TITLE
A look inside BioShock Infinite’s troubled development
AUTHOR
Jason Schreier
PUBLICATION
Polygon
YEAR
2021
ARTICLE TYPE
Book Excerpt
FROM THE ARTICLE
On August 12, 2010, at a press event in the swanky Plaza Hotel near Central Park in New York City, journalists gathered to watch the trailer for the next BioShock game. The video opened with a delightful fakeout, zooming in on the silhouette of a familiar-looking underwater city before pulling back to reveal that the camera was actually inside of a fish tank. Good-bye, Rapture. Hello, BioShock Infinite. After the trailer, director Ken Levine gave the press a basic outline of the game. BioShock Infinite was set in Columbia, a city in the sky devoted to the celebration of American exceptionalism, during July 1912. It would star the former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to rescue a raven-haired girl named Elizabeth. Guarding her tower prison was a flying robotic hulk called the Songbird, who would make for a good mascot (and merchandising opportunity) in lieu of those Big Daddies.What was nice about this announcement wasn’t just that the developers could finally be open about what they were doing. It was that they now had to stick with the details they’d announced. Columbia was Columbia. Elizabeth was Elizabeth. None of the major details could be overturned anymore.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Irrational Games
GAMES MENTIONED
BioShock Infinite
TOPICS MENTIONED
Working Conditions
EXCERPTED FROM
Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry
SEE ALSO
Curt Schilling’s $150 Million Fail Shows What’s Broken in Video Games – Bloomberg Businesweek (2021)