Rock, Paper, Shotgun

28 Days Later: BioShock Infinite Delayed

By Craig Pearson on December 7th, 2012 at 7:00 pm.

A visual representation of my sadness. HURRRR!
There’s a lot you can do in a month. You can write a novel, you can fill in one 12th of your calendar, you can take ride around the Earth once while on the moon. It depends on the month, though. For example, from February 25th to March 25th 2013 you’ll be unable to play BioShock Infinite. It was due out on the 26th of February, but Irrational are taking an extra month to ‘polish’ it. At least they chose February. If they delayed it for a month at any other time of the year, it would have taken longer to complete it. Thank you, February. You’re the best month.

I know I put quote around ‘polish’, but I’m really not being sarcastic. It’s a quote from the brain BioShock’s big daddy, Ken Levine, who told US press this weekend:

When Rod Fergusson [the new Vice President of Development at Irrational] came on board we looked at the game. He was there for about a month and he said, ‘look, I’ve been looking at the schedule and looking at the game and frankly you could really benefit from another three or four more weeks for polish and bug fixing.

So they’re taking another month to sandblast and polish. It’ll be fine, and frankly next February’s release schedule was looking a little bloated. Irrational just gave it a nice burp.

Alec is currently awaiting orders to get his hands on the first few hours of the game. He’ll be seeing it this week and reporting his thoughts soon after. Meanwhile, here’s an interview with Uncy Ken that’s just gone live. Via Gamespot.

March 26th!

__________________

« | »

, , .

89 Comments »

  1. 07/12/2012 at 19:15 yogibbear says:

    Bugshock Infinitely delayed….

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:17 Totally heterosexual says:

      Comments like this really bug me.

      • 07/12/2012 at 19:23 Qofi says:

        At least there isn’t a ‘3’ in the title of the game.

        • 08/12/2012 at 04:15 meghanlambert2 says:

          Jake. if you, thought Matthew`s blurb is super… last thursday I bought Mitsubishi Evo since I been earnin $6881 this – 5 weeks past and even more than ten grand this past-month. it’s actualy the easiest-job I have ever done. I started this 8-months ago and almost immediately startad earning at least $86, p/h. I went to this website..Read More

      • 07/12/2012 at 19:34 The Random One says:

        I’m shocked people are so mean.

      • 08/12/2012 at 02:56 particlese says:

        I actually saw the title this way at first glance, but then I read it.*

        At any rate, glad to hear they’re taking more time to polish this — Skyrim is still chomping on my free time, and Dishonored is lurking in the shadows, watching.

        *Edit: Then I reread the first few comments and spiderguably subtler wordplay.

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:32 Stochastic says:

      Maybe it’s Zeno’s paradox like situation where as we approach release, the game will continue to become delayed by smaller and smaller increments each time such that the game will actually never come out.

      • 07/12/2012 at 19:43 cjlr says:

        Zeno’s paradox is only a paradox when you haven’t invented calculus.

        Unless, of course, the delay is decreasing but nonetheless nonconvergent…

        • 07/12/2012 at 20:02 InternetBatman says:

          Zeno’s paradox is still valid. He’s describing a 9.9 repeating situation where nine never quite gets to ten.

          • 07/12/2012 at 20:12 darkChozo says:

            It’s valid but not a paradox. bigsigma(1,infinity) of 2^-n = 1, after all. [that syntax is horrible and I apologize for it]

          • 07/12/2012 at 20:21 InternetBatman says:

            I’m just miserable because I’m doing finals so I wanted to make other people miserable by pointing out that 9.9 repeating and 10 are different representations of the same number.

          • 07/12/2012 at 20:42 Lars Westergren says:

            I remember reading a proof of that somewhere and going “nope nope nope…. that can’t be right. I refuse to believe that”.

            Same reaction I had when I had the Monty Hall problem explained to me the first time. In my defense, I was extremely drunk then.

          • 07/12/2012 at 21:27 cjlr says:

            As Zeno described it, it’s geometric series, and geometric series are convergent, so adding up all the terms to the infinite limit gives as finite value after all. 9.9 repeating, or similar ‘infinite’ decimals, are also geometric series (and thus are convergent).

            If the Bioshock Infinite delays formed a harmonic series, well, then we’d have quite a long wait on our hands indeed.

            The syntax wasn’t that bad, darkChozo – though, I’m also pretty sure if I didn’t already know what you meant then I would have no idea what you meant by it.

          • 07/12/2012 at 21:31 darkChozo says:

            I think that the RPS comment system should allow inline LaTeX, and the fact that it doesn’t is a clear indication that it is broken.

            Also, the fact that no one’s made an “infinite” pun in this particular thread of discussion is incredibly impressive.

        • 07/12/2012 at 20:07 darkChozo says:

          Ugh, but the time to release is a piecewise, non-smooth function. That calc is going to get pretty ugly unless you start doing some transformations…

          • 07/12/2012 at 21:30 cjlr says:

            When in doubt, try a transform.

            That is the salient thing I remember from my functional analysis course.

      • 07/12/2012 at 19:46 luukdeman111 says:

        We’re delaying the game with 30 seconds. Aww I’m sorry I guess it’ll be 15 more seconds…. Whopps we just need 7,5 seconds to finish it! Alright, 4 seconds to polish it up and you’ll be able to… wait what? O I’m sorry another second to add….

    • 07/12/2012 at 22:47 JoeyJungle says:

      This is only the second delay it’s had, and it’s only by a month

  2. 07/12/2012 at 19:16 luukdeman111 says:

    I actually read quite some previews that came out today before I heard it was delayed but to be honest, the extra delay struck me as good news… I was honestly thinking: Yess…. Let them work some more on this!

    I’m slowly getting the feeling that this game might become better than Bioshock 1…..

    And now I need to stop hyping myself up to a point where the game can only dissapoint…. I already had that with XCOM eventhough that game was very good….

  3. 07/12/2012 at 19:17 omicron1 says:

    I’m wary of this game. It looks like it’ll be fun… But it also looks like it’ll be yet another caricature of the political right in which a straw man version of me ends up as the villain.

    Which would be well and good, if it were balanced out by similarly-cartoonish left-wing parody villains. As it’s not, I have the same problem with it as I do with Avatar – I don’t need a Videogame telling me that I’m an evil jerk because of my beliefs, thank you very much.

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:22 Totally heterosexual says:

      Well to be fair, it was kinda justified in bioshock 1. You cant really represent objectivism as anything but saturday morning cartoon villains.

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:27 Shiri says:

      Seems like Bioshock Infinite is set to feature caricatures of both populist and authoritarian nationalism so as long as you don’t fit both that should be ok? There are games like CoD for those who do.

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:32 Matt_W says:

      In Bioshock 2, isn’t Sofia Lamb espousing communism?

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:33 Beelzebud says:

      So don’t play it. There is always COD and the Red Dawn remake.

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:41 monkeybars says:

      Maybe don’t try to identify with murderous videogame characters?

      • 07/12/2012 at 19:49 omicron1 says:

        Rather hard when the creators say things like (approx.) “Our villains are inspired by the tea party and religious folks.” If your Aesop is “Conservatives are evil,” we’re going to have a bit of a disagreement.

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:45 Lars Westergren says:

      > But it also looks like it’ll be yet another caricature of the political right in which a straw man version of me ends up as the villain.

      If you weren’t busy nailing yourself to your martyr cross, you might see that the depiction in the Bioshock is very much more nuanced.

      In the first game, Ryan and the people who shared his vision did in fact create something amazing. The fact that he was a hyprocrite and betrayed his own libertalian ideals is hinted to be one of the major factors of the downfall of the city.

      • 07/12/2012 at 19:51 omicron1 says:

        And IF Infinite is similar, that’ll be much more palatable. All signs point to “Evil jingoistic imperialist racist hypocrite conservative Christian army,” though – which is very much Not OK.

        • 07/12/2012 at 20:00 Lars Westergren says:

          Well, you know, it IS set in a fictional 1910-1920s, when race biology was still considered a respectable science, extreme nationalism was lauded rather than abhored and much the world had not yet learned the horrors of world war and genocide.

          That some people back then were considered “right wing” on some fairly arbitrary right-left scale should not mean that you should take criticism of them personally, any more than people of mildly liberal or social democratic ideals should take criticisms of Stalinist societies personally.

          There were some pretty interesting interviews with Ken Levine at….Gamasutra maybe? Can’t be bothered to hunt for them right now. But there he said that among other things he was interested in exploring was how populism have taken various forms through history. Perhaps you could see what the game is about and what conclusions the writers draw before rejecting it?

    • 07/12/2012 at 19:50 Low Life says:

      As I see it, these villains are so caricaturized that their political views don’t matter. As Levine put it in the video, the villain is someone who believes in his ideology in such way that people who don’t follow it don’t have room in his world. That’s what makes him evil, not the ideology.

      • 07/12/2012 at 19:56 omicron1 says:

        And yet I imagine a game starring an evil socialist “Anything goes – except you guys” dystopia is nowhere near Levine’s list of future projects. If the point is to unmask extremism in general, all Flavors of extremism should be unmasked – Not just the kinds the author finds personally objectionable. Noble declared intentions do not excuse consistent bias.

        • 07/12/2012 at 20:18 Low Life says:

          I guess you have a fair point on Levine, his writing does seem to lean heavily on the evil right wing extremist side.

          It’s probably also difficult for me to notice and/or be bothered about these, since I don’t count myself being either left or right, and as such any extremist villain is fine for me – just don’t give me a villain who tries to please everyone!

          If you have any writer in you, you could always write your own story, even if just for an indie game or something. (And don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not saying “WELL YOU WRITE A BETTER STORY IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT”, it’d just be interesting see your villain :) )

        • 07/12/2012 at 21:14 Sidewinder says:

          What makes you think he has any obligation to present a viewpoint of ‘the other side can be bad guys too’? I admit I may have missed it, but I’ve never seen Levine claim to be trying to be objective; I imagine he’s smarter than that. If that’s the case, his biases don’t need to be excused- he has a right to his opinions.

        • 08/12/2012 at 04:09 drewski says:

          Sorry, but you’re not entitled to gaming experiences that match your particular ideology.

      • 07/12/2012 at 20:11 soco says:

        Yeah, I’m really not sure that taking offense to this makes any sense. The villain portrayal is usually so over the top crazy, even if it is supposed to represent a real world political ideology, that it ends up so out there that it can’t be taken seriously.

        I don’t get offended by Poison Ivy when she is trotted out as a Batman villain, even though I am pro-environment. The extreme is so far out there that it is hard to relate it to any real world position.

        And you can’t be reasonably offended in cases when the villain has some political idea that through the story it is shown that he has become corrupted. In these cases it becomes just as much of a proponent for the idea as anything. “Look how well that would have worked if he had stuck to his own ideals!”

        It is only when a game, or any media, is pushing an agenda that it is something to be upset about. I don’t believe that is the case with Bioshock: Infinite, but I haven’t played it yet obviously, so I can’t say for certain. But if it is like most games/movies/TV in that the villain has some slight passing resemblance to an idea it seems silly to me to get upset over it.

    • 07/12/2012 at 20:07 Jason Moyer says:

      As someone who tends to identify himself as right wing, I can get completely onboard with a videogame bashing neo-conservatism.

    • 07/12/2012 at 20:17 InternetBatman says:

      Why insist that things have to be balanced rather than take or leave a creative work based on its own merits, and then refute points you disagree with?

      And it’s worth pointing out that Bioshock was a critique of Objectivism, not Conservatism. The two are wildly different in theory and practice.

      • 07/12/2012 at 21:52 Eddy9000 says:

        I also think the important word you’ve used is ‘critique’, Bioshock explored what might happen in a society founded on libertarianism rather than panning it, and made good points about it’s flaws,abuses and notions of free will involved. But I think we’ve all worked out that the OP identifies as right-wing and is over-sensitive to criticism, probably out of some kind of self hate or guilt. Try self love OP, it’s more fun.

        • 08/12/2012 at 16:33 Deuteronomy says:

          It’s good that there’s a videogame which examines and finds a society based on extreme libertarianism lacking, because a very large country in Eurasia tried the opposite experiment in real life, and that turned into a 70 year horror show.

          On the other hand a pragmatically libertarian country in North America showed the world what individuals freely working together can achieve.

    • 07/12/2012 at 21:51 JP says:

      Don’t worry, it will be a videogame about shooting hundreds of people in the face.

    • 07/12/2012 at 23:55 Simplisto says:

      You must admit, a great deal of right-wingers do an superb job at helping the process of vilifying easier. Political satirists have to work much harder to come up with material when the conservatives aren’t in government.

      • 08/12/2012 at 10:31 Jamesworkshop says:

        I don’t think it’s hard to satirize people that think that William Ramsey Clark is anti-war or a pacifist, list political heroes as being Mao Zedong, or that creating anti-George Bush plays makes them “subversive”, or jumping on the moral blackmail of women like Cindy Sheehan, because the best spokesperson for the Anti-war movement is a person that thinks the Iraq war happened because the world and the USA are all run by a secret Jewish cabal.

        Or the feminists of NOW that basically flat out said they didn’t care if Bill Clinton had raped Juanita Broaddrick, as long as he held his flaky stance on abortion.

        More recently take Obama comparing his grandmother to a man that says that Aids is a US gov conspiracy against black americans

        What need for satire when people discredit themselves out of their own mouth.

        Bill maher did a good bit of satire on the left with his point that while yes he thinks Sarah palin is evil and dumb but he has the perspective that people on the left that think sarah palin is morally comparable to people that poison gas girl schools don’t have.

        • 09/12/2012 at 18:21 Simplisto says:

          Oh, no doubt there’s nutters on both sides. I’m under no illusions there – but I must insist that they are a rarer breed on the left. Is there anything comparable within the centre-left majority to the vast support for restricting what a woman can and can’t do with her own body? Whatever side you look towards for managing the economy, when it comes to social matters, it’s the left you have to look towards if it’s progress your after.

          If you prescribe to a strict left/right perception of politics, that is.

    • 08/12/2012 at 00:08 StashAugustine says:

      Actually, I’m mostly excited for this because the other villains are left-wing extremists.

  4. 07/12/2012 at 19:41 Lars Westergren says:

    Also, confirmed to be GFWL free! Christmas came early this year.
    :)
    https://twitter.com/IGLevine/status/277109417521078272

  5. 07/12/2012 at 19:41 Mathute87 says:

    I dont know… I really want to be as hyped as everyone else about this game. And the original Bioshock is one of the FPSs I liked the most . Had a decent story, fun gameplay, nice atmosphere… But…

    There’s something about this game that just doesn’t do “click” with me. I’m excited, but I guess is more curiosity than hype. I wonder if they can top or at least reach the immersive experience Bioshock was TO ME.

    With the first delay I got a little bit worried, then they scrapped Multiplayer and sighed in relief, and now this delay is clearly for polishing. But still can’t be THAT hyped.

  6. 07/12/2012 at 19:47 Hoaxfish says:

    Is the woman now some sort of weird bobble-head doll thing?

    http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/12/lizcomstock_ONLINE-610×343.jpg

  7. 07/12/2012 at 19:53 db1331 says:

    Is a developer not entitled to all the time they need?

  8. 07/12/2012 at 20:07 GameCat says:

    Better delayed than made in rush, buggy, and without all planned content.

  9. 07/12/2012 at 20:25 Lobotomist says:

    They say in Hollywood there is a jinx connected with any film that has “Mars” in its name.

    Seems like in gaming any game with “infinity” in its name will be severely delayed (Duke Nukem Forever)

  10. 07/12/2012 at 20:33 Chaosed0 says:

    It looks quite polished already, but I’ve never met a polack pole, so I can’t say.

  11. 07/12/2012 at 21:33 Dave L. says:

    You all know that ‘delay for polish’ is industry code speak for ‘we are not anywhere near where we should be in development at this point,’ right? A one month delay announced three months out from the original release date != ‘it’s going to be even better now!’

  12. 07/12/2012 at 22:31 Dinger says:

    As they say, thanks for the Annunciation.

  13. 07/12/2012 at 22:33 PC-GAMER-4LIFE says:

    Dropping any MP BS was a good move shame Ken Levine had nothing to do with Bioshock2 & publicly came close to disowning it.

    Moving away from Dead Space3 Feb release date was a good call but Rod Ferguson (of Epic/Gears Of War fame) is not a confidence inspirer to me either!

    Now this game will Battle Crysis 3 & Splinter Cell Blacklist as 1 month usualy means 5-6 weeks if not slightly longer late April early May window (when it will catch Resident Evil 6 & Lost Planet 3).

  14. 07/12/2012 at 22:39 Xzi says:

    The game is going to suck like Bioshock 2, anyway.

  15. 07/12/2012 at 23:11 TimMc says:

    So hyped for this game. One of the few games I will actually pre-order without thinking.

    Voiced protagonist and heavily character driven story AND floating cities all for the first time… those guys are never anything but ambitious.

  16. 08/12/2012 at 01:37 JCJensen says:

    I hope it’s not gonna be a repetitive, monotone, respawn corridor shooter.. like the previous ones.

  17. 08/12/2012 at 09:02 Jamesworkshop says:

    I hope its a month delay to scrap the boys of silence they look rediculous

  18. 08/12/2012 at 09:58 brulleks says:

    Sure, you could write a novel in a month, but it would be a terrible novel.

  19. 08/12/2012 at 13:27 Jamesworkshop says:

    Actually i think they are waiting for some more Wii U sales

Comment on this story

XHTML: Allowed code: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Respond to our gibber

Read our finest words

Unlearning To Share: The Industry Hatred Of Human Nature

Search for clues

Play indie, mods, demos

Browse the archive