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BioShock Infinite multiplayer 'experiment' cut due to resources
by Steve Watts, Dec 12, 2012 6:15pm PSTBioShock Infinite's multiplayer mode has become a casualty of the game development process. But to hear Irrational head Ken Levine describe it, the mode was always a risky "experiment" that serves as an example of how the developer iterates and tosses concepts that don't work or can't be finished.
"We look at this way: we play around with a ton of things," Levine told IGN. "So much of it is experimental that you really have no idea... In a game like this, where we start this thing and we’re like 'okay, it’s in a flying city in 1912 and you're this guy and there's this girl who can change the nature of reality,' you don’t quite have a lot of guidelines to go with. We probably tried 40 different versions of [Songbird] before we found the right one."
This iterative process led to toying around with multiplayer, which Levine called an "experiment" from the get-go.
"So, like everything, you try certain things, and the multiplayer, we got to a point where we said 'okay, this is the you-know-what or get off the pot moment,' and we decided to get off the pot because it wasn't there yet. But that makes it sound like I'm dissing on what the guys did. No. Actually, I think they did some really extraordinary stuff, but we felt we didn't have the resources and time to finish the experiment to the level we wanted to. And we weren't going to ship something that was not consistent with the overall package."
That makes the modes sound pretty mysterious, but Levine isn't talking about what exactly set them apart from the average multiplayer shooter. He declined to elaborate, saying that "you never know when we'll go back and revisit something. There was some really cool stuff there, but it just wasn't ready for what we were doing."
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Irrational head Ken Levine elaborates on why the studio nixed the multiplayer modes in BioShock Infinite.
Irrational head Ken Levine elaborates on why the studio nixed the multiplayer modes in BioShock Infinite. : Shacknews
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"Forget leaderboards. Forget DLC. Forget Web 2.0, social networking, and online chit-chat. We live in a world of constant, ubiquitous online connectivity that opens up far more dramatic options in triple-A console and PC gaming. The team that created the BioShock franchise is currently building systems to help us better understand how people play our games and use that information to improve our game experiences not just in the future, but in real-time.
"Irrational Games is looking for exceptional individuals to expand our Online Infrastructure team, where our mandate is to leverage online connectivity to deliver added value and groundbreaking experiences to gamers worldwide, both at launch and over time. If you have a passion for gaming and significant experience in areas such as high-volume server software development, online infrastructure design, NoSQL solutions and backend services, then we encourage you to apply."
...and they also had a job listing as late as May 2012: http://www.shacknews.com/article/73726/bioshock-infinite-team-seeking-network-engineer
They must've been driven hard by something (probably many factors, much of it Take Two corporate, but probably also the desire to create a new kind of multiplayer console FPS experience), but then it ran out of steam this summer.
Was this multplayer effort a major reason why Bioshock Infinite was delayed? http://www.shacknews.com/article/73716/bioshock-infinite-delayed-to-2013
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