Today sees the release of the first half of the Burial at Sea DLC for BioShock Infinite, which we took a look at yesterday. It’s a new story featuring Booker and Elizabeth, as Irrational have returned to their old territory of Rapture.
We also had the opportunity to sit down and talk to producer Don Roy about the DLC, the evolution and melding of these two very popular worlds that they’ve created and more.
TSA: Obviously, coming back to Rapture is a big deal for fans, but what was it like from a development point of view, returning to these old stomping grounds?
Don Roy: It was a lot of great fun. It’s hugely challenging, and way more challenging than I think anyone realised, because we had to rebuild it from scratch. We couldn’t use BioShock 1 assets, because they just don’t hold up anymore, so this is an entirely new version of Rapture.
We’re able to take a lot of what we learnt from Infinite and apply that, which is awesome, and there’s a nice evolution of the technology we’re able to utilise to create things like the vistas, which are real 3D models, and there are places you may see that you can get to. So we’re able to bring that aspect to it, which was awesome, but a ton of work to reimagine Rapture, bring it back to life and still be true to the original in showing what Rapture was like before the fall.
TSA: You said you’ve learnt some things from Infinite, but in terms of gameplay you have things like the Air Grabber and a few others elements too. How have you tried to merge the gameplay from the two games?
DR: I love Liz’ line [about the Air Grabber], “Constance in variables.”
It was a good challenge to find that balance, and I think that when you play you see that there really is some of BioShock 1 and some of Infinite in that hybrid. The open world, large scale gameplay and combat just doesn’t function in Rapture, so we had to go back and remember how combat worked in BioShock 1 and find the balance between those.
Most, if not all of the Plasmids now have trap functionality, which is great because it plays very well to BioShock 1’s strengths, in being able to set up combat and then trigger it. So a lot of that was good, but moving from an abundance of resources to a starvation model and elements of stealth were all things that we had to figure out and build into what we were doing.
It was good though! Every time you get to stretch your muscles, it’s good.
TSA: I did enjoy sneaking up behind a succession of splicers and just whacking them on the head.
DR: It’s nice to be able to reintroduce that gameplay and remember. You get a lot of memories coming back from BioShock 1, but it’s fun doing it through Booker’s eyes.
TSA: One thing I’ve often found a bit weird in BioShock Infinite was that you had areas that were populated, and then a quite sudden and clean divide where everybody hates you and wants you dead. It feels like this has a similar divide. Is this something you are aware of, and are you looking to have a more dynamic feeling shift?
DR: I think we try to always have it based with a narrative purpose, especially here even more so, that there is a very narrative driven reason why there is that divide you’re talking about.
I think that even in Infinite there was a cause and effect to things. In a town centre, once you’ve caused people to notice you then the world changes around you. People then run away and the forces in the world change, but we try very hard to have it based in the narrative.
TSA: It feels like you’ve been able to explore a more film noir style to the game. Were there any particular inspirations and influences that you took?
DR: I think it was, at its base, the genre in general that played very well to the story we wanted to tell, and in general to BioShock. There’s always mystery in BioShock games, and we work very hard at that, so I think it plays well with that.
For where Elizabeth is in her journey and what her intentions are, as the player will learn, noir made a lot of sense. You look at films like Chinatown, and those are just really great references for it. As people play both these DLCs, but primarily Episode 1, they’ll find out pretty well why it suits what we’re doing.
TSA: How have you tried to develop Elizabeth’s character, and what has influenced that since Infinite?
DR: I think that mostly it’s her being very aware of the world after Infinite. She’s been changed.
You find her in the tower and she’s a damsel in distress, where everything is fresh and new. Over the course of Infinite she’s affected by the environment and the world around her. She sees a lot of things, and it colours who she becomes.
So she comes into this DLC with all of those learnings and trappings, and so watching her journey and have a purpose that she works towards is, I think, going to be interesting for people. She’s not in a support role and has a reason for being in this world, and she sees that play out.
TSA: And as a consequence, there’s quite a different relationship between her and Booker.
DR: Yes, and again, there are big narrative reasons for that which I won’t delve into, but they have a… they still have a relationship, but it is a different one.
TSA: How demanding on your resources has creating this single player DLC been? We very rarely see this, but there seems to be a minor trend towards doing so, could we maybe expect to see this more in the future?
DR: I agree with you that it is demanding. It is taking our whole A team and studio, where we’re all focussed and heads down making it. That’s because the fidelity and story and the fastness of the game have to be of a certain level for us.
We’re putting the same amount of effort that we put into Infinite into this, it’s just that it has a smaller footprint, but everything has to be there. From audio logs to player affectation, a complete and interesting story, every space telling a story that is meaningful so there’s a reason why people want to be there. All of that applies and we don’t ever back off from that. So it’s important to us that we make sure we meet the quality bar that fans expect.
TSA: Is there a line you’ve been conscious of avoiding, between something the size and scope of DLC and a fully fledged game?
DR: There’s always a balance to everything, because obviously we don’t want people to have to wait forever, so there is a point where it could be DLC or a new game, and we balance that.
[drop]The most important thing is always the story so it starts from there. What is the story we’re going to tell, and then we can figure out what the scope is, but the story comes first. We have to know what the message is we’re trying to get across and once we figure that out then we can think about schedules and how it’s going to work out.
When all this is said and done, I feel very confident people are going to appreciate it. We’re trying to write a love letter to our fans and that is our base goal, to put everything that we have into really making something for our fans. Right down to how we just recently announced the fact that in Episode 1 the Old Man Winter plasmid we’re introducing would be based off a piece of fan art, which we loved doing.
That’s the best case scenario for us, that we can integrate something that a fan did. Take this amazing piece of work, and we were able to work it into our gameplay and introduce it into the world. It doesn’t get much better than that – melding our fans and what we do.
Our thanks to Don for taking the time to talk with us. Burial at Sea is out as of today, through the regular online store updates, and is priced at £11.99 in the UK or as part of the £15.99 Season Pass.
