Bioshock Infinite: Redefining Game Characters - Levine

Since it’s reveal in August 2010, Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite has been inseparable from its leading lady, Elizabeth. The picture of vulnerability, strength and innocence, her relationship with the player-controlled Booker DeWitt, is pushing the very definition of the player/protagonist role.

While so many games currently fall back to genre staples, such as relying on players ‘following the man’, what Irrational has created in Booker and Elizabeth, is nothing short of groundbreaking. 360 Magazine recently caught up with Ken Levine to find out just how far Bioshock Infinite is pushing things with its ambitious new design.

“What we’re doing is creating this improv between these two characters and the rest of the world," explained Levine. “Voiceover is a good way to support that and to keep them interacting with each other, even when you’re doing something else. Elizabeth can give you a tonne of information about the world. We have all these places where she can notice things and point out things to help you like that.

“The challenge for us is that she always wants to be useful and helpful to you in terms of the gameplay experience, while not oppressively bogging you down with information or sitting there silently. We have a lot of context in it. We have a system called a ‘pattern matcher’, which basically identifies things that happen in the world and then acts on them. It sends messages to the AI and to the player, then alerts Elizabeth. Like, ‘Hey! This cool thing’s going on, who can tell us about this?’ Maybe Elizabeth can mention that, or Booker can mention that?

"So it’s this weird thing where the player is playing himself and Booker, then Booker can know things, notice things that the player maybe hasn’t noticed and maybe Elizabeth can do the same. Making that feel really organic is a challenge, but it’s also super-exciting.”

You can read the entire interview with Ken Levine in Issue 93 of 360 Magazine. On sale now for only £2.99 from newsagents and the Imagine Shop, and £1.99 on the Apple Newsstand.