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.

Plot
In this story, Booker Dewitt is a well-known private investigator in Rapture, 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 avail himself of 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 (as he feared) is a Little Sister. Booker is shocked and when he aggressively tries pulling her out again, she calls for her Bouncer Big Daddy, whom 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 his daughter, recalls previous memories of his earlier attempts to do so, but in another universe. In a flashback, Booker is revealed to actually be a regretful Zachary Hale Comstock, who bargained with Robert and Rosalind Lutece to steal another Booker's child, but ended up killing the girl (her head instead of her pinkie finger split between dimensions) in his fight to take her. Booker (Comstock) comes to, realizing he had the Lutece twins remove his memories and move him to Rapture. Having regained all these memories, he now knows the Elizabeth that hired him is the Elizabeth from the Infinite dimension. Comstock apologizes to her, but she doesn't accept and instead promises he will be sorry, at which point he is impaled by a Big Daddy's drill. Comstock screams in pain as the screen fades to black, thus concluding Episode 1.

Main Characters

 * Zachary Hale Comstock/Booker DeWitt
 * Elizabeth
 * Sander Cohen
 * Sally
 * Robert Lutece
 * Rosalind Lutece

Mentioned Characters

 * Andrew Ryan
 * Brigid Tenenbaum
 * Kyle Fitzpatrick
 * Frank Fontaine
 * Yi Suchong
 * J.S. Steinman
 * Sullivan
 * Bill McDonagh
 * Jasmine Jolene
 * Kyburz
 * Atlas

Audio Diary Characters

 * Edith Crenshaw
 * Ray Lardner

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.

Behind the Scenes

 * The inspiration for the cover art came from the French poster of the 1942 film, This Gun for Hire.
 * The scene where Booker is impaled by a Bouncer from behind is an homage to a Splicer being impaled by a similar Big Daddy in the first trailer of BioShock.
 * One of the heads used for the Splicer models is an updated model of the Waders Splicer from the original BioShock.
 * All weapons in Rapture were identical from Columbia with and exception of the Tommy Gun and Radar Range.