Burial at Sea - Episode 1

"Even in a utopia, someone has to clean up the mess. That's where I come in. The girl promised me a way out, and I was desperate enough to believe her. We were all buried at sea; we just didn't know it yet."

- Booker DeWitt

Burial at Sea - Episode 1 is the first part of the story-driven downloadable content of BioShock Infinite, which was released on November 12th for $15.00 USD on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Windows PC and OSX. It is also free to purchasers of the Season Pass. This DLC puts the player in the perspective of Booker DeWitt in a new story, taking place in the city of Rapture right before its fall.

Gameplay
This DLC features the city of Rapture rebuilt from scratch with game mechanics and the Unreal Engine 3 used for BioShock Infinite. It includes new weapons, new Plasmids (replacing Vigors), new Gear, and Tears. The first half of Episode One focuses mostly on an exploration of Rapture and its story, while the second half focuses on combat mechanics close to that of the first BioShock game, with scarce resources and tighter spaces as opposed to the larger, open areas of Infinite.

It also features stealth execution that instantly kills an unalert enemy at full health.

There are places with lots of loot goodies which require Plasmids (just like in the original BioShock), such as casting short-circuited switches wth Shock Jockey to unlock doors (like Electro Bolt), or create ice bridges with Old Man Winter to enter new areas.

Unlike in the original Infinite game, you can carry and swap all six weapons instead of just two at once.

Plot
In the city of Rapture, a different place and time that shares simiarities to Columbia, Booker Dewitt is a well-known private investigator, usually handling dirty work for his clients. On the eve of 1959, a mysterious woman by the name of Elizabeth asks him to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Sally. Elizabeth's intentions are vague and she is unwilling to reveal any vital information, only that Sally is alive and elite artist Sander Cohen may have the information regarding her whereabouts. The duo journey to Cohen's at High Street, but are denied entrance to the club. Needing the masks specifically crafted for the club's exclusive party guests, Booker and Elizabeth search the nearby shops. With Elizabeth acting as flirtatious decoy, Booker is able to retrieve the required mask and the two are welcomed into Cohen's party.

As they enter the Garden of the Muses, Cohen is working on his latest piece of "performance art." However, it falls short of the obsessive artist's high demands and he disposes of the models. After the "light show," Booker and Elizabeth confront Cohen about Sally. He expresses suspicion of malevolence in Elizabeth, but agrees to reveal Sally's location if Booker and Elizabeth dance to inspire his muse. Faced with no other options, the two waltz. It is only moments before Cohen once again finds error and knocks them unconscious. However, he does keep up his end of the bargain: he drags them to a Bathysphere, claiming it will take them to Sally.

When Booker and Elizabeth awake, they notice the Bathysphere is headed away from the city and down to the seafloor where Andrew Ryan had recently sunk Fontaine's Department Store. Via shortwave radio, Cohen reveals that Sally is residing in the Housewares section, but Booker and Elizabeth must get to the tram to reach it. When the two arrive at the main building, they are immediately attacked by the Splicers Ryan imprisoned in the now buried department store. After defeating numerous enemies, Sally is discovered lurking in the ventilation system. The two close up all but one vent to trap Sally when they increase the temperature to force her out. Sally starts screaming due to the heat and flees to that one vent exit.

Afterwards, when Booker attempts to pull her out, he discovers she is now a Little Sister (as he feared). Booker is shocked and when he aggressively tries pulling her out again, she calls for her Bouncer Big Daddy, who then attacks Booker. Booker and Elizabeth engage the Big Daddy and manage to kill him, allowing Booker to attempt to reason with Sally, but to no avail. Booker, struggling to recover her, recalls his previous memories that were "hazy" to him before. In a flashback, Booker is revealed to actually have been a regretful Zachary Hale Comstock, who bargained with Robert and Rosalind Lutece to steal Booker's child, Anna, but  (in a universe alternate to those of the Infinite  story)  ended up killing her by accidentely having her head instead of her pinkie finger cut off when the portal closed in his fight to take her. Booker (Comstock) comes to, remembering he had the Lutece twins move him to Rapture through their Tear device so he could forget and get away from his troubles. As a side effect of going to Rapture through the device, he lost his memories of being Comstock and failing to steal Anna and resumed his life of being a Private Investigator as Booker Dewitt. Having regained all these memories, he now knows the Elizabeth that hired him is the Elizabeth from the  Infinite dimension (It should be noted; Elizabeths pendant will always be a Bird. Regardless of the players choice in the main campaign. There is also no direct evidence of this Elizabeth's true originating dimension and the player is left to presume). Infuriated by Comstock's attempt at kidnapping her when she wasn't his true child, Comstock apologizes to her, but she doesn't accept and instead promises he will be sorry. He is then impaled by a Big Daddy's drill from behind. Comstock screams in pain as the screen cuts to black, thus concluding Episode One.

Main Characters

 * Booker DeWitt
 * Elizabeth
 * Sander Cohen
 * Sally
 * Robert Lutece
 * Rosalind Lutece

Minor Characters

 * Yi Suchong
 * Herschel Weiss
 * Edith Crenshaw
 * Ray Lardner
 * Moses Lydocker
 * Roscoe Mullins
 * Bert Unger
 * Shirley Womack

Mentioned Characters

 * Andrew Ryan
 * Anna Culpepper
 * Atlas
 * Bill McDonagh
 * Brigid Tenenbaum
 * Frank Fontaine
 * Franklin Crenshaw
 * J.S. Steinman
 * Jasmine Jolene
 * Jeremiah Fink
 * Kyburz
 * Kyle Fitzpatrick
 * Sullivan

Locations

 * Market Street: The first area of Rapture Booker roams to assist Elizabeth to find and question Cohen.


 * High Street: An upper class area located above Market Street and the location of Cohen's Club.


 * Fontaine's Department Store: The recently sunken building that imprisons Fontaine's Splicer army.


 * Housewares: A section of Fontaine's Department store where Sally is hiding.

Enemies

 * Thuggish Splicer
 * Leadhead Splicer
 * Frosty Splicer
 * Bouncer

Behind the Scenes

 * The inspiration for the cover art comes from the French poster of the 1942 film noir, This Gun for Hire.
 * The scene where Comstock is impaled by a Bouncer from behind is homage to a Splicer being impaled by a similar Big Daddy in the first trailer of BioShock.
 * Some of the heads used for the Splicer models were updated models of the Waders Splicer from the original BioShock.
 * All weapons in Rapture are identical from Columbia, with an exception of the Carbine (which functions more like the Burstgun), Tommy Gun, and Radar Range.
 * This is the first BioShock story in which you are able to use a firearm before a melee weapon.
 * Even though Burial at Sea uses BioShock Infinite's engine, there are also things extracted out of BioShock, such as various posters and Rapture ads, sound effects and sounds, and even items such as television sets or jukeboxes all from the original BioShock. This goes for Episode Two as well.