BioShock Infinite

Overview

BioShock Infinite is the third installment in the BioShock franchise and is the first one to not take place in the underwater metropolis of Rapture. Instead, Infinite is set in the all-new city of Columbia, a creation of an America transforming from a regional agrarian collection of states into a world power with global reach. The game is also primarily set in 1912; this is in contrast to the much later dates of the previous two games which took place during the 60s. Despite the departure from the series' usual setting, the game still retains some of the previous games' gameplay hooks, such as super human powers and first person shooting.

Setting

The majestic vistas of Columbia.

BioShock Infinite takes place on the majestic floating city of Columbia, circa 1912. Engineered by the American government, Columbia was initially intend to be a floating symbol of American ingenuity and ideology at a time when the United States was just emerging as a prominent "world power". After being developed and completed the floating city was then subsequently dispatched to distant shores with great admiration by a beguiled public as herald for the new technological age.

Notwithstanding, what began as a groundbreaking venture to promote prosperity and goodwill, suddenly and abruptly goes horrible awry, after a major international incident within China affects the floating city profoundly and necessarily not for the better either. In addition to the international incidents already profound effects, it also somehow reveals to the citizens of Columbia and to the rest world the floating metropolises true nature: that in contrast to it's Utopian exterior, underneath the city's extensive facade lay what's merely just a heavily armed aerial warship of massive proportions.

"Vox Populi" make the front page.

The incident in question also created a rift between leadership in Columbia and the United States, which causes it to be immediately disavowed and subsequently leads to the city's upright disappearance shortly thereafter. As it vanished among the clouds in a world that wasn't equipped with the planes or radar to follow it.

Since it's disappearance however, civil war has suddenly erupted within the city splitting it's citizens into two prominent factions with drastically different ideological beliefs. The more prominent of the two"The Founders", are a group of ultra-nationalists, religious fanatics and outright xenophobes whom thoroughly believe in American Exceptionalism and very little else outside of the concept. The opposition in contrast to "The Founders" ultra-nationalist ideals is the internationalist, anti-capitalist, Marxist group coined only as the "Vox Populi", Latin for as the name suggests meaning the "The Voice of the People". With that being said, the game at least seems to retain some of the conflicts found in BioShock 2 between Ryan (who was a hard boiled capitalist similar to the Founders) and Lamb (who had communist ideals much like the Vox Populi).

Story

Players take on the role of Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton agent now known as a "professional fixer" whom is essentially a 20th century private eye. This is another departure from traditional BioShock gameplay as the player took on voiceless, personality-handicapped ciphers who had no established history and instead discovered their history as the game progressed. DeWitt tasked and sent to Columbia by a mysterious man on a mission to rescue a young woman, Elizabeth, who has been trapped in the city for fifteen years, since her early childhood.

The all elusive "Comstock House".

Finding Elizabeth will be easy enough apparently, but escaping from a city ten thousand feet in the air certainly won't be quite as simple. Players will travel throughout Columbia with Elizabeth, with the immediate goal of seeking out the residence of Z.H. Comstock, leader of "The Founders" whom Elizabeth pleads with Booker that she must see before they even consider escape. Apparently Comstock is the only person in all of Columbia that can help Elizabeth realize and take control of her powers fully, in the process of course their secondary goal still remains first and foremost to find a viable escape route from the warring floating city. Elizabeth will act as a companion to the player providing support during combat, she will also help to progress the story as DeWitt's relationship with her deepens.

"The Songbird", Elizabeth's abusive jailer.

Elizabeth is constantly being chased by the Songbird as well, a mysterious monster hell bent on keeping her from escaping. It is unclear why the Songbird wants to keep her imprisoned, even though the game seems to suggest that it has something to do with her powers and what it was initially tasked to do when it was brought to Columbia.

Also, as seen in the official reveal trailer, there will be even more steam-punk created opponents, extremely similar to the legendary Big Daddies from the original BioShock. In the trailer, Booker was attacked by a huge mechanical monster with a Human heart built into it, with mysterious chemicals being pumped into it. If examined closely, it can also be seen that the monster nevertheless has a human face, thus leading us to make many assumptions about the experiments that were going on in the city. However, Ken Levine has stated that we will not see traditional Big Daddies nor Little Sisters in BioShock Infinite and that the moral choice system from the first two games will also not be present. It was revealed on Irrational Games' own podcast the monster has been named the "Handyman".

Gameplay

Murder of Crow Vigor, may just cause adverse side effects.

The game features "Vigors", which are essentially Plasmids from the previous games in the series. Continuing BioShock 2's improvements on the Plasmid system, Infinite's Vigors have been made more functional than ever. For instance, Telekenesis will now have the power to steal weapons from enemies and have them fire on their former owners. Furthermore, at one point the main character made a pack of crows attack his enemies.

As for Elizabeth she has the power to control "tears" (windows in space and time) into worlds and dimensions outside her conventional one. Elizabeth may also be used for instance to teleport players to another dimension or places or even bring objects from another dimension or place into another. Ken Levine has also stated that the game will feature much larger environments compared to the first two games, even though a flying city would reasonably have to be even smaller and more compact than an underwater one.

Although little has been demonstrated so far, Levine demonstrated a bit of the Colombian ecosystem. At one point, he had Booker walk into a local bar, where instead of instantly being attacked by the locals, he was simply met with disinterested glances. "Not all locals will initially be hostile" - says Levine. However, we get an impression that something strange is nevertheless happening to the citizens of Columbia. For example, in one part of the demo, DeWitt saw a woman calmly cleaning the porch to her grocery store, while the store front itself was on fire.

Miscellaneous

"Name in the Game" Contest

The winner's in-game advertisement.

On April 8, 2011, Irrational Games' Community Manager Chris Remo posted a contest on the Irrational website, titled "Get Your Name in the Game", offering fans the opportunity to have their name in BioShock Infinite. Fans simply had to enter their full names and email addresses for a chance to appear as the "namesake of a building, a character, a business–whatever [their] artists come up with" in the game. Touted as the "ultimate bragging right", the Get Your Name in the Game Contest entry period ended on April 13. The lucky winner of the contest was Payton Lane Easter and Irrational's Mike Swiderek created an advertisement for Payton Lane Easter & Sons Premium Automated Stallions.

Playstation Move support

Creative Director Ken Levine announced during Sony's 2011 E3 media briefing that the game will offer optional Move support, but gave no "tangible" details on how it would be implemented outside of the possibility of using it in conjunction with the Skyrail system. Levine also mentioned Irrational's intent on making a game for the newly named PS Vita, though for now it is unclear if that game will be related to Infinite in any way.

Additional content

Also during the aforementioned E3 conference, Jack Tretton, President and CEO of SCEA announced that every copy of BioShock Infinite on the PS3 would also come with a copy of the original BioShock on the same Blu-ray disc.

E3 2011 Demo

The demo of the game shown at E3 2011 was shown to the public during an episode of GTTV, featuring a lengthy interview between Creative Director of Infinite Ken Levine and GameTrailers intrepid Geoff Keighley. Subsequently, the 15-minute demo was made available to the rest of the media.