BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite was announced on August 12, 2010. It is Irrational Games' new project slated for 2012.

The game is set in 1912 and based on the floating city in the sky, Columbia, where you assume the role of Booker DeWitt, a disgraced Pinkerton agent. You have been given the job of finding a woman named Elizabeth in Columbia.

Like in previous BioShock games, you will possess extraordinary powers similar, but not identical, to Telekinesis and Electro Bolt. It is unknown if these powers come from plasmids or if they lead to the invention of plasmids in some way. Elizabeth also possesses powers which will often be used in tandem with yours to make attacks more effective. An example is where Elizabeth creates a rain cloud and the player uses a lightning attack.



BioShock Infinite Teaser Trailer
The trailer debuted on August 12, 2010. It can be seen on the official website or on YouTube.

The video begins with a reference to the introduction of Rapture. A view moves along a sea floor, past what would seem to be a guarding Big Daddy, to a grand reveal of what would also seem to be Rapture's dark cityscape. A fish swims by the camera's view, behind the city, and the view lights up. The fish is revealed to be a goldfish, and the cityscape is, in reality, a mock up of the "'1893 Chicago World Fair."

Screams can be heard, and the camera is quickly pulled up, revealing the view to have been a medium sized fish tank. The view is also revealed to be of a man who was almost drown in said fish tank. He is thrown to the floor, looking at the fish tank, then to the floor, where as he hears creaking sounds. The statue of what had previously appeared to be a Big Daddy is also on the floor, and crushed by a large metal boot. A mechanical hand, segmented and noticeably different from a Big Daddies, is seen. It grabs the man, and drags him across the floor, with the only sight of his assailant through the darkness being a beating heart suspended in yellow liquid on the mechanical being's chest, behind a dome of glass.

The being thrusts the man toward a designed window, the rooms only light source, and thusly crashes through it. After brief blindness, his vision clears and reveals a view of a city unlike the location of Rapture, but a place equally as fantastic: A city in the sky, adorned excessively with American flags.

As the slow motion view returns to normal speed, he resumes his falling, screaming before landing on a small flying contraption. He grabs onto it, ripping the canvas skin, but stopping his fall. Trying to catch his breath, he looks upon the city, giving strong contrast to Rapture's cityscape: bright, and still very much intact, with American symbolism and flags vastly spread across the city. He turns to see a close up billboard, showing a woman clad in clothes reminiscent of the American flag, holding a baby while shunning another sickly one being held away by her. It is captioned "Burden NOT Columbia with your Chaff!" Turning from this billboard, "You're a Grand Old Flag" by Bill Murray of the American Quartet can be heard, seeing a man conducting to the record as it plays on a phonograph.

The man turns again, again briefly blinded by the sunlight, and sees a trio of buildings built together emerging from a cloud. Jets of fire are seen under it, lifting the balloons underneath it, and causing it to rapidly rise. Ripping is then heard, and the man looks back up at the canvas he had been clinging to begin to tear off. It comes off, continuing his fall, looking upon the ground, seemingly miles below him. Suddenly, a balcony shoots a stream of red roses, and upon falling into them, stops falling. Whispering is heard, and he slowly drifts toward the balcony. He turns to see a woman on the balcony, surrounded by a small garden of the roses, with her hands outreached toward him, her face fear-stricken. As the two come close, a mechanical hand similar to the one seen at the beginning of the video comes out from the darkness behind her, and grabs her. For a brief moment, she glances at the man, before letting out a short scream and being pulled inside, the doors shutting behind her. With this, the man resumes his fall toward many large green fields. His head moves into one of the roses from before, blocking his view. The "BioShock Infinite" insignia seen amongst the sound of wind and radio static.

BioShock Infinite Gameplay Demo
A gameplay video was shown at Gamescom 2010, featuring an early build of BioShock Infinite. BioShock Infinite has won Game of the Show and Best Xbox 360 Game by IGN at Gamescom 2010.

Trivia

 * BioShock Infinite is the first game in the franchise to take place outside of Rapture. (As it is set about 36 years before Rapture's construction began, when 20 year-old Andrew Ryan still lives his life in tsarist Russia).


 * According to an interview with Ken Levine (which implies what Bioshock Infinite is in regards to Bioshock):


 * the game is thematically tied to the work he did in first BioShock in that it is another game about a strange and yet strangely familiar place as well as about expressive, variable gameplay. He doesn't call it prequel though and drew no narrative connections between the BioShocks we have played and the one his team is making. "I don't want to think about that," Levine said to me. "I don't think it's particularly constructive to have that conversation."


 * A Billy Murray's version of a song "You're a Grand Old Flag" (1905) (link) can be heard in the trailer. It is odd that, if Elizabeth was captive in the city for 15 years, and it being 1912, that a song from 1905 could exist in the city unless this captivity was inconsequential to the interaction with the surface.
 * This is further suggested with the 46 Star US Flags in the teaser although it should be the 48 Star Flag due to Arizona and New Mexico entering the Union unless the Columbia hadn't been able to replace the flags or they were either unable to learn of their admittance or due to a radio blackout around or after 1907. Two years before Oklahoma joined the Union.


 * This version of BioShock seems to be heavily based on the film Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki, where the robots in the trailer looks very similar to the robots in the film.


 * As it is set before the founding of Rapture, the apparent substitute for the Big Daddy is another form of machine-human hybrid, this one featuring (at the very least) a human heart, beating and visible through a glass port on its chest and supposedly a human head as stated in the articles about the demo.


 * The character you play in BioShock Infinite will not be a silent protagonist like in the previous BioShock games.


 * The original BioShock focused on the downfall of a pure capitalist society. The second on the chaos that ensued when the opposite side of the coin, a purely communist/collective society, was implemented. BioShock Infinite, following suit, appears to focus on ultra-nationalism, specifically American ultra-nationalism, as shown by the copious numbers of flags, patriotic music, and propaganda poster that boldfacedly spurns the idea that the Columbia is a 'haven' for the so-called 'unwanted' of the world (in this case, the sick and weak).


 * Infinite means a concept in many fields, most predominantly mathematics and physics, that refers to a quantity without bound or end. People have developed various ideas throughout history about the nature of infinity. The word comes from the Latin word infinitas or "unboundedness."


 * If you look closely, the drill on the diver statue is actually a hermit crab.


 * As reported by 1UP, Ken Levine might consider Multiplayer for BioShock Infinite if it can be as different as they set the Single-Player to be.


 * The coding for the official website has a minor Easter Egg. Elements name "forTheMoney," "forTheShow," "toGetReady," and then, "goCatGo." "One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go cat go" is the opening lyric to "Blue Suede Shoes" made famous by Elvis Presley.