The recently re-named Irrational Games, developer of the original Bioshock, have long been working on a top secret game that has been known to the outside world as “Project Icarus”. Many gamers had thought and hoped that Irrational would go old school and bring the world a next gen sequel to “System Shock”, one of their earlier critically acclaimed but low selling games. Others took their project name “Icarus” to heart and assumed that it would have something to do with the sky. In a way – they were all right.
Yesterday Irrational Games and 2K Austrailia took the covers off of “Project Icarus” revealing that the game is in fact the second sequel to the hit game Bioshock. Titled “Bioshock Infinite” and scheduled for a 2012 release, Infinite will take players out of the depths of the ocean and into the heavens as the game takes place on a flying utopia called “Columbia” . In fact this game could by rights be called a “prequel” as it takes place in the early 1910′s, predating Ryan’s Rapture by 40 years, if it weren’t for the fact that Irrational Games has said that this is a sequel in name only and won’t feature any connections to the previous 2 Bioshocks.
Bioshock Infinite’s “Columbia” is a metropolis tethered to massive hydrogen balloons, floating over a post civil-war America. The game will once again be a first person shooter featuring a main character named Booker DeWitt, who is a “disgrunted former Pinkerton agent”. DeWitt is contacted by a mysterious man who reveals to him the location of Columbia and tells the agent of a woman named Elizabeth who lives on the floating city and wants to be rescued. Booker DeWitt decides to take up the woman’s rescue.
But, according to the games lead developer Ken Levine: “Something terrible happens. This is not a floating world’s fair. Columbia is a Death Star.” As DeWitt tries to find Elizabeth he runs into plenty of obstacles, as the citizenry of Columbia have developed super powers and the result has driven them mad.
Since the game still has a good year and a half of development ahead this is just the beginning of the news flow for Bioshock Infinite, and we’ll have more info as it is released.
