BioShock Infinite



BioShock Infinite is the third game in the BioShock series. Announced on August 12, 2010, it is Irrational Games' newest project, and was released on March 26, 2013. BioShock Infinite is not a direct sequel/prequel to any of the previous BioShock games, and it takes place in an entirely different setting, although it shares similar features, gameplay and concepts with the previous games.

Plot
The game takes place in the airborne city of Columbia, where the player assumes the role of Booker DeWitt, a disgraced Pinkerton agent. Booker has been given the job of finding a woman named Elizabeth in Columbia, who has been confined by a hulking beast called Songbird.

Following in the footsteps of previous BioShock games, the world of Infinite explores the chaos that results when strong ideals are taken to the extreme. At the time of DeWitt's arrival, Columbia is a hotbed of ultra-nationalism, specifically American exceptionalism, as shown by the copious numbers of flags, patriotic music, and propaganda posters that boldfacedly spurn the idea that the Columbia could be a 'haven' from the so-called 'unwanted' of the world.

At the start of the game, the protagonist, Booker DeWitt is riding a boat out to the coast of Maine with a mysterious man and woman. Booker, a former Pinkerton agent in financial debt, has been hired by the man to rescue a girl named Elizabeth from the floating city of Columbia. IF Booker is successful in bringing the girl back to New York, all of his debt will be wiped clean. The woman hands Booker his personal chest that includes important details for his mission such as a picture of Elizabeth, Monument Island, the key for Elizabeth's cell, the code to enter Columbia, and a pistol.

Booker enters the light house and enters the bell code at the roof. The sky turns red in rhythm to the bell codes and provides Booker a shuttle. Booker boards the shuttle, only to drop his pistol and launch into the sky. Booker is then launched into the clouds and ascends into the city of Columbia. When entering the Columbia, Booker is automatically exposed to the religious movement of Columbia and its leader, Zachary Hale Comstock along with his wife, Lady Comstock and their daughter who is the seed of the prophet. Booker, in order to gain access into Columbia, must be baptized by the church. However, the preacher nearly drowns Booker to the state of unconsciousness. By doing so, Booker dreams about his office with a man at his door, the same man who offered the deal to him. However, when opening the door, Booker sees New York City as it is in 1984 being under attack by Columbia. Booker awakens to finally enter the city of Columbia. Booker arrives on the same day during the city fair. Booker attends the fair, only to be caught by the police when his hand (which is branded as A.D.) is the matching hand of the foreseen "False Shepard" by Comstock. Booker then fights his way through the streets of Columbia to Monument Island.

While in Columbia, Booker learns that Columbia is spilt in a faction war between The Founders, a faction of the white and rich supremacists led by Comstock against the Vox Populi, a multi-racial and nationality group of the poor and working class led by Daisy Fitzroy who murdered Lady Comstock. Both factions desire Elizabeth and her powers, believing they can change the tides of the war.

When Booker reaches Monument Island, he encounters Elizabeth who is unaware that she has been observed in her home the entire time. Elizabeth, while desiring to live in Paris, reveals her ability to Booker by turning her painting of the Eiffel Tower into a portal to an actual street in Paris during the 1980's. Booker then enters her room, first frightened but then relieved. Booker and Elizabeth barley escape the Island from her captor, a 30-ft winged creature named the Songbird. Booker and Elizabeth then discover a zeppelin able to help the two escape Columbia. While searching for the zeppelin, Booker witnesses Elizabeth's ability at first hand. In Columbia, the city is riddled with shimmering rips in the air known as Tears. They can be considered and window or a door to another universe and another time. Elizabeth has the ability to widen these Tears and manipulate them by transporting objects from the other universe to the true reality. After acquiring Lady Comstock's Zepplin, Booker reveals his lie to Elizabeth and is not taking her to Paris, but to New York City to finish the deal. Elizabeth fools Booker and manages to knock him out. Elizabeth then exits the Zeppelin, only to be hijacked by the Vox Populi.

Booker meets Daisy Fitzroy, first-hand, and negotiates a deal that he orders their supplier, Chen Lin to make more weapons in return for the zeppelin. Booker is dropped into Fink Manufacturing where he recovers Elizabeth on the promise that they find Comstock first. The two then continue into the industrial zones and then shanty-towns of the poor. Booker and Elizabeth then find Chen Lin to be dead, only for the odd couple known as Robert and Rosalind Lutece to arrive. The two were the odd couple escorting Booker on the boat to the light house, as well as the two were at the fair and the Battleship Bay to assist Booker and Elizabeth. The two are Quantum-Physcists "Twins", with Rosalind being the true form and Robert her male counterpart from another universe. The two reveal that Chen, like Schrodinger's Cat, is both alive and dead in other worlds. Elizabeth opens a tear in which Chen did not die, but now everyone that died before, including Chen, have gone insane in a state of limbo in which they remember being dead and are stuck in a Tear rift. Chen also lost his supplies in the new Columbia, causing Booker and Elizabeth to open another tear in which the supplies are made. However, this helped further the Vox Populi cause, with Booker previously dying for the Vox and being a heroic icon. Daisy, encountering now alive Booker, knows that he is not the same as the one who died for their cause, has her people turn on him. Daisy then kills Finkton and threatens to kill a little boy. Elizabeth then sneaks in and fatally stabs Daisy who becomes distraught. Elizabeth then changes her entire appearance and sets to finding Comstock. However, the Songbird finds the two and crashes the zeppelin into Emporia Towers.

Booker and Elizabeth then enter Emporia to the station of Comstock House. However, the code lock for the station requires a hand print. Realizing there is a grave yard near by, Elizabeth decides to find her preserved mother's grave and take her hand. Comstock discovers this plan and uses the Tesla machine to open a tear in which Lady Comstock is a creature both alive, dead, and the personality representing the attitude of Elizabeth towards Lady Comstock. This creates Lady Comstock into a Siren, a creature able to resurrect the dead. In the same graveyard, it is revealed that both of the Luctece's are dead, but they are shades of the former selves in all universes to help guide Booker and Elizabeth to the right path. The two reveal that in order to stop Lady Comstock, Elizabeth must open several tears to reveal the truth to Lady Comstock.

It is revealed that the game takes place in a multiverse. Booker is also Zachary Comstock (The Prophet) in multiple parallel universes, meaning that Comstock and Booker are the same person who have been brought together by means of an interdimensional passage. The difference in name comes from a deciding point in his life where he could have gotten a baptism and be reborn under a different name (which would have been Zachary Comstock).

Booker, in this new reality with his other self, sees what a horrible person Comstock is and all the hell Elizabeth is put through and decides to end him, which through Elizabeth's powers means he could kill Comstock before he was born and save Elizabeth from all this trouble. He does not realize until later that killing Comstock would do this to himself. After realizing it, he goes back to this original deciding point in time where he could be been 'reborn' through baptism.

In the ending, Elizabeth takes Booker through a 'Door' (noteworthy due to the sudden change in terminology from 'Tear') to an infinite number of lighthouses, each representing a discrete universe. They are there to journey back to the "beginning" of the complex conflict that is always the same with slight variations. They travel to a point shortly after Wounded Knee, where Booker is being prompted to be baptised. Booker interrupts his baptism and leaves, created the significant branch point where the Booker/Comstock dichotomy is born. They coninue to his office/apartment.

It is revealed that the two Lutece "twins" Booker and Elizibeth encouter throughout Columbia are in fact a parallel of the same person. Rosalind Lutece was a master in quantum physics, and designed the technology that allows Columbia to float. Rosalind at some point created a tear in which she encountered her "twin" in Booker's Universe, Booker was in gambling debt, and Comstock used the male Lutece to negotiate a deal in which Booker would sell his infant daughter Anna in order to have his debts abolished.

Booker attemptes to stop the male Lutece from traveling through the tear where Comstock and the female Lutece await, as they jump through Anna's pinky finger is severed. This being the reason Elizibeth can create tears.

Comstock later kills the Lutece parallels, their death allows the two to be in all universes at once due to their knowledge of quantam physics.

Lutece plays a major role in the plot. They have watched many Bookers fail to make the right choice, and lead Elizibeth to eventually destroy New York. The Luteces would each time add small hints or items to try and sway Booker in the right direction, but no matter what choice the player makes as Booker throughout the game, the end remains the same. There is a moment in the game when the Luteces are debating a coin toss, Booker chooses heads, and the female Lutuce marks heads on a chalkboard the male Lutece is holding, she has never marked Tails out of over a hundred flips, even at the very beginning the Luteces are conversing about Booker as if they know him well; pointing out he never rows the boat to the lighthouse.

If the future version of Elizibeth had not come to give Booker the C-A-G-E card to control the Songbird, he would have instead attempted to fight it and would have died. Thus continuing the Comstock universe(s).

After Booker realizes that he is just a pawn in an infinite number of similar sequences, he decides to allow Elizabeth (Assisted in this by her Alternates from several other universes who have likely achieved a similar chain of events) to kill him during his baptism so as to prevent his 'rebirth' as Zachary Comstock, thus eliminating any of the Alternate Booker DeWitt's who choose the baptism and most likely Elizabeth, the variant of his daughter that he was trying to save throughout the events of Bioshock Infinite.

Because Booker chose to die at the multiversal branching point of his baptism, eliminating Comstock, Comstock is unavailable to bargain for Anna DeWitt, preventing her from becoming Elizabeth Comstock. In a post-credits scene, it shows Booker back in his apartment where it's likely that he and Anna are still with each other and the Lutece twins never asked for Anna in exchange for erasing Booker's debts because Comstock never existed, finally breaking the cycle Booker was doomed to follow.

Gameplay
Infinite features a range of environments that will force the player to adapt, with different weapons and strategies for each situation. Interior spaces will feature close combat with enemies, but unlike previous games set in Rapture, the setting of Infinite contains open spaces with emphasis on sniping and ranged combat against as many as fifteen enemies at once. Combat will also take place while the player is traveling at great speed along the Sky-Lines, a major transport system of Columbia.

Booker gains powers and abilities by using Vigors and Gear that are found throughout Columbia. Unlike previous BioShock games in which players could use Gene Banks to alter their current loadout of Plasmids and Tonics, the choice to imbibe a certain Vigor or Gear is permanent and cannot be changed later in the game, placing emphasis on the consequences of the player's choices. The player will also have access to a shield upgrade that Booker receives from an interracial couple he saved.

Vigors grant active powers such as telekinesis, electricity manipulation, or animal control (exemplified by Murder of Crows).

Once DeWitt has found Elizabeth, she will accompany the player at various points in the game. Elizabeth has her own set of abilities complimentary to Dewitt's. Elizabeth has the ability to open up Tears to create cover, ammunition, or other useful objects during combat. The player will not be able to directly control Elizabeth, but instead she will react to the player and the current situation.

Infinite features several varieties of enemies. These range from seemingly average humans with weapons, to the iconic Handyman seen in trailers. Unlike the previous BioShock games, many enemies will not attack on sight, but instead will remain neutral to DeWitt unless the player performs an action that causes them to become hostile. Other powerful opponents, such as the Handyman, can act as leaders for other enemies, augmenting their abilities. The most powerful enemy in the game, known as Songbird, is the most feared creature in all of Columbia.

On January 12, 2012, Irrational Games announced the 1999 gameplay mode, which is designed to make the game more challenging for hardcore players. In the 1999 mode, players are forced to make permanent and critical choices to the development of their character. Through these choices, players must specialize in specific playstyles, rendering other alternatives ineffective in the process.

Premium Edition
BioShock Infinite Premium Edition is planned the game. It will cost $79.99.


 * This edition will include
 * The Art of BioShock Infinite mini art book, including art and comments by the developers, and a hand-distressed cover.
 * An exclusive 25 millimeter Handyman figure from the upcoming board game BioShock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia - being created by Plaid Hat Games.
 * A 5 x 7 lithograph of an advertisement for the vigor Devil's Kiss.
 * 3-inch Murder of Crows vigor bottle keychain.
 * Digital soundtrack exclusive to the editions, featuring music from the game.
 * Three exclusive ingame Gear power-ups:
 * Bull Rush: Melee strikes from a sprint have a chance to knock the enemy down.
 * Extra! Extra!: Audio logs also grant a bounty of “Silver Eagles” — in-game currency.
 * Betrayer: Killing your possessed enemies causes them to explode in a fireball that deals damage.
 * Platform-specific Downloadable Content:
 * Xbox 360: Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth Avatar Costumes.
 * Booker's Avatar Costume will feature a fedora, blue tinted goggles, a jacket, and high boots.
 * PC and PlayStation 3: BioShock Infinite Themes (Backgrounds, icons, etc.).BioShockInfiniteUltimateSongbirdEdition.png
 * PC and PlayStation 3: BioShock Infinite Themes (Backgrounds, icons, etc.).BioShockInfiniteUltimateSongbirdEdition.png

Ultimate Songbird Edition
This edition includes all of the above, as well as a Songbird statue. It will cost $149.99. The statue is a "highly detailed, hand painted, resin-cast 9.75" statue" which is packaged in its own collectible packaging.

Retailer-Exclusive Pre-order Bonuses
BioShock Infinite features a wide range of retailer-exclusive bonuses for pre-ordering the game:

Main Characters



 * Booker DeWitt
 * Daisy Fitzroy
 * Elizabeth
 * The Songbird
 * Zachary Hale Comstock

Enemies

 * Boy of Silence
 * Handyman
 * Motorized Patriot
 * Siren
 * Fireman

BioShock Infinite Weapons

 * China Broom
 * Triple R
 * Broadsider
 * Barnstormer
 * Sky-Hook
 * Huntsman
 * Pepper-Mill
 * Paddywhacker
 * Bird's Eye
 * Vox Burstgun
 * Pig Volley Gun

Vigors

 * Bucking Bronco
 * Murder of Crows
 * Weapon Slave
 * Shock Jockey
 * Devil's Kiss
 * Possession
 * Charge
 * Return to Sender
 * Undertow

Gear

 * Handyman Nemesis
 * Fleet Feet
 * Sugar Rush
 * Extra! Extra!
 * Bull Rush
 * Betrayer
 * Throttle Control
 * Shock Jacket
 * Newton's Law
 * Sky-Line Reloader
 * Fit As A Fiddle

Locations

 * Battleship Bay (contains Battleship Bay (the beach), Fink Theatre, a Payton L. Easter & Sons' stable for visitors' Automated Stallions, an as-of-yet unnamed amusement park featuring a roller coaster and a large Ferris wheel, many food services, and an exhibition center)
 * Finkton (contains lower-class apartments/slums and the Fink Factory/Shipping Docks complex. Part of this district was detached from Columbia in 1901 due to a fire that may or may not have been intentionally started by the Founders)
 * Emporia Heights (contains Emporia Towers Luxury Apartment Homes, central terminal of Columbia Transit, headquarters of the Columbia Post Office, and Zachary Hale "Father" Comstock's house)
 * Founders Circle (contains the Hall of Heroes museum, the First Lady's Aerodrome and Monument Island); note: this area has not been officially named Founders' Circle, but has been referred to as such in discussions concerning level development.

BioShock Infinite: Industrial Revolution


BioShock Infinite: Industrial Revolution is a flash game provided to those who pre-order BioShock Infinite. It can be used to unlock exclusive ingame content.

Extras

 * BioShock Infinite Signature Series Guide
 * BioShock Infinite: Mind in Revolt (Novel)
 * BioShock Infinite Soundtrack
 * BioShock Infinite: Industrial Revolution
 * BioShock Infinite Downloadable Content

Development


Prior to its announcement on August 12, 2010, Irrational Games had used the moniker "Project Icarus" to describe their next game, creating a teaser site in late July 2010. Over the weeks leading to the announcement, the animation on the teaser site slowly built up to an animated infinity symbol on the day prior to the announcement. Employees of Irrational Games later revealed that the moniker "Icarus" began as an internal codename for the project, used in email correspondence etc., to avoid any leaks about the nature of the game.

Irrational had been working in secrecy on Infinite for two and a half years since completing the original BioShock. The original BioShock engine, a modified Unreal Engine 2.x, was inadequate to support the game mechanics of the new game, thus the development team chose to work with Unreal Engine 3, modifying it with their own lighting engine and means to simulate the movement and buoyancy of the buildings in Columbia. Because of this, all of the assets for BioShock Infinite had to be made from scratch.

In March 2012, the initial release date of BioShock Infinite for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 was announced to be October 16 of that year. However, on May 9, 2012 the release date was delayed to February 26, 2013 in order for Irrational Games to add some "specific tweaks and improvements." On December 7, 2012, the game was delayed yet again to March 26 "in order to give the team a few more weeks of this polish." On Febuary 19, Ken Levine was proud to announce that BioShock Infinite has gone Gold, stating that it has been approved by Sony, Microsoft and the PC makers.

This new engine and technology allows the buildings to work dynamically from any scripted events. They float on their own and can be affected by changes in weather and such without assigned fashion. During a demo, a bell tower tilted over and collapsed, with the bell breaking off and sliding to a stop right at the players feet. This entire event was unscripted, and was generated by the combination of the physics engine and the in-game weather system.

Behind the Scenes

 * Ken Levine revealed in an interview with Gamasutra that the plot's conflict would have been originally about tech geeks against luddites, those who resist the proliferation of technology.
 * The previous site for BioShock Infinite was WhatIsIcarus.com.
 * One scene from the trailer has "Revenge of the Jedi" playing in the theater. This is reference to the original name for Star Wars Episode VI. The name wasn't changed until a few weeks before the movie's premiere, after quite a lot of promotional material was released.
 * This is the first BioShock game to feature a speaking protagonist.