BioShock: Infinite FAQ - Everything You Need to Know

Set among the clouds in a floating city called Columbia hovering above America in 1912, BioShock: Infinite is a departure from Rapture. The cloud city's at least 12,000 feet above sea level compounded by however deep Andrew Ryan's sunk Atlas is. But more importantly, out go Randian philosophies, in come McKinley policies.

Infinite in our brief time watching it felt at different times nothing and everything like BioShock prime, the clearest connectors: breathtaking, lavish and interactive environments; violence, from both blunt weaponry and super-human powers; and Ken Levine's fetish for American history and its deepest shades of moral gray. And then the differentatiors: the art design, the setting and, behind the curtain, a new engine powering the game's graphics.

In Infinite's history, Columbia was built at the turn of the century for the world to see and experience, a city that would elevate America from a city on the hill to a city of the sky, one that could travel abroad wowing and intimidating foreign leaders.

It's design: city blocks carried to the air by cloud-sized canvas balloons. Its streets, markets for the trade of new American inventions like radios, automobiles and moving pictures. And at its core, advanced weaponry, a secretive, powerful limb.

And, after a deadly incident involving Columbia's explosive power, the city disappeared into the clouds never to be seen again.

Using timeline skills, you may have deduced one of the Infinite's surprises: that it is a prequel. Of sorts. You see, whether or not Columbia and Rapture exist in the same universe remains purposefully vague, as Lead Artist Shawn Robertson emphasized in our interview, [When designing Infinite's world] there were no sacred cows."

So we don't know if it's a prequel or even the same universe, but Ken Levine, BioShock's visionary, shed some light on the world, voice and spirit of BioShock. He interrupted his introduction to quote what President William McKinley said to a parish re: his decision to annex the Phillipines in 1889, 23 years before the action of his game.

"The truth is I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them... I sought counsel from all sides - Democrats as well as Republicans - but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands, perhaps, also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way - I don't know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain - that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany - our commercial rivals in the Orient - that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves - they were unfit for self-government - and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed and went to sleep and slept soundly."

Levine made it clear: imperialism and evangelism as moral and spiritual duty is the engine of wars and dramas and, now, video games.