Five Things I Love about Bioshock Infinite (Spoilers)

Irrational Games most recent release is a masterpiece. This isn’t to say that Bioshock Infinite is flawless (it's not) but it is one of my favorite games. The following five items are just some of reasons why it rates so high for me. The list could have easily been longer, including the voice acting of Courtnee Draper and Troy Baker, but I have to save some things for the Additional Things I Love about Bioshock Infinite post.

1. The use of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” – Many have pointed out the meta meaning of the song asking if the loop of Booker attempting to rescue Elizabeth can be broken. But the basic meaning of the song itself focuses on whether or not the family circle (not The Family Circle) can remain unbroken. Can Booker be reunited with Anna? Ken Levine has said this is Booker and Elizabeth’s story and while the meta implications of the story are fascinating, I’m more enamored with Booker and Elizabeth’s basic story.


2. The questions that the game raises about the possibility of atonement – Can we ever “wash away” the evil that we have done? Booker refuses baptism because he doesn’t see how the act offers him any real change. Comstock accepts baptism but doesn’t really change. After Elizabeth kills Daisy Fitzroy she asks Booker, essentially, “How do I wash this blood off my hands?” Booker tells her that she can’t, she just has to live with it. But he still fights to end to wipe away his debt.


3. How perspective shifts after your first play through  – There are a number of little things, on top of all the big ones, that gain addition meaning or shift in meaning during your second (or maybe even third) play through. The initial conversation in the boat between the Lutece’s is entirely based on the fact that this has already happened. She says you don’t undertake an experiment which has already failed. He says that Booker does not row and when questioned by Rosalind emphasizes the does not. It’s not that Booker can’t or will not but that he never does. Near the end when you are searching for Elizabeth you find voxophone recordings she made. In one she says that her father failed her. Not knowing better the first time through you assume this is a reference to Comstock but on the second play through it is easy to see it is a reference to Booker.


4. The visit to Rapture – The whole game the question looms of how this game relates to the first game. But at the end, when you are wrapped up in an epic battle that looks like it just took a massively bad turn, boom, you are in Rapture. The game had already established parallel universes and the flexibility of time, but to actually be in Rapture was something I didn’t see coming. It was a wonderful turn that fit the narrative and led us to a sea of possibility.


5. The ambiguous ending – After leaving Rapture you eventually travel to the site of Booker’s almost baptism. A baptism he refused in his dimension but that Zachary Comstock accepted in his dimension. When you return to a representative place later, representative Elizabeths drown you in the attempt to erase Zachary Comstock from all existences. One by one they wink out of existence themselves. But then after the credits, Booker wakes up, back in his office, and hears music coming from Anna’s room. He goes into the room, calls her name, but we never see if she is actually there. Did the “thought experiment” (as Rosalind refers to it at the start of the game) succeed? Were they able to put Anna/Elizabeth back where they found her (with Booker)? Or was Rosalind right in her voxophone recording that reality is like an ocean and if you could make the tide come in it will eventually go out again? The game doesn’t answer that question. I’m kind of hoping the DLC doesn’t answer it either.