14 DAY TRIAL // When the cover art for the upcoming BioShock Infinite was revealed, a number of fans reacted negatively because they felt the image used did not reflect the core values of the Irrational Games created title.
Now Shawn Elliott, a level designer working on the new BioShock, says that the team faced a difficult challenge when creating the cover and settled on a compromise designed to attract as many players as possible.
The developer tells The Official Xbox Magazine that, “imagine, you know, writing a book and trying to make the same kind of statement with a book cover, a movie poster or anything. Stanley Kubrick is one of my favourite directors and his movie posters are always phenomenal, but they don’t ever really tell me anything at all about the contents of the movie, so I imagine it’s a challenge.”
Elliot says that BioShock Infinite is defined by a number of ideas and characters, ranging from Elizabeth to Songbird and the skylines, and it was impossible to capture them all in a single image.
He adds, “Box art in the 80s, for early games they tried literally to put everything on there – so you’d have game box art where there’s a dinosaur on one side, there’s a spaceship on the other, and you really don’t understand what the hell is happening.”
The developer believes that most BioShock Infinite fans are aware of all the information that Irrational Games has offered about the game, which means that the cover reveal was not that important to them.
Elliot also says the team was not frustrated by the cover backlash and that they are focusing all their energy on putting the finishing touches on the game experience.
BioShock Infinite will be launched on March 26 all over the world on the PC, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.