A recap of...
Bioshock Infinite
In July 1912, Booker DeWitt arrives in Columbia, where he is pursued by authorities, who recognize him as a prophesied "False Shepherd" who will corrupt Elizabeth and overthrow Columbia. Freeing Elizabeth from her tower, Booker narrowly evades Songbird. Commandeering an airship, Booker promises to take Elizabeth to Paris; when she realizes they are going to New York City to fulfill Booker's debts, Elizabeth knocks him out and flees. Booker awakens to find the airship under the control of Daisy Fitzroy, who offers to return the ship if Booker helps her arm the Vox Populi.
Booker and Elizabeth 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 executing a Founder boy. Songbird attacks the duo as they try to flee Columbia, and their airship crashes back to the city. Elizabeth and Booker discover a conspiracy behind the city's founding: Elizabeth is Comstock's adopted daughter, whom he plans to groom into Columbia's leader after his death. Comstock killed his wife and the Luteces to hide the truth, and installed a siphon in Elizabeth's tower to limit her power.
Elizabeth is recaptured by Songbird. Pursuing her, Booker is brought forward in time to New Year's Eve of 1983 by an elderly Elizabeth as Columbia attacks New York City. This Elizabeth returns Booker to 1912 with information on controlling Songbird, in hopes he can save her younger self and erase the torture and brainwashing she suffered. Booker rescues Elizabeth, and the pair pursue Comstock to his airship. Comstock demands that Booker explain Elizabeth's past to her, and the two begin to argue; an enraged Booker drowns Comstock in a baptismal font. Booker denies knowledge of Elizabeth's past, but she asserts that he has simply forgotten. Booker and Elizabeth direct Songbird to destroy the Siphon, unlocking Elizabeth's full powers.
Elizabeth opens a Tear and transports them to the underwater city of Rapture. The newly aware Elizabeth explains there are countless alternate lighthouses and versions of Booker and Elizabeth; their reality is one of an infinite number depending on their choices. She shows that Robert Lutece approached Booker on behalf of Comstock to acquire Booker's infant daughter, Anna DeWitt, in exchange for erasing his debts, as Comstock was rendered aged and sterile as a result of exposure to Tears. Booker attempted to take Anna back from Comstock, but the closing Tear severed Anna's finger. Comstock 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 Comstock 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 intervening in his birth, Elizabeth takes Booker back in time to a baptism he attended, in the hope of atoning for the sins he committed at Wounded Knee; she explains that, while Booker changed his mind, some Bookers in alternate universes accepted the baptism and were reborn as Zachary Comstock. Booker, joined by other universes' Elizabeths at the baptism, allows them to drown him at the moment of his choice, preventing Comstock's existence. One by one, the Elizabeths begin to disappear, the screen cutting to black on the last.
In a post-credits scene, a Booker[b] awakens in his apartment on October 8, 1893. He calls out for Anna and opens the door to her room before the screen cuts to black.
Irrational artists had been reading Erik Larson's 2003 book The Devil in the White City, which prominently featured the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and they turned Levine onto the book as inspiration. The setting was inspired by turn-of-the-century American culture and propaganda, with some of the artwork around Columbia adapted from historical posters. By selecting the hypothetical date of July 4, 1912, the team identified films to draw imagery from, like The Music Man, Meet Me in St. Louis, and Hello, Dolly, which exhibited ideal views of Americana at the turn of the 20th century. Other sources of inspiration for the game's art included photographs from before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and from Sears-Roebuck catalogs.
The bright, open-air environments of Columbia presented a challenge to the team to keep aspects of the horror genre within the game; the developers took inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and David Lynch's Blue Velvet in how to transform bright, sterile environments into something frightening.
While initial designs of the flying city were darker and closer to Art Nouveau, Irrational felt this made the game world too claustrophobic and too similar to Rapture. Instead, they decided on a brighter, expansive architecture and color scheme. Irrational designed the vertical and open-air spaces of Columbia to provide more opportunities to include various types of combat compared to the tight quarters of Rapture. 2K Marin assisted in building out the architecture and details of Columbia, given the much larger scope of the levels than previous BioShock games.
While the floating city setting was developed early, the name "Columbia" and the thematic ideas of American exceptionalism that would inspire the story did not come about until eight months before the game's reveal. The game also incorporated influences from more recent events at the time such as the Occupy movement in 2011, which inspired how the Vox Populi group would grow from its haphazard beginnings. Levine reflected that despite the game's earlier setting, many of the modern day political turmoil calls back to similar tactics and behavior used in the early days of America's democracy, and thus provided a means to flesh out these aspects within the game.
Central to the game is the relationship between the player character, Booker, and the AI companion, Elizabeth. Unlike BioShock's Jack and BioShock 2's Subject Delta, both of whom are silent protagonists, BioShock Infinite's protagonist, Booker, was given his own voice and identity. Elizabeth, a crucial element of the game, was designed as a character which could not only be a useful AI companion to the player but a real partner with a significant emotional bond as well. The voice actors for Booker and Elizabeth—Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper, respectively—helped refine the story and their characters. Levine did not provide the actors with full knowledge of the story in order to help them develop their characters' relationship in a more natural manner.
In the early development of Infinite, Elizabeth was designed to be more of a useful tool than a partner; she would perform tasks like picking locks that the player could not, but otherwise was not a major part of the experience. After Irrational saw players react favorably to Elizabeth in the E3 2011 demo, they expanded her role and abilities to make her a bigger part of the game. The approach to Elizabeth was inspired by the character Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 as well as Monkey and Trip in the game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Irrational wanted to avoid giving Elizabeth any of the same tools that the player had, such as a gun. Instead, they gave her helpful abilities such as tossing supplies to Booker or deciphering codes to connect her more emotionally to the player. She also served to help Irrational avoid tropes of the genre, such as receiving information over a radio or from someone on the opposite side of a window. Elizabeth's relationship to the Songbird was inspired by Levine's experience with a friend in an abusive relationship. Her design and costume was designed so players could recognize her from a distance given the open-space nature of the game and limited resolution, with the color scheme inspired by that of superheroes.
The time period's setting inspired the incorporation of quantum theory by Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg that would lead to the Many Worlds Theory. Irrational consulted with physicist Mackenzie Van Camp to ground the game's science fiction in real quantum mechanics. Levine promised that the ending of Infinite was "like nothing you've experienced in a video game before", and wanted to avoid the issue BioShock had where the story lost its momentum in its final third.
Booker and Elizabeth 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 executing a Founder boy. Songbird attacks the duo as they try to flee Columbia, and their airship crashes back to the city. Elizabeth and Booker discover a conspiracy behind the city's founding: Elizabeth is Comstock's adopted daughter, whom he plans to groom into Columbia's leader after his death. Comstock killed his wife and the Luteces to hide the truth, and installed a siphon in Elizabeth's tower to limit her power.
Elizabeth is recaptured by Songbird. Pursuing her, Booker is brought forward in time to New Year's Eve of 1983 by an elderly Elizabeth as Columbia attacks New York City. This Elizabeth returns Booker to 1912 with information on controlling Songbird, in hopes he can save her younger self and erase the torture and brainwashing she suffered. Booker rescues Elizabeth, and the pair pursue Comstock to his airship. Comstock demands that Booker explain Elizabeth's past to her, and the two begin to argue; an enraged Booker drowns Comstock in a baptismal font. Booker denies knowledge of Elizabeth's past, but she asserts that he has simply forgotten. Booker and Elizabeth direct Songbird to destroy the Siphon, unlocking Elizabeth's full powers.
Elizabeth opens a Tear and transports them to the underwater city of Rapture. The newly aware Elizabeth explains there are countless alternate lighthouses and versions of Booker and Elizabeth; their reality is one of an infinite number depending on their choices. She shows that Robert Lutece approached Booker on behalf of Comstock to acquire Booker's infant daughter, Anna DeWitt, in exchange for erasing his debts, as Comstock was rendered aged and sterile as a result of exposure to Tears. Booker attempted to take Anna back from Comstock, but the closing Tear severed Anna's finger. Comstock 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 Comstock 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 intervening in his birth, Elizabeth takes Booker back in time to a baptism he attended, in the hope of atoning for the sins he committed at Wounded Knee; she explains that, while Booker changed his mind, some Bookers in alternate universes accepted the baptism and were reborn as Zachary Comstock. Booker, joined by other universes' Elizabeths at the baptism, allows them to drown him at the moment of his choice, preventing Comstock's existence. One by one, the Elizabeths begin to disappear, the screen cutting to black on the last.
In a post-credits scene, a Booker[b] awakens in his apartment on October 8, 1893. He calls out for Anna and opens the door to her room before the screen cuts to black.
Irrational artists had been reading Erik Larson's 2003 book The Devil in the White City, which prominently featured the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and they turned Levine onto the book as inspiration. The setting was inspired by turn-of-the-century American culture and propaganda, with some of the artwork around Columbia adapted from historical posters. By selecting the hypothetical date of July 4, 1912, the team identified films to draw imagery from, like The Music Man, Meet Me in St. Louis, and Hello, Dolly, which exhibited ideal views of Americana at the turn of the 20th century. Other sources of inspiration for the game's art included photographs from before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and from Sears-Roebuck catalogs.
The bright, open-air environments of Columbia presented a challenge to the team to keep aspects of the horror genre within the game; the developers took inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and David Lynch's Blue Velvet in how to transform bright, sterile environments into something frightening.
While initial designs of the flying city were darker and closer to Art Nouveau, Irrational felt this made the game world too claustrophobic and too similar to Rapture. Instead, they decided on a brighter, expansive architecture and color scheme. Irrational designed the vertical and open-air spaces of Columbia to provide more opportunities to include various types of combat compared to the tight quarters of Rapture. 2K Marin assisted in building out the architecture and details of Columbia, given the much larger scope of the levels than previous BioShock games.
While the floating city setting was developed early, the name "Columbia" and the thematic ideas of American exceptionalism that would inspire the story did not come about until eight months before the game's reveal. The game also incorporated influences from more recent events at the time such as the Occupy movement in 2011, which inspired how the Vox Populi group would grow from its haphazard beginnings. Levine reflected that despite the game's earlier setting, many of the modern day political turmoil calls back to similar tactics and behavior used in the early days of America's democracy, and thus provided a means to flesh out these aspects within the game.
Central to the game is the relationship between the player character, Booker, and the AI companion, Elizabeth. Unlike BioShock's Jack and BioShock 2's Subject Delta, both of whom are silent protagonists, BioShock Infinite's protagonist, Booker, was given his own voice and identity. Elizabeth, a crucial element of the game, was designed as a character which could not only be a useful AI companion to the player but a real partner with a significant emotional bond as well. The voice actors for Booker and Elizabeth—Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper, respectively—helped refine the story and their characters. Levine did not provide the actors with full knowledge of the story in order to help them develop their characters' relationship in a more natural manner.
In the early development of Infinite, Elizabeth was designed to be more of a useful tool than a partner; she would perform tasks like picking locks that the player could not, but otherwise was not a major part of the experience. After Irrational saw players react favorably to Elizabeth in the E3 2011 demo, they expanded her role and abilities to make her a bigger part of the game. The approach to Elizabeth was inspired by the character Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 as well as Monkey and Trip in the game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Irrational wanted to avoid giving Elizabeth any of the same tools that the player had, such as a gun. Instead, they gave her helpful abilities such as tossing supplies to Booker or deciphering codes to connect her more emotionally to the player. She also served to help Irrational avoid tropes of the genre, such as receiving information over a radio or from someone on the opposite side of a window. Elizabeth's relationship to the Songbird was inspired by Levine's experience with a friend in an abusive relationship. Her design and costume was designed so players could recognize her from a distance given the open-space nature of the game and limited resolution, with the color scheme inspired by that of superheroes.
The time period's setting inspired the incorporation of quantum theory by Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg that would lead to the Many Worlds Theory. Irrational consulted with physicist Mackenzie Van Camp to ground the game's science fiction in real quantum mechanics. Levine promised that the ending of Infinite was "like nothing you've experienced in a video game before", and wanted to avoid the issue BioShock had where the story lost its momentum in its final third.
