Ken Levine on BioShock Infinite’s new DLC, Burial at Sea

Returning to Rapture on the eve of its downfall

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Irrational Games, and Ken Levine in particular, have been known for creating games with innovative narratives and unique gameplay. BioShock Infinite is no different, and we expect the same for the remaining downloadable content we’ve been promised, including Burial at Sea, announced earlier today.

The team at Irrational started working on the Burial at Sea DLC almost immediately after BioShock Infinite released, but the idea took some time to form. Ken explained, “I was running one day and the idea just started […] You’re Booker, you’re a private detective and this woman walks into your office like this classic sort of film noir […] and that is Elizabeth dressed like Veronica Lake or something. That image was enough to sort of set everything into motion.”

Ken mentioned that he wanted to stay away from telling a story just to tell it — he knew that people were curious about what it was like before the fall of Rapture, but wanted to do it in a way that wouldn’t rehash what they had already built in BioShock.

“We knew it had to start with, like all BioShock games, ‘what’s going on here, why is this happening?’, because otherwise you’re telling people what they already know. Retelling the story of what’s already in the audio logs of BioShock is not very interesting, so this is an opportunity to listen to it from the perspective of these characters and why they are there.”

Ken and his team have built Burial at Sea from the ground up, including the objects and assets. This was surprising to me seeing as it’s only DLC, but Ken explains, “it was a huge undertaking and I’m not exactly sure why we do things that take so much time, but we thought this was our last chance for a while to give our fans a love letter so we decided to do it.”

This method seems to pay off — when Ken describes the game to me, I can already tell how unique it will be compared to previous installments. He continues: “It’s basically two parts — [the first episode] takes place in sort of the pristine Rapture, and that’s very much like being in Columbia at the beginning. There’s a hubspace that’s pretty…I think actually one of the best BioShock spaces that the team has ever built in terms of what I like to see.

“I look at levels like the medical level in BioShock and Fort Frolick as sort of the right structural layout of things because they’re less linear, they’re more sort of the center. They feel organic to me, [but] buildings are designed in a hierarchical fashion […] where the more big action stuff tends to push you down a single corridor. It is a constant struggle to get the team around that non-linearity. We’ve definitely done a better job I think in this DLC than we did in Infinite.”

When I asked about the story, Ken didn’t want to get too much into the specifics so as not to spoil it, but he did say that everything ties together and certain characters will make appearances. “We’re fans of integration, we’ll put it that way. We want to both give people a chance to see characters from BioShock before they splice up as much as they do and what they were like beforehand. There is a very well known character in BioShock who will be involved substantially in the story […] It is connected to the larger story.”

Ken also touched on a few themes from the original BioShock, and mentioned that this DLC will dive a bit deeper into the intricacies of Rapture. “You see this opening part which is in pristine Rapture and there’s this whole quest there that doesn’t involve combat and your journey takes you to […] a department store that’s now a prison that you’re there for a reason, you’ll find out. That’s a very traditional BioShock experience with all the fucking crazy splicers down there and the place has gone to shit. So you get both — you get the pristine Rapture and the ‘gone to shit’ Rapture in the same package.”

I prodded about the second episode, in which players get to experience everything through the eyes of Elizabeth. I was particularly interested in Booker’s role, but it hasn’t been fleshed out completely so Ken was hesitant to share a lot of information. However, he has an outline of a story in mind and wants it to have a different combat feel than the other games.

“We’re in relatively early stages of the third part of the DLC [Burial at Sea Ep 2],” Ken told me. “It’s something that we wanted to do, we didn’t know if we could or had the time or resources but finally we decided it was important that we did it. It’s funny, each of the DLCs are a different combat feel, the first one [Clash in the Clouds] is very much like Infinite. The second one is much like BioShock, we reintegrated much more of the player-initiated combat notions of BioShock. In the third one, it’s almost like survival horror. Elizabeth is not like Booker, she’s not a huge tank. We’re still figuring out the details, everything is open to change, but we want her to feel like she’s always on the bleeding edge of resources and decisions and even push the stealth mechanic.”

Ken continues, “We also have this notion of grifting from the original game that we didn’t have time to do, and I wanted to show that side of Elizabeth and her saviness through her wits to get the things she needs done, done.”

When I asked about everyone’s favorite characters, the Luteces, Ken said that “I’m not only a huge fan of writing them but I’m a huge fan of working with Oliver [Vaquer] and Jennifer [Hale] on them, and I’ll leave it at that.”

For now, Ken seemed excited about the future and about what fans will think of Burial at Sea. He explains, “We never know what we’re doing next but I think if we knew… it wouldn’t be surprising because we’d have to surprise ourselves. I’m just curious to hear people’s reactions.

We know people were frustrated by how silent we were and how long it was taking, but at the end of the day we’re always going to make the choice to present things in a way to actually give people a sense of what we’re doing and do the thing that we think is right for the gamer in the long run, not in the short run. So they’re frustrated that they haven’t gotten the content yet, but we could have done something quicker but it wouldn’t be this. People get anxious but I think they’re going to be pretty happy.”


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