14 DAY TRIAL // Ken Levine, the leader of Irrational Games, has offered some more details about his upcoming project Bioshock Infinite, which will take players familiar with the mix between shooting and biotic powers back to the America of pre World War I in order to save a mysterious little girl.
One of the most stark additions seen in the launch trailer and in the recent ten minutes of gameplay that Irrational has released have been the Sky-Lines, the only way to cross the vast flying expanse of Columbia.
Levine told the European version of the official PlayStation blog that, “You might choose to take on enemies at extremely long range while traveling on Sky-Lines, or you might engage in close combat. You might do both in quick succession. You can jump between crisscrossing Sky-Line routes, allowing you to instantly change direction and evade or outflank enemies. Sky-Lines are there to expand your tactical options, not dictate them.”
The developer also talked about how the open world environments affect actual gameplay, saying, “The range of environments in BioShock Infinite lends itself much better to the game’s broad toolset. In previous BioShock games, there weren’t really visible distances vast enough to take advantage of weapons like the crossbow. In BioShock Infinite, you could take a shot at an enemy situated on an entirely separate floating city block, across an expanse of sky.”
Both previous Bioshock titles offered a lot of weapons and special powers to play around with, aiming to create tactical puzzles that could be solved in many ways, but both were set in the city of Rapture, deep under the sea, making big battlefields something of a rarity.
Bioshock Infinite has long been kept secret by Irrational Games and publisher Take Two but the companies now seem eager to show off how the game works, building up excitement amongst fans of the series.
The game is set to launch in 2012 and will presumably arrive on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC.