BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K. The third installment of the BioShock series, Infinite was released worldwide for the PlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360, and OS X platforms in 2013. The game is set in the year 1912 and follows its protagonist, Booker DeWitt, who is sent to the airborne city Columbia to retrieve Elizabeth, a young woman held captive there. Booker and Elizabeth become involved in a class war between the nativist Founders that rule Columbia and the rebel Vox Populi, representing the city's underclass. Elizabeth possesses the ability to manipulate "Tears" in the space-time continuum, and Booker and Elizabeth discover she is central to Columbia's dark secrets. The player controls Booker DeWitt throughout the game, fighting enemies and scavenging supplies, while the computer-controlled Elizabeth provides assistance.
After the 2007 release of BioShock, Irrational Games and creative director Ken Levine were initially uninterested in creating a sequel, but they later renegotiated with 2K to produce another BioShock game. Irrational based the game's setting on historical events at the turn of the 20th century, such as the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and based the story on the concept of American exceptionalism while also incorporating influences from more recent events at the time such as the 2011 Occupy movement. The relationship between Booker and Elizabeth became central to the story, with the team working to make Elizabeth feel like a real character rather than a computer-controlled sidekick.
The game's development took five years and involved hundreds of employees at Irrational, in addition to support studios. The development process was troubled, with Levine's management style resulting in wasted work and missed deadlines. Outside help was brought in to make sure the game shipped. BioShock Infinite was supported post-launch with downloadable content, including the story expansion Burial at Sea, which links Infinites story to that of the original BioShock game.
BioShock Infinite received critical acclaim, with praise particularly directed at its story, setting, visual design, and art direction. It has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide. Infinite was re-released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch as part of BioShock: The Collection.
Gameplay
BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter with role-playing elements. Infinite adapts the gameplay formula of BioShock, with weapons, powers, and upgrades often functioning similar as those in the earlier game, albeit named differently. The player may carry only two weapons at a time, and can collect other weapons and ammunition from defeated enemies or the environment. In addition to guns and melee attacks, the player can use superpower-bestowing Vigors; these include the ability to shoot lightning, disable enemies by launching them into the air, or controlling enemies or machines. Vigors can also be laid on the ground as traps. Vigors require Salt, the equivalent of magic points, to power the abilities.
Booker has health and a damage-absorbing shield; the shield automatically regenerates out of combat, while health must be replenished with medical kits or food. If Booker dies, the player revives in a safe area at the cost of money, while local enemies are also partially healed. Items called Gear grant passive abilities that can improve the player's strength or damage resistance. A piece of Gear attaches to one of four slots; only one piece of Gear can be affixed to a slot at a time, with extras stored in the player's inventory. Player attributes can also be improved by finding Infusions, which upgrade the players' shield, health, or Salt meters.
The player is opposed by enemies representing the Founders and the Vox Populi. These foes range from normal infantry to Heavy Hitters, more formidable enemies that act as mini-bosses throughout the game. Armed automatons scattered throughout Columbia act as a security defense system for the city. Columbia is filled with large, open spaces that offer players freedom in how to approach enemy encounters. The city is traversed on foot or via the Sky-Line, a rail system that Booker and enemies ride via special hooks. Booker can jump on, off, and between Sky-Line tracks at any time and fire one-handed weapons while riding them. The hook also serves as a melee weapon, capable of performing executions on weakened foes.
Booker is aided throughout the game by Elizabeth, a computer-controlled non-player character. Elizabeth requires no protection and assists during combat by tossing helpful items to Booker as needed. She can also be directed to open Tears, bringing in items or pieces of the environment, such as medical kits or a ledge for higher ground. Elizabeth can pick locks using her hairpin to open doors or find useful items. Cash, food, medical kits, ammunition and Salts can be found scattered throughout the game's environments. Vending machines can be used to buy supplies and powerful upgrades for weapons and Vigors. Optional side-missions are also available, where the player must unlock safes or decode hidden ciphers; completing them rewards Booker with supplies and upgrades. Audio logs (Voxophones) and film projectors (Kinetoscopes) scattered through Columbia expand on the characters and events of the game.
Infinite has four difficulty levels; three are available to start. After beating the game on a lower difficulty level or inputting the Konami Code in the main menu, the hardest "1999 Mode" is unlocked. Enemies are much tougher, the player's navigational aid and aim assist is removed, resource management is much more crucial to survival, and death is more punishing.
Synopsis
Setting and characters
BioShock Infinite is set in 1912 and takes place in a floating steampunk city-state in the sky called "Columbia", named for the female personification of the United States. The city of Columbia was founded by self-proclaimed prophet Zachary Hale Comstock, and funded by the United States government as a floating world's fair and display of American exceptionalism in the 1890s. Tensions rose between Columbia and the government after the city independently intervened in the Boxer Rebellion, and Columbia ultimately seceded from the United States and disappeared into the clouds. Comstock transforms the city into a theocratic police state, with Comstock worshipped as a prophet, and the Founding Fathers of the United States venerated as religious icons. Institutional racism and elitism are widespread in the city, with minorities serving as a labor underclass of Columbia. By the events of the game, Columbia is on the verge of civil war; the Founders of Columbia are opposed by the Vox Populi, a resistance group led by Daisy Fitzroy who fight for the rights of the marginalized.
Columbia is home to "Tears" in the fabric of space-time. These Tears reveal alternate universes. Some individuals exploit the insight offered by the tears to create new weapons and technologies, while several others replicate futuristic media heard from the Tears, bringing anachronistic elements into Columbia.
The player controls protagonist Booker DeWitt, a U.S. Army veteran and disgraced member of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency scarred from a life of violence. Faced with mounting gambling debts, he is sent to Columbia to find a young woman, Elizabeth, who has the ability to open Tears. Confined in isolation in Columbia since childhood, Elizabeth has been groomed as the city's future leader and is guarded by Songbird, a large, robotic bird-like creature who has served as both her friend and warden. Two individuals, Robert and Rosalind Lutece, direct Booker to Columbia and appear throughout his travels. Though they appear as twins, they are revealed to be the same person from two different realities, having figured out how to communicate through and subsequently cross realities.
Plot In July 1912, Booker DeWitt arrives in Columbia, where he is soon pursued by authorities who recognize him as a "False Shepherd" who is prophesied to attempt to corrupt Elizabeth and overthrow Columbia. Freeing Elizabeth from her tower, Booker narrowly evades Songbird. Commandeering an airship, Booker lies that he will take Elizabeth to Paris; when she realizes they are going to New York City to fulfill Booker's debts, Elizabeth knocks him unconscious and flees. Booker awakens to find the airship commandeered by Daisy Fitzroy, who offers to return the ship if Booker helps her arm the Vox Populi.
Booker and Elizabeth reunite and join forces to secure weapons from a local gunsmith. Traveling through Tears, they arrive in a world where Booker is a Vox Populi martyr and open warfare has erupted in Columbia. Elizabeth kills Fitzroy to prevent her from killing a Founder boy. Booker and Elizabeth regain control of the airship; however, Songbird attacks as they attempt to flee, and they crash back into the city. Elizabeth and Booker discover a conspiracy behind the city's founding: Comstock, who had been rendered aged and infertile as a result of his frequent exposure to Tears, obtained Elizabeth from another reality and then killed his wife and the Luteces to hide the truth of the child's origin, framing their deaths as assassinations. Comstock then isolated Elizabeth in Columbia, constructing a large Siphon to control her power.
Elizabeth is recaptured by Songbird and is tortured and brainwashed back into obedience to Comstock. Pursuing her, Booker is brought forward in time to 1983 by an elderly Elizabeth as Columbia attacks New York City. The elderly Elizabeth returns Booker to 1912 with information on how to control Songbird, in hopes he can save her younger self. Booker rescues Elizabeth, and the pair pursue Comstock to his airship. Upon meeting Comstock, he demands that Booker explain Elizabeth's past to her; enraged, Booker drowns Comstock in a baptismal font. Booker denies knowledge of Elizabeth's past, but she asserts that he has merely forgotten. Booker and Elizabeth direct Songbird to destroy the Siphon, unleashing Elizabeth's full powers.
Elizabeth opens a Tear and transports them to the underwater city of Rapture. The newly omniscient Elizabeth explains there are countless alternate worlds and versions of Booker and Elizabeth; their reality is one of an infinite number depending on their choices. Elizabeth reveals that Robert Lutece approached Booker on behalf of Comstock to acquire Booker's infant daughter, Anna DeWitt, in exchange for erasing his debts. Booker later attempted to renege on the deal and take Anna back; however, Comstock narrowly escaped through a Tear, which severed a tip of Anna's finger as it closed. Comstock then raised Anna as his own daughter, Elizabeth; her severed finger, which caused her to exist in two realities simultaneously, is the source of her ability to create Tears. Robert Lutece, angry at Comstock's actions, convinced Rosalind to help him bring Booker to the reality where Columbia exists to rescue Elizabeth.
Elizabeth explains that despite Comstock's death in their reality, he will always remain alive in alternate universes, since the Luteces have enlisted the Bookers of numerous different universes to try to end the cycle. Since stopping Comstock requires preventing his birth, Elizabeth takes Booker back in time to a baptism he attended while in the Army, following his participation in the Wounded Knee Massacre. She explains that, while Booker rejected the baptism, in the universes in which he accepted, he was reborn as Zachary Comstock. Booker, joined by other universes' Elizabeths, allows them to drown him in the river, preventing Comstock's existence. One by one, the Elizabeths begin to disappear, with the screen cutting to black on the last.