the rapid aging stuff hasn't been made apparent yet. And what I got from this Rapture was that it is basically almost the same as the one in BioShock (well, one year before the downfall), except that there were tears due to Comstock entering that world. There are a couple audio logs with Dr. Suchong talking about him stealing ideas like plasmids that can be ingested from tears.

Also, Beth Prime is a jerk. Reviving me when I fall in combat just so that I can die later.

@voshinova: so is this booker was in columbia? Or somewhere he had hire the Lutece Twins to make the Portal for him. Wait how does he escape from being Comstock if Comstock is in theory enough power to just buy babies off of drunken men with big debts?

@starvinggamer: I noticed someone early in Rapture turn to booker "sorry about your little friend"

@crithon: I agree with you, regarding how the audio diaries weren't integral to the story, but to a certain extent. I think Einstein's quote in one of Suchong's diaries is interesting and might be of import. The quote I'm referring to is: "the only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once". So the way I see it is that the events of this DLC did not necessarily occur after Infinite, nor before it for that matter, which leads me to believe that this may not be the very same omnipotent Elizabeth from Infinite. It could be another Elizabeth who, as a result of what happened in the end of Infinite, is aware of all the things that transpired in Columbia.

I don't know why people are so certain that this is Elizabeth Prime and not the Elizabeth who was kidnapped by Burial at Sea's DeWItt/Comstock.

She was a debt collector *** And he... *** Owed her his life. *** This summer...

From what I could tell this COmstock failed in taking the girl through the portal and in his depression popped into Rapture to start a new life. So as far as this Comstock is concerned Beth is dead.

This Comstock already had an Elizabeth. She was there when he tried and failed to steal a second Annabelle. It would make sense that witnessing that moment is what gave this Elizabeth her inner darkness.

True there was an Elizabeth there, but did they ever specify whether that was one from his universe or just Beth Prime trying to stop him from killing his universe's Elizabeth?

They didn't, but if it really was Elizabeth Prime it would have had to have been after the ending of Infinite which begs the questions:

• What happened to her severing the Comstock timeline(s)?
• Why didn't she do more than say "nooo stooop!" to save Annabelle's life?
• Why did she wait for Comstock to feel remorse, fabricate a new life, then live that life for a number of years before returning to exact revenge?

I'm starting to think fixing these time lines is really the mess for Elizabeth. They blame the baptism, but now it's the baby exchange. At some point she's going to just go all Groundhog day and make everything perfect.

the biggest thing I thought was dumb but funny was that he was so shocked by the tear when you get old man winter, and in the very next room he is giving her orders to open tears for items as if he completely understood in secoinds.

i totally get the narrative justification for this as being something in his sub conscious from the past or alternate timeline but I still laughed when it happened

That ending hurm. Weather or not that is Elizabeth Prime or not I'd be interested in playing an Anthology style game as Elizabeth "collecting debts" and wondering the multiverse with the Lutece Twins popin in and out

I liked how it called back to that original trailer for BioShock 1, that was a really nice touch, but to me it was a dumb piece of DLC. Nothing seemed to really happen in terms of the contained narrative, and, in the context of infinite universes, it wasn't clear why these events mattered.

I took the events as a "test". It appears that Elizabeth wanted to see if this Booker was a "Comstock" or a "Booker". As for the reason why this is important to her or the twins is not revealed.

I also took this to be something of a test by Elizabeth. If I remember correctly, she keeps telling "Comstock" to let go of Sally when she is in the heated shaft.

I think this is the Elizabeth from Infinite. She seems to me to have a similar trans-dimensional omnipotence to the Lutece twins. Perhaps she is helping them with a new experiment? If it is the same Elizabeth, there should be no Comstock, as she supposedly killed all versions of Comstock by drowning Booker at the end of Infinite. Yet, clearly the Booker of Burial At Sea is a Comstock. Maybe this is the Booker we see in the post credits of Infinite, still repeating some of the same mistakes, stuck between Booker and Comstock.

There's still too much left unanswered, this being the first part. I might be way off; it is pretty late and I just finished the DLC an hour ago. But it sure is interesting to think about! Please, feel free to correct me if I'm confusing or misunderstanding anything.

Until I see what happens in part 2 I'm sticking to my interpretation of this being a single example of the Comstock multiverse purge. We are 100% sure that Comstock can be killed in any given universe, but he will continue to exist in others. Elizabeth wanted to get rid of ever Comstock from her multiverse.

During the baptism ending we see several Elizabeths present for the drowning. Why were they even there if all it took to eliminate every single Comstock was to make Booker the "prime variable" and destroy it? I say that the scene was for the benefit of the viewer (us playing the game) and the purge was carried out by every single Elizabeth in her own Universe.

Why the special attention to this Comstock from the DLC? Maybe it was the only universe that resulted in an Elizabeth death. No Elizabeth means no one there to kill Comstock. Why does it even matter you ask? Consider that Comstock fled to a universe (a Rapture universe) where Booker and Elizabeth never existed. She probably had some issues trying to find this Comstock that fled her sphere of influence.

My theory of Elizabeth’s action in EP1: Elizabeth wants Comstock’s memory.

After drowning Booker in infinite’s ending, for some unknown reason Comstock still exists in some universes. To find the cause, Elizabeth have to find a way to access his memory. And there is only one place to do it, Rapture.

Why Rapture? Remember side effects of plasmids, plasmid’s blue? Splicers see ghosts as the Adam carry leftover memories. If Elizabeth gets Adam that extracted from Comstock, she will get his memory as well. To do this, she needs a little sister, Sally.

Why Sally? The reason is they need to “retrigger” Comstock’s old memories, memories prior Rapture. Elizabeth’s action is not only for revenge, but for getting Comstock’s memory also.

To sum up, Elizabeth goes to Rapture asking Comstock to find Sally, through finding Sally, his old memories are retriggered. Killing him and then extract them with Sally. What exactly Elizabeth wants from Comstock’s memory will probably explain in EP2. Tenenbaum will probably appear for this matter also. Just can’t wait for EP2!!

I just finished the DLC and I'm left with some pretty big questions.

Mainly, doesn't this undo everything that was done in Infinite? The theme of Infinite was pulling things up from the root, and it was very clearly established that the baptism was the root cause of the Booker-to-Comstock transformation. Whether or not people think that's logical is besides the point, because that's what the game established, and it showed that by having all of the alternate Elizabeths disappear when Booker (Booker Prime?) was drowned, and then having the final scene take place in a world without Columbia. However, this universe's Comstock somehow failed to get Elizabeth in his struggle with Booker after being baptized?

Really, maybe I'm a victim of my own expectations, but I wanted a legitimate story about Rapture before and after its downfall, not a piece of DLC that would further complicate and already-iffy storyline about time travel and cause-and-effect.

I just finished it, the story wasn't exactly crystal clear to me, but I did enjoy it, and I'll definitely play more.

@nicked said:

YES! The nod to the original Bioshock trailer was absolutely amazing!
You're right about the story, at least for now anyway. I enjoyed it a great deal and thought the ending twist was a clever way to play against the player's expectations from the main game, but ultimately it did sort of feel pointless. Saving Sally was a huge MacGuffin, and I have difficulty understanding Elizabeth's & the Lutece Twins' motivations. Surely there would have been easier ways to kill Comstock. And the idea that the Lutece Twins & Elizabeth are bouncing around to different universes to enact revenge against Comstock seems out of character to me in some implacable way. Not sure I can elucidate why, but it feels oddly petty & narcissistic for those 3 to go around trying to cure the ills of every infinite universe.
That all said, I can't imagine that these points were not discussed by Levine and the Irrational team, so I remain optimistic that all (most, anyways) will be explained in episode 2.

Maybe this is the Elizabeth from the timeline where she carries out comstocks plan? Not that I believe that but I feel its apt to bring that up as its a major plot point in the original and in it we see an aged and defeated Elizabeth that regrets what she has done her whole life..... it would be an interesting insight into the trials and tribulations leading up to her regret, adding a level of understanding to how and why it went that way.

Hmm, how about this:

Since this particular Comstock crossed into a different universe to hide, he escaped the effects of the Comstock purge at the end of Infinite. Since his timeline is now outside his own universe, he himself was unaffected. (being in a universe where the purge was unnecessary (didn't happen), since it's a Rapture universe not a Columbia one).

Which Elizabeth this is is not that relevant, she can be a Prime, or just one of them sent as a cleaner, to tie up loose ends that escaped the purge like this Comstock.

This theory doesn't have to undo anything from Infinite and seems to be quite neat. And simpler explanations are often the right ones.

Other people have already explained Sally well enough. Elizabeth wanted him to realize he was Comstock by himself, while recalling the terrible thing he did. A simple death can be meaningless. Forcing the wrongdoer to recognize their guilt before death is a very very common narrative theme. It's also the simplest reason for Elizabeth going through the charade.

I thought the drunk gambling booker was the alternative to Comstock (the Comstock that accepts the baptism). So I was confused she called him "Comstock" at the end. Booker only became Comstock when he accepted the baptism and called himself Comstock when making the badass flying city. The drunk Booker is not Comstock. The memory video has Booker pull the baby away from Comstock when the portal is closing. Elizabeth then gets upset with Booker for not letting go of the baby to Comstock, and then calls Booker Comstock. In Bioshock Infinite the baby only loses a finger, and this time it loses its whole head. Must be a different variation of the constants and variables. This game is fucking weird; I like it.

Well this giant bomber seems to have it worked out anyway:

I raised my eyebrow on it because it was so violent, I mean, damn. All I really took away from it was that they're still going after Comstock, as if there are millions more and this was just one of them they (Elizabeth and perhaps the Luteces) wanted to get rid of. That could be wrong, but it's how it felt. I don't know how I feel about it. For the most part, though you can argue that every Comstock is evil in some way, I felt this Booker/Comstock seemed more innocent (obviously), so it was hard to take in the extremely gruesome death, and Elizabeth's tone which came off as evil. As for the rest of the DLC though, I really, really liked it, though I've been pretty tired since about 2:00, so when was near the end, I just kind of wanted to finish and I ended up not picking up that final weapon. I'm curious where the next one is going, but I feel like there can be many more after that.