BioShock Infinite Will Make Combat Go Long Distance

Whereas the original BioShock games were known for their close-range, splicer-in-your-face gameplay, creative director Ken Levine told PlayStationBlog that BioShock Infinite would take combat to a much greater distance. We all remember falling in love with our shotguns and though footage of the new game has shown plenty of action with said weapon, Levine suggests that you’ll be getting used to taking shots from afar.

The interviewer with PlayStationBlog asks a question we can all relate to. How does it make you feel when you hear that some players completed BioShock almost exclusively using the Electro Bolt and the shotgun?” Levine responds by explaining how Infinite will broaden the combat horizons.

One of the first things we did when we started on BioShock Infinite was to draw a graph with y and z axes, and to say that one of those axes was the number of enemies in an encounter and the other was the range of those enemies. In the original BioShock, the entire game lived in one corner of that graph – few enemies, all at close range — so the Electro Bolt and shotgun were perfect. BioShock Infinite is going to have much greater ranges and, potentially, far more enemies, so we’re greatly increasing the spectrum of encounters that are possible, and that requires the player use a broader set of tools.

Levine also explains how the team took more from the Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, a book set around the 1893 Chicago’s World Fair. The original novel also involves Dr. H.H. Holmes, known for his real-life murder castle.

This all sounds like an appropriate inspiration for a game like BioShock. The interview itself continues with plenty more information about the dev team’s inspirations, which make a great read even if you’re only mildly interested in the title.

Bioshock: Infinite is rumored to have a release sometime in 2012, but the industry is still guessing at this point.