Irrational Games and 2K Games' upcoming first-person shooter video game, BioShock: Infinite is set in 1912 during the era of American Exceptionalism and delves into humanity's early love affair with machines.
In a recent interview with IGN, creative director Ken Levine and animation director Shawn Robertson explain how Infinite's setting and themes developed during the early stages of production.
"It's funny. The way we started down this path, we didn't land smack dab in the middle of American Exceptionalism, in the look that we have now," Robertson told IGN. "We started off exploring with Art Nouveau, dark-and-stormy, really organic, swirly types of shapes. After a few art tests, we realized that we were basically creating Rapture again, except in the sky. It was a dark and moody space. It wasn't as interesting as we could possibly make it."
Robertson admits that it was the wrong aesthetic for the game, but that it sent the team down the right path in developing Columbia.
"It may have been the wrong aesthetic to start out with, but it certainly got us reading up on that time period, the late 1800s and early 1900s," Robertson said. " We started to realize how important and exciting this part of history was worldwide."
In the IGN interview, Levine says that the era was perfect for the game because it is the beginning of the modern era of technology. Advances like automobiles, planes and electricity began to shape society for the future.
"It's the dawn of the modern era, right? It's where all the technologies, essentially, except for the Internet and computers, came on board," Levine told IGN. "You have airplanes and cars and electricity and movies and radio and phonograph records."
He continued, "All this stuff. It was a really exciting time. Everything was in these very early stages. Airplanes were made out of wood and canvas. All the technology of the time had this very home-brewed, vulnerable look to it and yet they were all portrayed at the time very differently."
Robertson told IGN that these technological achievements were romanticized during the era and that this creates a great juxtaposition between the actual realities of technology and the artistic interpretations of these machines.
"If you look at the marketing machine back then, if you look at the posters of the time, it was all about this idealized romantic notion of machines," Robertson said. "It wasn't about strapping yourself to this highly dangerous machine that could burst into flames or break your neck. It was about the romance of flight. The artistic interpretations of these technologies offers a nice contrast between that and the actual reality."
You can read the rest of the interview here on IGN. BioShock: Infinite releases on March 26, 2013 worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. Learn more about the creation of Elizabeth here and learn how Irrational Games tackled the issue of racism in 1912 here.
Check out the game's latest trailer below and tell us what you think of it in the comment section...
