“Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt”. That’s the phrase that bookends Bioshock Infinite, and much like the original Bioshock‘s use of the words “would you kindly,” that single sentence cuts far deeper than one would originally expect. The brainchild of System Shock 2 and the first Bioshock creator, Ken Levine, Bioshock Infinite isn’t a sequel to any of the other games in the series, nor is it a spin-off.
Bioshock Infinite is instead a fearless piece of interactive entertainment that stands on its own and will likely be the benchmark for gaming at the end of this console cycle. Infinite certainly has its similarities to Bioshock 1 and 2, but instead of taking place in the 1950’s in the underwater city Rapture, Infinite is set in the 1920’s in floating “utopia” know as Columbia. Both places have their beloved leaders, Rapture having industrialist/Walt Disney look-alike Andrew Ryan, while Columbia is the singular vision of the religious radical Zachary Comstock. While the original Bioshock poked at the works of Ayn Rand and the concept of Objectivism, Bioshock Infinite decides to take some swings at national exceptionalism and religion in general (both very large bears to be poking at but we’ll get to that later).
What Infinite does best, if not better than other games in the series, is tell a compelling story. While Bioshock and its sequel had silent protagonists to a degree,Bioshock Infinite‘s main character is one that is fully realized and allowed to speak. Booker DeWitt is an ex-Pinkerton agent and Civil War veteran who fought at Wounded Knee. If that wasn’t enough baggage, he also has apparently gotten in deep with the wrong people and now has to travel to the mysterious floating city, Columbia, to find a girl name Elizabeth and bring her back to New York City.
Of course, nothing goes as planned and there is more to what is going on than what is seen at surface level. While Booker and Elizabeth are both compelling in their own right, it’s Columbia that really takes center stage. While Rapture had already fallen to shambles by the time you arrived in the first Bioshock, Infinite shows Columbia while the façade is still in place, and it’s a beautiful façade. Columbia looks like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life, however with more nefarious and racially divided underpinnings.Bioshock Infinite makes no bones about possibly offending players, whether it’s through race, religion, or the sheer amount of violence the game displays.
However, Bioshock Infinite plays like an interactive Rorschach test. You get what you put into it. While some may be offended at the content, Infinite tows the line well enough without being disrespectful in showing how a society can crumble when it leans too far to an extreme. Bioshock Infinite may throw stones at larger giants than the first game did, but they are tackling subjects that have been discussed in films and books for decades. If we can’t accept that videogames will go places that may make us feel uncomfortable at times, then they will never become anything more than they already are.