Bioshock: Infinite's kind of Bad Ending

                    

                  Bioshock: Infinite is a 2013 first-person shoooter released by Irrational Games and has been showered with endless praise for its story, graphics, and themes involving history in the early 1900s. Unfortunately I played through the campaign only once and enjoyed it only once. Once I experienced the ending, my attempt at replaying the game stopped halfway through and I wasn't interested in re-experiencing it. After several years I started to understand why I didn't return to the game: and it was because there was nothing to go back to. Nothing genuinely mattered. Playing through the game again would mean there's no other angle to experience. That can be said for a multitude of games of this genre but this game attempts to bait-and-switch what it attempts to introduce to the gamer that can be deemed highly deceptive. This applies not only to the frustratingly senseless ending, but the illusion of choice in general. 

WARNING: SPOILERS!

1. Constants and Variables

The very first "choice" portion of the game already paves the way for the problems of this game, which is undoubtedly one of its biggest. The game gives the player the illusion of choice by not even providing much of a choice in the first place. When Booker first arrives in the nationalistic city in the sky, Columbia, he's provided the opportunity to throw a baseball at an interracial couple in captivity on a stage for the public to humiliate. But as soon as you're given the opportunity to execute that choice, the game pretty much stops you and railroads you through a transition of mindless killing. Now while I understand there's a story to tell, the developers pretty much show no trust in the player at all by snatching away the VERY freedom they hinted at. This is almost infuriating because it's borderline intelligence-insulting to the player. This distrust in the player is translated to not just the false choice-providing, but it also applies to  the two-weapon limit the developers give you in contrast to the six-weapon limit the original gave you followed by those upgrades instead of you upgrading weapons you'll most likely throw away in Infinite. 

The game in the end, talks about constants and variables which can be said about any game that offers the same yet different experiences different players will have with the game. This is revealed when we learn that there are infinite worlds with infinite possibilities. But if you were to put a TV side-by-side next to player, or even play the game with a YouTube video of someone playing through it at the same frequency, by the end, there would be no different of an experience than your own. Again, this can be said about various types of games, but this game advocates choice, only to snatch that choice away or at best, let you choose but it meaning nothing in the end. 

This is applicable to both the coin toss with the Lutece Twins and the pendant choice with Elizabeth. My biggest gripe with the coin toss is the massive button prompt they give you, just to end up with heads for the 22nd time, despite the infinite possibilities of the coin ending up being tails because of the infinite universes this game establishes.  But the game outright, if accidentally, tells you that your choices don't matter solely by the number of times the coin has been flipped to end up being heads. That personally doesn't make a lick of sense to me. And it's also too much of a plot convenience for the reveal that there is a multiverse. Wouldn't it had made sense to vary the results so that there can be an established freedom of choice? Or do the developers think we're too dumb to realize there are multiple results of when the coin flips? That is about as plausible as anything in general that is considered plausible because there could be another world where Booker could obviously have the coin result on tails. 

The pendant choice also results in nothing despite your choices. Both pendants have obvious symbolism behind resulting in the Elizabeth character's journey but once again, the symbol of cage and a bird are pretty crystal clear if you've played the game, but neither matters because Elizabeth ends up wiping away her own existence anyway. What was the point? 

There are clear examples of games where your choices actually DO matter. The first Bioshock obviously gave you choices even if they were very limited. Killing the Little Sisters instead of saving them resulted in a bad ending while the opposite gave them a chance to live their lives to the fullest. Mass Effect 2 and Persona 5 gave you choices that resulted in how you interact with your teammates or confidants. It provided how they function in the final endgame.

2. "I'm both" 

Now the way the theme of constants and variables is implemented pretty poorly in this game, as the game attempts to shoehorn the reveal of the multiple worlds into how it shapes Booker and Elizabeth's identity. By the end of the game it's revealed that Elizabeth's tear powers creates more and more realities where there actions have multiple possibilities as there are multiple versions of them within those universes doing the same thing but could end up in different results. 

We learn by the end of the game that Booker and Zachary Comstock are the same person from two different realities. In a nutshell, Booker was guilt-ridden from his genocidal actions at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, and because he was so overwhelmed with guilt there was a reality where he accepted being baptized and coverted, changing creating Zachary Comstock. In another reality Booker doesn't accept the baptism and instead remains Booker Dewitt. He has a child named Elizabeth (real name is Anna Dewitt) and his wife dies of childbirth. He's still full of guilt, and owes a massive gambling debt so to pay it off, his alternate, Comstock, makes a deal with Booker so he can have an heir so Booker gives Anna to Comstock. But because he regrets doing this, the Male Lutece decides to help Booker retrieve his daughter by going to Columbia to retrieve her, thus setting the game's events in motion. 

Note: The Lutece Twins are alternate versions of each other that are responsible for the technology that creates tears into multiple realities but their motives for doing this are not clear. 

(On my left is the details of the timeline I won't bore you with explaining, but what's important is what happens before the player starts the game.)

Once multiple worlds are revealed to Booker and Elizabeth, Elizabeth believes that to prevent the general existence of Comstock is to drown Booker at the baptism so Comstock will never be born in any reality.

The million dollar question is: Why? 

Let's break this down into three simple reasons:

1. There are already infinite possibilities where Booker and Elizabeth are experiencing different outcomes because there's no such thing as "some things being constant" like Elizabeth claimed. There are unknown possibilities that are countless and the player pretty much comes up with those possibilities on their own. 

2. Drowning Booker only results in a Grandfather Paradox. For example, if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, then you won't exist, not being alive to even kill your grandfather in the first place. This applies to Elizabeth as she drowns Booker, preventing her own existence and not being alive to drown her own father. 

3. Booker's transformation to Comstock was not a literal transformation. He changes his mindset, but no physical rebirth happened. In the Christian practices, you're reborn spiritually. This game uses that as a reference for Booker's transformation, but the problem is, drowning present time Booker accomplishes nothing at all because of the clear outcomes that are different. 

The only way to end the circle is to either go back to either Lutece twin and kill their parent(s) since they're responsible for giving birth to the Lutece and preventing their exploring of quantum mechanics in the first place.

3. Waddup with Comstock? 

 

This is a personal flaw I noticed and it has to do with Booker's transformation in general to Comstock. Booker feels overwhelming guilt about his actions at Wounded Knee and his baptism to Comstock ultimately causes him to create a new religion and perspective.

Ultimately this makes me wonder what as the point of having a baptism if he's pretty much returning to the exact same mindset he had when was slaughtering Native Americans. Logically Booker was guilt-ridden for a good five minutes before going back to being a racist which defeats the purpose of a baptism in the first place. If seems like the baptism was a plot device but it doesn't serve a logical purpose except to create the multiple worlds plot. 

What are your thoughts on the game? Did you enjoy the story? Leave a comment below!