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[Alienous]

111 pages of spoiler discussion.

Rationalize it as long as you want people but that ending was dog poop. To be precise. Damon Lindelof's dog poop. I'm mad as hell, and don't know if I should appreciate the effort Levine made to put a somewhat decent story into a FPS, or be mad how much he botched it up.

Back to the Future, still owning the crown of rationalized time travel. Slowly disappearing makes more sense to me than multiverse theories and magical girls that can open up time rifts, just because...

111 pages mostly disagree with you.

...

Anyway, "It will all end in tears" is one of the most fantastic, contextually clever sentences I have heard in a game.

 

[Sblargh]

111 pages of spoiler discussion.

Rationalize it as long as you want people but that ending was dog poop. To be precise. Damon Lindelof's dog poop. I'm mad as hell, and don't know if I should appreciate the effort Levine made to put a somewhat decent story into a FPS, or be mad how much he botched it up.

Back to the Future, still owning the crown of rationalized time travel. Slowly disappearing makes more sense to me than multiverse theories and magical girls that can open up time rifts, just because...

I'm not as bitter or nowhere near as mad, but I do agree that a lot of discussion is because bad storytelling left people confused. It's not so much theories as people just trying to figure out what the game failed to say properly.

 

[PolishQ]

No, we know, for a fact that she drowns every single Booker "before the choice is made". https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=F-VJ3j2bPJk#t=946s

There is nothing unclear about who is being murdered, she directly states she is murdering Booker "before the choice is made, before you are reborn". It doesn't matter, because it's the same thing. This makes her existence and every event in the game a paradox (see EatChildren's looping timeline) and as a result it changes the variable (accept or reject) to a constant. He MUST reject the baptism because if not, it all becomes a paradox. As a result, at the end, we see the only outcome Booker can have, rejecting the baptism, and then we see a specific set of Bookers, the Bookers that have Anna and then never have her stolen because no Booker can ever accept the baptism.

You seem to be contradicting yourself. You say that Elizabeth murders Booker "before the choice" - in other words, Booker does not get to accept OR reject the baptism. Every Booker who shows up to the baptism gets drowned (thus changing the variable to a constant). In this scenario, the Booker we see after the credits must be one who never attended the baptism in the first place.

 

[MisterRoboto]

No, we know, for a fact that she drowns every single Booker "before the choice is made". https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=F-VJ3j2bPJk#t=946s

There is nothing unclear about who is being murdered, she directly states she is murdering Booker "before the choice is made, before you are reborn". It doesn't matter, because it's the same thing. Murdering every Booker before the baptism makes her existence and every event in the game a paradox (see EatChildren's looping timeline) and as a result it changes the variable (accept or reject) to a constant. He MUST reject the baptism because if not, it all becomes a paradox. As a result, at the end, we see the only outcome Booker can have, rejecting the baptism, and then we see a specific set of Bookers, the Bookers that have Anna and then never have her stolen because no Booker can ever accept the baptism. The reason she doesn't go directly to his birth is because otherwise the paradox occurs when Booker is born and, as a result, it would remove every universe where Booker is born to prevent the paradox.

I'm still inclined to bleieve only the Booker's about to accept the baptism are killed. A few seconds before the scene you posted shows Booker asking " Why are we back here?" and Elizabeth says " This isn't the same place." Since the Booker you are controlling only recalls rejecting the baptism, he thinks thats what was about to happen. But since it "isn't the same place" it must be the place where he becomes Comstock. It is at this moment that he, and the player realize that he is both.


EDIT: In addition, about 8 minutes before that part we see the scene where Booker rejects the Baptism. They didnt drown him then. Booker says he wants to go to Paris but Elizabeth says not until they find Comstock cause hes not dead and " he was here". This makes me believe the next scene is a tear to only the accepting baptism Booker. Therefore only that one dies.

 

[raviolico]

To all people, you have to play this a second and third time, all the info you pick up, all the details, things that desn't make sense the first time.... hhhnnngggggggg

Oh God, Ken, what have you DONE?! how will you ever top this?

yep, it`s kinda a new game+ experience. exact the same game but completely different feel. really great.

 

[Alienous]

I'm still inclined to bleieve only the Booker's about to accept the baptism are killed. A few seconds before the scene you posted shows Booker asking " Why are we back here?" and Elizabeth says " This isn't the same place." Since the Booker you are controlling only recalls rejecting the baptism, he thinks thats what was about to happen. But since it "isn't the same place" it must be the place where he becomes Comstock. It is at this moment that he, and the player realize that he is both.

My understanding is that Booker needs to be killed before the Comstock branch-off can occur. That is before he can make the choice to be baptised, or reject it. At this point that Elizabeth has chosen, it appears Booker has realised that the only thing he can do is die there. If you tried to drown Booker after his baptism, there would be strands where he would resist and survive, for instance.

 

[Milchjon]

111 pages of spoiler discussion.

Rationalize it as long as you want people but that ending was dog poop. To be precise. Damon Lindelof's dog poop. I'm mad as hell, and don't know if I should appreciate the effort Levine made to put a somewhat decent story into a FPS, or be mad how much he botched it up.

Back to the Future, still owning the crown of rationalized time travel. Slowly disappearing makes more sense to me than multiverse theories and magical girls that can open up time rifts, just because...

What exactly are your problems with it? Just overall believeability, or the structure and explanations themselves?

There were so many botched endings this gen, but this didn't feel like one of them.

 

[dark_inferno]

Nice guys... i have a big test in 2 weeks and you talk about bioshock references everywhere. Now i have to replay 2 games.

 

[guit3457]

I'm replaying the game with all things we talked here in my head and look what I found...

This game has so many amazing details XD, and just before that she was holding Homer's Odyssey

I fell like watching LOST and I try to find every detail or coincidence.....SO GREAT

 

[Sorian]

Out of curiosity, what is your explanation of the post-credits scene?

Well if I have to rationalize the scene for exactly what it was. I would have to go with the paradox-correction theory. To end Comstock, Elizabeth has to have her powers but to have her powers, Comstock has to exist. This is a loop paradox that is not stable. This paradox messes up time-space and the universe feels the need to correct itself (the universe obviously likes to correct itself in odd ways since it gives Elizabeth tear powers so she can reunite with the rest of her body). The way it corrects here is to "reset" to the last moment where the universe doesn't have any paradoxical info happening. This point is right before Booker has given away his child. To me, you can have two interpretations at this point. The first interpretation is that this is some type of circular hell where he has to keep reliving the worst moments of his life over and over again. The second interpretation, which has more evidence for it, is that the universe dumped Booker here with all of his memories intact (cited because he seems surprised that Anna is crying in the other room). If his memories are intact, I doubt he will give Anna away when the twins come knocking so this may have actually fixed the whole Columbia problem as well (it still exists in another timeline but Comstock won't have his "seed" now).

 

[-COOLIO-]

No, we know, for a fact that she drowns every single Booker "before the choice is made". https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=F-VJ3j2bPJk#t=946s

There is nothing unclear about who is being murdered, she directly states she is murdering Booker "before the choice is made, before you are reborn". It doesn't matter, because it's the same thing. Murdering every Booker before the baptism makes her existence and every event in the game a paradox (see EatChildren's looping timeline) and as a result it changes the variable (accept or reject) to a constant. He MUST reject the baptism because if not, it all becomes a paradox. As a result, at the end, we see the only outcome Booker can have, rejecting the baptism, and then we see a specific set of Bookers, the Bookers that have Anna and then never have her stolen because no Booker can ever accept the baptism. The reason she doesn't go directly to his birth is because otherwise the paradox occurs when Booker is born and, as a result, it would remove every universe where Booker is born to prevent the paradox. EDIT: Actually, let me think about the final sentence some more, That's my immediate thought on why not but I need to ensure that makes sense from a practical viewpoint.

That one line aside there's a lot of evidence that suggests it was just the bad bookers. 'we're in a different place now', the post credits scene, and the fact that it's the only thing that makes logical sense in the multiverse scope. It's also possible that there are bookers who never went to the baptism to justify the post credits thing but the bad bookers only drowning makes a lot more sense than anything else so I'm going with that.

 

[SmithnCo]

I'm replaying the game with all things we talked here in my head and look what I found...



this game has so many amazing details XD

Hah, I was wondering what that book said. Couldn't make it out while she was moving it.

Wonder if the other books had readable textures on them.

 

[Jacksonlee]

so, what happend to the 15 min demo in the final game?

did i miss it, or was it cut? i really like the idea of Elizabeth being innocent and playing around with "omg, its GOLD!, we're rich" and playing around with trinkets and lincoln heads.

i assumed that kind of interaction and character deveoplment would stay consistant with the game, but i saw none of that.

 

[The One Who Knocks]

You seem to be contradicting yourself. You say that Elizabeth murders Booker "before the choice" - in other words, Booker does not get to accept OR reject the baptism. Every Booker who shows up to the baptism gets drowned (thus changing the variable to a constant). In this scenario, the Booker we see after the credits must be one who never attended the baptism in the first place.

There is no contradiction. Booker ALWAYS goes to the baptism. That is the constant, the baptism, it always happens. There is no either or; the entire set of Bookers that partake in and survive Wounded Knee go to the baptism, he can never choose to not go. There is always a baptism in every universe that's relevant to the game, and there is always the choice to accept or reject it. In the set of Bookers who reject it, there is the set of Bookers that becoming gambling alcoholics and there is the set that has Anna. Elizabeth states she murders every Booker.

The fork that Stump is talking about can clearly be seen, it is that which leads to the red.The red probabilities all lead to the paradox of Elizabeth murdering all Bookers. The constant that's made is not the constant that all Bookers are drowned, the constant is that all Bookers must rejects the baptism, because otherwise the paradox exist where Booker is dead before deciding. As a result, Booker always survives the baptism, because he always rejects it, which means Comstock is never created, which means the set of Bookers that become gamblers and have Anna still exists which means that Comstock can never interfere with this set, because his existence was negated by the paradox.

That one line aside there's a lot of evidence that suggests it was just the bad bookers. 'we're in a different place now', the post credits scene, and the fact that it's the only thing that makes logical sense in the multiverse scope. It's also possible that there are bookers who never went to the baptism to justify the post credits thing but the bad bookers only drowning makes a lot more sense than anything else so I'm going with that.

It's a different place because that's a universe where Booker will accept the baptism. She doesn't mean it's different because the physical location is diffferent (EDIT: exactly as Sorian says below). EDIT: And again, Booker always goes to the baptism, it always happens. That is a constant, the variable, prior to Elizabeth's interference, was the choice to accept or reject. The set of Bookers that don't go to the baptism are completely irrelevant to the story because they never went to Wounded Knee and then the baptism. If we see one of these Bookers then the events of the game are completely irrelevant because it would mean the possibility of Booker never going to Wounded Knee and having Anna was a possibility and thus the events of the game have nothing to do with the ending because while the events of the game are happening this probability already exists. "Constants and variables" are what put a limit on the probability space in the Bioshock universe and this is why any universe that doesn't feature Booker going to Wounded Knee and the baptism are irrelevant, because constants may exist that prevent certain events.

EDIT: Here's EatChildren's (and then modified so it was green at the beginning and not yellow) timeline which shows the loop:

The events of that are the red timeline above (but an emphasis on what player Booker sees). As you can see, there is a loop. Everything loops around and is dependant on that which happens before. It basically turns the events of the game into a looping time travel paradox in every single universe that Booker survives Wounded Knee and gets baptised. All of this simply cannot occur, so all of the probabilities that lead to this get destroyed, forcing the choice at the baptism to become a constant.

 

[dan2026]

To all people, you have to play this a second and third time, all the info you pick up, all the details, things that desn't make sense the first time.... hhhnnngggggggg

Oh God, Ken, what have you DONE?! how will you ever top this?

Hopefully not with a Bioshock 3(4)

This story is done, time for something completely different.

 

[BlastProcessing]

Out of curiosity, what is your explanation of the post-credits scene?

Another interpretation of that scene is that we are seeing the last thing Booker sees before he drowns. A last expresion of his hope. He dies before he can see if Anna is in the crib.

111 pages of spoiler discussion.

Rationalize it as long as you want people but that ending was dog poop. To be precise. Damon Lindelof's dog poop. I'm mad as hell, and don't know if I should appreciate the effort Levine made to put a somewhat decent story into a FPS, or be mad how much he botched it up.

Back to the Future, still owning the crown of rationalized time travel. Slowly disappearing makes more sense to me than multiverse theories and magical girls that can open up time rifts, just because...

What exactly was your problem with the ending? The reason there are 11 pages discussing this is not because it was vague, but because the plot is full of an incredible amount of detail. Back to the Future is a good movie because, at its core, it is a story about a child understanding his parents. All the time travel silliness is forgiven because the heart of the movie is based around a real thing that people can relate to. I would argue that Infinite does the same thing.

Infinite is about the destruction caused when family is torn apart. We see this reflected in a literal sense in the world. In most SciFi (the good SciFi anyway) the fantastical elements always exist to serve the themes of the story. If you don't look at them through that lens then you are missing so much about what makes stories like Infinite's relevant.

 

[Sorian]

I'm still inclined to bleieve only the Booker's about to accept the baptism are killed. A few seconds before the scene you posted shows Booker asking " Why are we back here?" and Elizabeth says " This isn't the same place." Since the Booker you are controlling only recalls rejecting the baptism, he thinks thats what was about to happen. But since it "isn't the same place" it must be the place where he becomes Comstock. It is at this moment that he, and the player realize that he is both.


EDIT: In addition, about 8 minutes before that part we see the scene where Booker rejects the Baptism. They didnt drown him then. Booker says he wants to go to Paris but Elizabeth says not until they find Comstock cause hes not dead and " he was here". This makes me believe the next scene is a tear to only the accepting baptism Booker. Therefore only that one dies.

I think she didn't drown Booker at the first baptism scene because he didn't understand everything yet. Elizabeth has all the time in the world at this point so she felt it was ok to spend time explaining everything to her father. The "this isn't the same place" line I think is more to a reference to the fact that the first baptism scene is just meant for showing while the second scene is meant to be changed. Kind of like a "view only" vs. "edit" document.

 

[dark_inferno]

Hopefully not with a Bioshock 3(4)

This story is done, time for something completely different.

I would like at least ONE new game in the Bioshock universe. With a ending that leads to System Shock. Then im okay with him doing whatever he wants.

 

[sdornan]

One thing the Bioshock series hasn't really touched on is conservation/environmentalism. I could see a sequel using that as a major theme.

 

[Red]

I disagree. The revolution seemed to be inspired by the French Revolution in all of its clusterfuckness.

Yeah maybe, but all I'm saying is there's not much subtlety in the directive to "kill all the guys."

 

[Mobius 1]

so, what happend to the 15 min demo in the final game?

did i miss it, or was it cut? i really like the idea of Elizabeth being innocent and playing around with "omg, its GOLD!, we're rich" and playing around with trinkets and lincoln heads.

i assumed that kind of interaction and character deveoplment would stay consistant with the game, but i saw none of that.

Most content from both gameplay demos of yore didn't make it. Some visual changes happened too. Even the flowers changed from hydrangeas to roses.

 

[Voice of Reason]

Why is Booker so convinced that alternate-timeline Fitzroy is gonna give him the airship? It's an entirely different timeline.

 

[Jacksonlee]

Most content from both gameplay demos of yore didn't make it. Some visual changes happened too. Even the flowers changed from hydrangeas to roses.

shame.

really wanted to like elizabeth and booker, in fact, care for them; story was very strong and overwhelming, but i feel that gave me nothing without some good'ol character buildup


VVVV you got me

 

[Sorian]

so, what happend to the 15 min demo in the final game?

did i miss it, or was it cut? i really like the idea of Elizabeth being innocent and playing around with "omg, its GOLD!, we're rich" and playing around with trinkets and lincoln heads.

i assumed that kind of interaction and character deveoplment would stay consistant with the game, but i saw none of that.

Happened in another reality than the one we played in

Spoiler

Love that explanation

Why is Booker so convinced that alternate-timeline Fitzroy is gonna give him the airship? It's an entirely different timeline.

He's playing with a new concept, it's not surprising that he wouldn't understand the implications yet.

 

[MisterRoboto]

Why is Booker so convinced that alternate-timeline Fitzroy is gonna give him the airship? It's an entirely different timeline.

Maybe he doesn't understand what is exactly happening at that time

 

[Voice of Reason]

Maybe he doesn't understand what is exactly happening at that time

Happened in another reality than the one we played in

Spoiler

Love that explanation

He's playing with a new concept, it's not surprising that he wouldn't understand the implications yet.

Hm, true.

 

[dark_inferno]

Why is Booker so convinced that alternate-timeline Fitzroy is gonna give him the airship? It's an entirely different timeline.

He didnt understand the whole universe story. We all knew that Fitzroy doesnt even know what he is talking about the second we knew he died as a martyr. But Booker seemed to be a bit slow.

 

[PolishQ]

The fork that Stump is talking about can clearly be seen, it is that which leads to the red.The red probabilities all lead to the paradox of Elizabeth murdering all Bookers. The constant that's made is not the constant that all Bookers are drowned, the constant is that all Bookers must rejects the baptism, because otherwise the paradox exist where Booker is dead before deciding. As a result, Booker always survives the baptism, because he always rejects it, which means Comstock is never created, which means the set of Bookers that become gamblers and have Anna still exists which means that Comstock can never interfere with this set, because his existence was negated by the paradox.

I do get what you're saying. That if Booker chooses the red path, he gets retroactively drowned before the choice is made (which is indeed a paradox). What you're forgetting is that if he chooses the blue path, he STILL gets retroactively drowned. After all, the Booker we're playing as chose the blue path and he is drowned at the end.

If Elizabeth drowns Booker before the choice is made, all Bookers who attend the baptism are drowned.

Your opinion of events only makes sense if you stop insisting on the retroactive drowning. It's much simpler this way. If Elizabeth only drowns the Bookers who go through with the baptism, then yes, the blue path can go on existing and Anna will never be stolen.

 

[Pein]

I thought I was tripping when I heard ''girls just wanna have fun'' playing, I just googled the clip and goddamn what another nice detail that would shine in a 2nd play through.

 

[The One Who Knocks]

I do get what you're saying. That if Booker chooses the red path, he gets retroactively drowned before the choice is made (which is indeed a paradox). What you're forgetting is that if he chooses the blue path, he STILL gets retroactively drowned. After all, the Booker we're playing as chose the blue path and he is drowned at the end.

If Elizabeth drowns Booker before the choice is made, all Bookers who attend the baptism are drowned.

Your opinion of events only makes sense if you stop insisting on the retroactive drowning. It's much simpler this way. If Elizabeth only drowns the Bookers who go through with the baptism, then yes, the blue path can go on existing and Anna will never be stolen.

No he doesn't. He can only retroactively be drowned if a version of Booker can accept, because that is what starts the chain of events leading to him being drowned before the baptism. Without Comstock, there is no Elizabeth. No Elizabeth, no drowning.

EDIT: Dark inferno, the selling Anna to Comstock is a 'red' event (he could still sell Anna to anybody else of course). Red events are a part of the paradox. Basically, the blue timeline is the timeline that still has the probability of happening without a paradox. The red timeline always leads to the paradox and are all reliant upon the other events of the paradox.

Here's a very slightly modified version if that's causing confusion:

 

[dark_inferno]

I do get what you're saying. That if Booker chooses the red path, he gets retroactively drowned before the choice is made (which is indeed a paradox). What you're forgetting is that if he chooses the blue path, he STILL gets retroactively drowned. After all, the Booker we're playing as chose the blue path and he is drowned at the end.

If Elizabeth drowns Booker before the choice is made, all Bookers who attend the baptism are drowned.

Your opinion of events only makes sense if you stop insisting on the retroactive drowning. It's much simpler this way. If Elizabeth only drowns the Bookers who go through with the baptism, then yes, the blue path can go on existing and Anna will never be stolen.

Anna would have been sold by Booker nevertheless. The red Path says : Comstock (the one who buys). The Blue Path says : Booker (the one who sells). And if Comstock not exists then somebody else would buy the child. Or there would be a Columbia when he sold Anna and then goes into church and ... you know all this "What happens when". But the constant of the red path is 100% Columbia and 100% buying child. The blue path seems to be 100% selling Anna.

 

["God's Beard!"]

So is it confirmed that Elizabeth is the little girl from the training exercise in Men in Black?

 

[DerZuhälter]

What exactly are your problems with it? Just overall believeability, or the structure and explanations themselves?

There were so many botched endings this gen, but this didn't feel like one of them.

It didn't explain Liz's unique abilities. The entire game builds up a theme that the premise behind time travel is Liz's unique abilities that are being syphoned by Comstock. Yet the ending gives the impression that Comstock uses a technically similar device the Letuce twins (or are they genderreversed versions of the same person in different universes? well doesn't really matter anyway) build to keep Columbia up in the air ("it refuses to fall").

So if this is the case what is being syphoned out of Liz? How did her stepmom's corpse got turned into a ghost? And why are the Letuce twins the only people that are dead yet regain conscioussness in the entire multiverse and have some "Fringe Observer-like" powers being everywhere and "everywhen".

Also: The appraoch taken with the multiverse complexity makes no sense at all. If you take that thought approach every choice has an infinite number of possibile Bookers, Elizabeths and Columbia, thus "solving the time loop" becomes redundant. The multiverse wouldn't seize to exisist. Comstock wouldn't seize to exist, nor abducted version of Anna, Elizabeth wouldn't. They'd all be still there. It's a multiverse. You either go multiverse or you go single-timeline approach. You can't do both.

 

[-COOLIO-]

It's a different place because that's a universe where Booker will accept the baptism. She doesn't mean it's different because the physical location is diffferent.

that's exactly what im saying, it's a different universe, the bad universe.

"before the choice is made" is the best evidence that the artistic intent was to have all bookers killed, but as levine said, "he's a slave to the story" and so am i. the only ending that makes logical sense is the one where the bad bookers are killed, more than anything else because of how the multiverse system has to work:

assuming the choice immediately creates infinite universes and therefore booker has to be killed at the root we have:

one universe to infinite after the choice instantly:

ridiculous. booker would have to single handily create the multiverse, also, having so many minute variations immediately after the fact is absurd, let alone impossible to rationalize to a determinist.

infinte universes where the choice leads to new infinite sets of comstock and booker universes:

liz would have to simultaneously kill an infinite amount of bookers regardless of if she does it pre or post choice. we already know she cant do this.

infinite universes that meld together to a single universe for the choice then sprawls out to infinite again:

then the multiverse revolves around booker, which is also absurd. but this would make the necessity of killing booker before the choice is made necessary.

one universe to two new universes, which then at discreet points break off again and again into infinity:

this makes sense to me, but then you clearly have the comstock root than you can remove instead of the all booker root, so liz would clearly just use that one.

at the end of the day, these are characters are just code, im not too invested in them, im not trying to save bookers life here, but i quite honestly cannot fathom a logical story around all bookers being killed.

edit: also, multiverse stuff aside, there's the fact that we saw liz kill booker in a bad universe and the post credits scene.

 

[Miles Quaritch]

Side note, anyone else impressed by how emotive Elizabeth sometimes manages to look? A lot of the little touches were lost on my in game, but it's really noticeable in these gifs...

sorry for the excessive amount of gifs.

 

[dan2026]

So I assume the Lutece's are heavily based on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Also Elizabeth has huge anime esq eyes.

 

[PolishQ]

No he doesn't. He can only retroactively be drowned if a version of Booker can accept, because that is what starts the chain of events leading to him being drowned before the baptism. Without Comstock, there is no Elizabeth. No Elizabeth, no drowning.

EDIT: Dark inferno, the selling Anna to Comstock is a 'red' event (he could still sell Anna to anybody else of course). Red events are a part of the paradox. Basically, the blue timeline is the timeline that still has the probability of happening without a paradox. The red timeline always leads to the paradox and are all reliant upon the other events of the paradox.

Why do you insist on the drowning happening before the choice? Your interpretation of the ending is a lot cleaner if Elizabeth only drowns the "red" Bookers.

 

[dark_inferno]

I'm still so fucking lost; how can booker/comstock essetially buy his own daughter from himself? Better yet, WHY would he buy his own daughter?

Because he is impotent? If im a "great" man and i can walk trough time and stuff i would probably do the same.

 

[SpeedySwaf]

Just had a thought: it would've neat if Booker got that voxophone near the beginning (the one that records him), and for the rest of the game, instead of finding other voxophones, he's finding tears that he records with his own voxophone. It'd explain why he'd be able to listen to them at any point in the game, and sidestep the question of why everyone would record on these things, and just leave them lying around. Also would've hammered in how these tears are popping up everywhere in Columbia.

 

[Apophenia Overload]

I don't get why people are so quick to dismiss any criticisms of this game. No matter how great this game is, even if it becomes GOTY 2013, it still has plenty of room to be analyzed carefully and have its flaws called out. Far Cry 3, the previous GOTY, had glaring story and characterization issues that were tackled. This game, just like the original Bioshock, has lavish production values and art design but that doesn't mean the story is beyond reproach, no matter Ken Levine's pretensions.

 

[teh_pwn]

This isn't comprehensive, but here's a look at the evolution of Infinite from the debut trailer to the launch trailer.

Debut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDQ4FhslSk

Debut gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DSfjAdhlU

E3 2011 demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEBwKO4RFOU

VGA 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvIU1e7k7Oc

launch trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wq5KHPYWWY

Staggering how different the game was initially. Elisabeth was a much more active character in the battlefield. I know they earlier demos are essentially nothing more than vertical slices/targeted gameplay demos, but some of the changes, cut content and reworked content are really interesting.

Especially the E3 2011 demo. Also didn't realise they changed the design of the skyhook from the initial demo to E3 2011. I quite like the original design.

So much polished stuff thrown out. No wonder these games have such large budgets.

 

[Alienous]

1.It didn't explain Liz's unique abilities. The entire game builds up a theme that the premise behind time travel is Liz's unique abilities that are being syphoned by Comstock. Yet the ending gives the impression that Comstock uses a technically similar device the Letuce twins (or are they genderreversed versions of the same person in different universes? well doesn't really matter anyway) build to keep Columbia up in the air ("it refuses to fall").

2.So if this is the case what is being syphoned out of Liz? How did her stepmom's corpse got turned into a ghost? And why are the Letuce twins the only people that are dead yet regain conscioussness in the entire multiverse and have some "Fringe Observer-like" powers being everywhere and "everywhen".

Also: 3.The appraoch taken with the multiverse complexity makes no sense at all. If you take that thought approach every choice has an infinite number of possibile Bookers, Elizabeths and Columbia, thus "solving the time loop" becomes redundant. The multiverse wouldn't seize to exisist. Comstock wouldn't seize to exist, nor abducted version of Anna, Elizabeth wouldn't. They'd all be still there. It's a multiverse. You either go multiverse or you go single-timeline approach. You can't do both.

I'll see if I can answer these.

1. Liz is split between two 'dimensions', and therefore has a connection the multiverse unlike any other person. Perhaps Liz's powers make the visions more stable (when Comstock steals Anna, the 'portal' is quite unstable).

2. Most of this is confusing, yes. Her stepmother didn't actually get brought back, isn't it the manifestation of Elizabeth's opinion of her stepmother? Also, the Lutece's are 'scattered' throughout time when Comstock sabotages their machines, rather than killed. I suppose this means they can be anywhere, at any time, in any place.

3. Yes. This is redundant. Rosalind Lutece mentions this. Her brother, Robert, just wants to undo the damage they did, no matter how irrelevant in the 'ocean' of time. Everything that this game 'solves' is just a raindrop in that ocean.

 

[Sorian]

It didn't explain Liz's unique abilities. The entire game builds up a theme that the premise behind time travel is Liz's unique abilities that are being syphoned by Comstock. Yet the ending gives the impression that Comstock uses a technically similar device the Letuce twins (or are they genderreversed versions of the same person in different universes? well doesn't really matter anyway) build to keep Columbia up in the air ("it refuses to fall").

So if this is the case what is being syphoned out of Liz? How did her stepmom's corpse got turned into a ghost? And why are the Letuce twins the only people that are dead yet regain conscioussness in the entire multiverse and have some "Fringe Observer-like" powers being everywhere and "everywhen".

Also: The appraoch taken with the multiverse complexity makes no sense at all. If you take that thought approach every choice has an infinite number of possibile Bookers, Elizabeths and Columbia, thus "solving the time loop" becomes redundant. The multiverse wouldn't seize to exisist. Comstock wouldn't seize to exist, nor abducted version of Anna, Elizabeth wouldn't. They'd all be still there. It's a multiverse. You either go multiverse or you go single-timeline approach. You can't do both.

Let's see here. Liz gets her powers because a part of her is in one reality while another part of her is in another reality. The machine is different from Liz because full-powered Liz can open tears to wherever and whenever. It seems that the machine is a random thing that just opens tears to anything on its own accord, there is no control there.

The ghost bit is kind of silly but it has to do with the fact that Elizabeth's powers also come with some type of wish-fulfillment as well. Elizabeth saw her mother as a horrible monster and when she puleld her mother in, she came out as a horrible monster. The twins were killed inside of their machine (to make it look like an accident) and this had the unintended effect of making them "ghosts in the machine" if you will. They have that observer quality and they can interfere here and there but they aren't able to predict what will cause what so they try to not meddle as much as possible.

Elizabeth becomes a god at the end of the game, basically. The game subscribes to the multiverse theory the entire way through but Elizabeth is special at the end because she makes it so that one scene is the funnel where all the other multiverses come through. She makes it so that what she does has a reprecussion on the infinite different realities that there could be and locks it that way. Booker drowns at the baptism, whether he wants to accept or reject, he will drown there.

 

[Sorian]

Also, I'll just post a new reply without quoting everyone. Where is this non-sense coming from where people are saying that no matter what Booker will sell Anna? So if Comstock doesn't exist, he will still sell Anna to someone? No one else wants his child, Comstock had a very specific reason for paying so much for the baby, no one else would care about that. I understand some things are constant in this story (the coin flip, the baptism, songbird will always kill booker if they fight, etc.). Selling Anna is not a constant. That is silly and makes no sense at all.

Right, but of all the children I can raise as my own, why pick a timeline where I pick a girl from a version of myself that isn't impotent. Secondly, how do i even know another version of me exists that isn't impotent?

Does this have more to do with the Lucene's than it does Booker/Comstock?

Why raise a random child when you can raise one that is your own flesh and blood? Also, it goes along with his prophecy more. His prophecies were all the truth to be fair. And, yes, the twins showed him the other worlds but I'm pretty sure it was Comstock's choice to pay for the child.

 

[Alienous]

Right, but of all the children I can raise as my own, why pick a timeline where I pick one from a version of myself that isn't impotent. Secondly, how do i even know another version of me exists that isn't impotent?

In a voxophone, he does talk about the fact that the Booker who doesn't accept the baptism is probably full of sin. He, to Comstock, was probably the most just Booker to steal from, the one unwilling to repent.

It needed to be his child, as his "seed" would "drown in flames the mountains of man".

 

[dark_inferno]

Right, but of all the children I can raise as my own, why pick a timeline where I pick a girl from a version of myself that isn't impotent. Secondly, how do i even know another version of me exists that isn't impotent?

Does this have more to do with the Lucene's than it does Booker/Comstock?

Because you got impotent when you build up Columbia. So you need a timeline where this never happened. So you find one where Booker was gambling so you could "hide" it somehow so that this booker doesnt wanna find his girl. But then came the 2 Lutece's.

 

[PolishQ]

Let's see here. Liz gets her powers because a part of her is in one reality while another part of her is in another reality. The machine is different from Liz because full-powered Liz can open tears to wherever and whenever. It seems that the machine is a random thing that just opens tears to anything on its own accord, there is no control there.

It could also just be that Liz was exposed to tears/the machine at a young age, but yeah.

Elizabeth becomes a god at the end of the game, basically. The game subscribes to the multiverse theory the entire way through but Elizabeth is special at the end because she makes it so that one scene is the funnel where all the other multiverses come through. She makes it so that what she does has a reprecussion on the infinite different realities that there could be and locks it that way. Booker drowns at the baptism, whether he wants to accept or reject, he will drown there.

Let's not forget that there are INFINITE god-Elizabeths at the end of the game, and they all go back to the baptism. This is how the multiverse is able to be collapsed into a single result.

 

[FunkyMunkey]

I thought the game made it very clear that every Booker who even goes to the baptism, dies. Since there are an infinite amount of multiverses where every possibility of reality has, is, and will happen, there are universes where Booker doesn't go to the baptism and lives a completely different life(maybe he becomes the president or a ship captain in one of them, idk, the possibilities are endless )

The problem with this is that there isn't a single universe prior to the baptism, there is an infinite set of universes, there is an infinite amount of Bookers that survive Wounded Knee and attend the baptism just as there is an infinite amount of Bookers that accept and an infinite amount that reject. There is also an infinite amount of Bookers that never go to Wounded Knee and an infinite amount of Bookers that die at Wounded Knee. The thing that all the sets of universes pertaining to the game have in common is that Booker goes to Wounded Knee and then goes to the baptism where he makes a choice (the baptism a constant, the choice a variable). Elizabeth murders an infinite amount of Bookers all at once, making an infinite amount of paradoxes in every probability space in which Booker has a choice at the baptism. Elizabeth is omnipotent after the destruction of the siphon and as a result this isn't impossible as it may seem, she more or less, has control over the probability space.

The first or second bolded multiverse is that which is presented in the game (and I'm going with the first) but you aren't accounting for something in the second. By the time the choice at the baptism occurs, an infinite amount of branches have already occured which means there are already an infinite amount of Bookers.

.

 

[The One Who Knocks]

that's exactly what im saying, it's a different universe, the bad universe.

"before the choice is made" is the best evidence that the artistic intent was to have all bookers killed, but as levine said, "he's a slave to the story" and so am i. the only ending that makes logical sense, is the one where the bad bookers are killed, more than anything else because of how the multiverse system has to work:

assuming the choice immediately creates infinite universes and therefore booker has to be killed at the root we have:

one universe to infinite after the choice instantly:

ridiculous. booker would have to single handily create the multiverse, also, having so many minute variations immediately after the fact is absurd, let alone impossible to rationalize to a determinist.

infinte universes where the choice leads to new infinite sets of comstock and booker universes:

liz would have to simultaneously kill an infinite amount of bookers regardless of if she does it pre or post choice.

infinite universes that meld together to a single universe for the choice then sprawls out to infinite again:

then the multiverse revolves around booker, which is also absurd. but this would make the necessity of killing booker before the choice is made necessary.

one universe to two new universes, which then at discreet points break off again and again into infinity:

this makes sense to me, but then you clearly have the comstock root than you can remove instead of the all booker root, so liz would clearly just use that one.

at the end of the day, these are characters are just code, im not too invested in them, im not trying to save bookers life here, but i quite honestly cannot fathom a logical story around all bookers being killed.

edit: also, multiverse stuff aside, there's the fact that we saw liz kill booker in a bad universe and the post credits scene.

The problem with this is that there isn't a single universe prior to the baptism, there is an infinite set of universes, there is an infinite amount of Bookers that survive Wounded Knee and attend the baptism just as there is an infinite amount of Bookers that accept and an infinite amount that reject. There is also an infinite amount of Bookers that never go to Wounded Knee and an infinite amount of Bookers that die at Wounded Knee. The thing that all the sets of universes pertaining to the game have in common is that Booker goes to Wounded Knee and then goes to the baptism where he makes a choice (the baptism a constant, the choice a variable). Elizabeth murders an infinite amount of Bookers all at once, making an infinite amount of paradoxes in every probability space in which Booker has a choice at the baptism. Elizabeth is omnipotent after the destruction of the siphon and as a result this isn't impossible as it may seem, she more or less, has control over the probability space.

The first or second bolded multiverse is that which is presented in the game (and I'm going with the first) but you aren't accounting for something in the second. By the time the choice at the baptism occurs, an infinite amount of branches have already occured which means there are already an infinite amount of Bookers. In fact, the ending even states this. "You chose to walk away but in other oceans, you didn't, you accepted the baptism". It's plural, not singular.

Why do you insist on the drowning happening before the choice? Your interpretation of the ending is a lot cleaner if Elizabeth only drowns the "red" Bookers.

Because Elizabeth says that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=F-VJ3j2bPJk#t=946s "It all has to end to have never started not just in this world but in all of ours" "Smother him in the crib" "smother smother smother..." "Before the choice is made, before you are reborn" "He's Zachary Comstock "He's Booker Dewitt" "No, I'm both" (everything after the bolded is more or less paraphrased as I couldn't type fast enough to keep up with the audio but the bolded bit is the important bit).

 

[Sorian]

It could also just be that Liz was exposed to tears/the machine at a young age, but yeah.

The pea and porridge diary that you find when you first walk into monument island all but confirms that the reason for her powers is her severed pinky in the other reality.