All the protagonists in BioShock games thus far have been men. Haunted, lethally determined men. But an upcoming downloadable add-on for BioShock Infinite will finally give the franchise a lead playable character who’s a woman.
The twisty, surprise-filled storyline of BioShock Infinite grabbed tons of attentions after the game came out. But it’s probably a safe bet that most of people who finished the game haven’t fired the game back up since its ending. Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine and his team think they have pretty good reasons for those masses to come back. The first is Clash in the Clouds, a new, combat-focused DLC pack that’s available starting today for $US5. And, sometime in the future, players will get Burial at Sea, a hardboiled adventure set in 1958 where you’ll play as both Booker and Elizabeth in Rapture. That’s right: Elizabeth will be playable. In Rapture. At the height of the underwater city’s beauty. Interested?
For months, that Season Pass pane in BioShock Infinite‘s menus seemed to tease players holding out for the promise of more adventures in the floating, secessionist city of Columbia. When making the announcement yesterday, Levine said that he and his cohorts at Irrational listened to what fans said they wanted with regard to DLC. The add-ons weren’t farmed off to auxiliary developers, it’s not comprised of content that’s already on the disc and isn’t a bunch of ideas that were set aside for later use by corporate decision-making. When Clash in the Clouds hits Steam today, it’ll be only the first add-on for the well-recieved game. Designed by Infinite’s lead level designer Forrest Dowling, Clash in the Clouds puts players against 15 waves of enemies in four all-new maps all across Columbia. Leaderboards will chart how you do against other friends playing these battles and players will earn new achievements and trophies. The extra content also fears new voxaphones for fan-favorite character Rosalind Lutece to flesh out parts of her backstory, as well as new behind-the-scenes video and concept art.
The two-part Burial at Sea will drop the lead characters of Infinite into the iconic city from the first BioShock game, in the middle of what looked like a noir-inflected mystery. Levine promised that you’ll be seeing some familiar faces from the underwater city’s tortured history. You can see glimpses of Booker and Elizabeth in Rapture in the teaser above. Levine said that making Elizabeth a playable character was another example of giving fans what they wanted. Burial at Sea will cost $US20 for both parts.
You’ll be able to see more of Clash in the Clouds‘ gameplay in a video going up on Kotaku later today and we’ll have more on Burial at Sea and the future of BioShock in an interview with Ken Levine later this week.
Comments
20 responses to “BioShock Infinite DLC Will Eventually Let You Play As Elizabeth”
Man I was really bummed out at this announcement.
First DLC is playing the previous games again? Come on.
and the combat-DLC, while nice, doesn’t address the main problem with combat in Infinite. Which is that the vigors are completely broken. Never really feeling like I was challenged, merely wasting my time with most enemies. Hell, I played the combat-DLC in Bioshock 2, and never lost once despite the limitations on your equipment.
Mate, having played it, the combat is exponentially harder past the first level. I like that, because it gives you a bit of freedom to go wild with the combat mechanics like the Skyline. From just playing the game, I was always looking for a battle to be over so that I could progress the story, but without the story you get to really appreciate the work that Irrational put in to the fight scenes. But when it comes down to it, this is all just to tide us over until the Rapture DLC, and to give Irrational some time to polish it to the standards that we want as gamers who have paid good money for the content. And I’m happy with that.
This looks pretty awesome.
Myself I’m not too big a fan of the wave clearing DLC, but I am definitely looking forward to the new storyline they’re presenting.
So… a horde mode for Bioshock… no thanks. Burial at Sea sounds pretty interesting, tho, although I’m wondering where it would fit into Infinite’s story…
Just another lighthouse I guess?
I was thinking maybe an alternate universe, yea. But it just seems a little… I dunno… “convenient”… to choose one with Booker and Elizabeth, considering the implied multitudes that have different people. But, when you’ve got infinite possibilities to play with, you don’t really need to justify how such a reality came to be… well, you do, but with no obligation to relate it to the reality the core game’s set in… So, convenient by design, I suppose.
Man I still haven’t finished this or barely even scratched it. It’s beautiful but I can’t stand how loose the gunplay feels. Same was Bioshock which I never finished. It all feels to… soft? Squishy?
Sadly I finally bought MW3 the other day and sat straight through the campaign… Say what you like about recycled stuff over and over but the mechanics are tight.
I dunno I found that once I started picking up rifles and shotguns the gunplay felt a lot better. Haven’t finished it yet but the world and story are incredibly engaging, can’t wait to see how it all ends!
Everyone dies
I haven’t finished Infinite either for the same reason – the actual gameplay just feels so… uninteresting. The pistol felt good right at the beginning, with audio stings being triggered by head shots, but once you start getting more weapons enemies just feel like bullet sponges and the aiming feels floaty.
Bioshock 1 felt the same way, but that game seemed like it had more strategy around the big daddies. The way a stealth game lets you map out the area first, plan an attack and then execute it – the big daddies had something similar which was really interesting. I haven’t felt anything interesting has happened in Infinite’s combat. The skylines seemed like they had potential, but so far haven’t done much for me.
Agreed.
Two hours into Infinite I switched it off and read the plot on Wikipedia. Fantastic setting, amazing story, bland and repetitive gameplay.
However, being a sucker for the old film-noir detective thing and the original Bioshock, I will definitely give Burial at Sea a try!
I think I’ve restarted 3 times due to space between play attempts. What am I doing again?
Can;t say i’m keen for a horde mode, but i’ll be grabbing the Rapture pack for the story.
my prediction; Booker and/or Elizabeth start the whole Rapture Civil War
Look at Elizabeth in that bottom clip and tell me she doesn’t look like Tenenbaum. Could just be a coincidence, but still…
Ever since playing Bioshock 1 I wanted a detective noir story set in Rapture before its downfall. I imagined a point-and-click adventure game at the time, but I will gladly accept this.
I’m not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that there’s not more story-based DLC set in Columbia itself.
For example, I would’ve liked to have played a campaign where you play as the Booker who ends up becoming a martyr for the Vox. Exploring more of the Vox story and perhaps expanding upon the Daisy-is-just-like-Comstock thing that was mentioned by Booker.In my imagination though, it would start very similar (if not the same) as the main story and would probably cop a lot of review flack for just being “more of the same”.What if it’s ‘Liz rescuing Booker? That would be interesting, to say the least.
Well judging by his comments of “She knew a way out” I’d say that is the case :p
Let’s hope the developers can use those incredible imaginations of theirs (not sarcastic, the worlds they’ve created are amazing) to think of more interesting gameplay than pew pew pew. Infinite would have been a hundred times better if Booker had never picked up a damn gun. Or at least if he had other options apart from shooting everything that moves…