BioShock Infinite



BioShock Infinite is the third game in the BioShock series. Announced on August 12, 2010, it is Irrational Games' newest project, slated for release in 2012. 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 is set in 1912 and takes place in the floating 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 held confined by a hulking beast called Him.

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.

Gameplay
DeWitt will possess extraordinary abilities, called Vigors and Nostrums. They are similar, but not identical to, the Plasmid and Gene Tonic abilities of the BioShock series.

Infinite features a range of environments that will force the player to adapt 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.

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, and can combine them with his for unique and powerful attacks. An example is where Elizabeth creates a rain cloud and the player uses a lightning attack. The player will not be able to directly control Elizabeth, but instead she will react to the player and the current situation. However, using Elizabeth's abilities also has consequences, draining her of strength and possibly harming her.

Infinite features several varieties of enemies. These range from seemingly average humans with weapons, to the iconic Handyman seen in the trailer. 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 creature in the game, known as Him, is the most feared creature in all of Columbia, but his bond with Elizabeth prevents Booker from fighting Him without damaging his relationship with her.

BioShock Infinite Teaser Trailer
right|190px The trailer debuted on August 12, 2010. It can be viewed at the BioShock Infinite official website.

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 drowned 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 Daddy's, 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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThG7-3TfXI8

A gameplay video was shown at Gamescom 2010, featuring an early build of BioShock Infinite. BioShock Infinite won Game of the Show and Best Xbox 360 Game by IGN at Gamescom 2010. . It went live September 21 on Xbox LIVE and Xbox.com, and September 22 elsewhere online. .

The gameplay demo starts off with a close up of a propaganda poster, depicting stereotypical foreigners crowding around what appears to be George Washington with a Liberty Bell and the Bill of Rights in his hands. The "foreigners" seem to be eager to take the American ideals from Washington, as the inscription below the piece reads "It is our Holy Duty to guard against the foreign hordes."

It appears that the protagonist, Booker DeWitt was in a daze, gazing at the poster. He looks around, mumbling "That thing took Elizabeth, I've got to find her." He walks up a street, past a mechanical horse drawing a newspaper carriage (with a missing wheel), with papers reading "Anarchists Loose," and a man in the back. As DeWitt continues up the street, he finally comes to an edge of the Sky-Line. An unscripted event occurs, where a floating bell tower ahead of Booker destabilizes, wobbling violently until finally toppling over and disintegrating, the bell landing at Booker's feet.

Booker takes a right on the intersection, walking past what seems to be a woman sweeping in front of a store called Harper's Grocery that is engulfed in fire. He then gazes up at a rather large statue of a lady reaching out to Columbia, draped in an American flag. Walking past a decaying horse's corpse, Booker DeWitt eventually sees a man preaching about nationalistic ideals to a few rows of empty chairs. Walking by some of his propaganda posters, it appears the old man's name is Saltonstall, and has a very conservative agenda concerning foreigners. He seems oblivious to Booker, until DeWitt grabs one of the rifles next to Saltonstall.

Saltonstall becomes infuriated, shouting "Who are you?!" at DeWitt, while vibrating in a seemingly inhuman fashion. His eyes begin to glow, his voice deepens, and his American patriot button shifts into that of the Soviet Union's Communist symbol of the Hammer and Sickle. He then calls upon his bodyguard Charles to deal with Booker. Charles uses Murder of Crows to attack DeWitt. DeWitt kills Charles by throwing him off a ledge and onto a below freight carrier, but not quick enough to stop Saltonstall from fleeing. Using his telekinetic ability to take the Murder of Crows Vigor from Charles corpse, the protagonist mutters "Well, would you look at this." and drinks it. His gaze becomes blurry, then a bloody crow, holding what would seem to be flesh in its beak, appears on his hand.

Unfortunately for Booker DeWitt, Saltonstall is firing a rather heavy cannon at him from a distance. Booker equips a Sky-Hook, telling himself "Nothing ventured, nothing gained..." and latches it onto the Sky-Line to chase Saltonstall. Traveling at an uncontrollable rate across the Sky-Line, he knocks a man coming at him off of the rail, splattering him against a building, soon after he lands hard near the cannon Saltonstall has commanded on him, hearing "Fire!" shouted from it. Booker flees into a nearby building, entering a solemn bar. The gentry give him rather rude looks, but continue on with their business. All seems normal, until a painting in front of Booker shifts from a blue herd of horses with a Statue of Liberty in the background, into a portrait of a somewhat important man. At the same time, one of the inhabitants shouts "We're closed!" while firing a shotgun at DeWitt. The protagonist makes short work of him by taking the gun from the man's hands using his telekinetic ability, then using the same ability to fire the gun back at him.

This angers the residents of the bar, who form an angry mob chasing down Booker. Although his Murder of Crows and rifle prove effective against some, he cannot fight them all off. DeWitt flees the bar, facing the hostile cannon once more. However, this time DeWitt grabs one of the mortars with his telekinetic ability and throws it back at the cannon, destroying it. Booker continues to flee the mob, even using the Sky-Line for a momentary jump forward from them. However, he is eventually cornered and forced to fight with what he's got left.

Luckily, Elizabeth shows up to DeWitt's left, conjuring up a storm and telling him to "Hit it now!" (with electricity). This causes a lightning barrage that kills many of the enemies. The two flee, trying to fight off more angry Columbians along the way. Elizabeth uses her powers to form the surrounding objects into a heated mass, commanding Booker to take it. Picking it up with his telekinetic ability, he fires it at the citizens, killing them. Elizabeth is knocked down, coughing and wheezing from the energy it took out of her. She says "I just need a moment...," then sees something in the distance muttering "...a moment we don't have." A Handyman leaps from the sky, jumps in front of the two and knocks DeWitt down. As a horse panics and tries to cross the bridge, the Handyman grabs it by the legs and swings it at Booker and Elizabeth. Booker tells Elizabeth to hit a floating support of the bridge, which he precedes to shoot and collapse the bridge. He shoots the and fires attacks at the Handyman until it finally slips free and falls from Columbia. Elizabeth is physically damaged from using the power, but is optimistic saying "Three cheers for us, eh?"

Booker asks if the Handyman was the one chasing her, which Elizabeth negates. Instead she points and says "That's Him!" to a flying, winged creature from behind DeWitt. Him emits a long, low noise similar to that of a Big Daddy as he swoops down on the player, blocking the view and ending the gameplay demo.

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.

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 was not scripted at all, of course.

Trivia

 * 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, the citizens of Columbia probably hadn't been able to replace the flags, or were either unable to learn of their admittance due to a radio blackout around or after 1907.
 * The coding for the BioShock Infinite official website contains 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.
 * A strange, but unexplained, shimmering effect seen by DeWitt in the gameplay demo footage causes momentary changes to pictures, banners, and people, but the mystery behind these is yet to be explained.
 * In the gameplay demo, a woman's voice can be barely heard on a phonograph in the bar that DeWitt enters, singing the lyrics to Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", a song that wouldn't be known to the general public for another 73 years from that game's timeframe.
 * The demo includes an image of the hammer and sickle, despite the game taking place five years before the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, when the symbol was created.