DeWitt is a messy reflection of our society’s own failings, brushing aside responsibility despite there still being work to do. The answer is a man who recognises the world’s injustices and his part in them, but who does nothing about it beyond severing his connection to those problems. “If you take away all the parts of Booker DeWitt you tried to erase, what’s left?” asks Cornelius Slade, Booker’s former comrade-in-arms. But despite making him aware of his poor choices, Infinite refuses to redeem him. Booker had a direct hand in Wounded Knee, and has since come to regret it. The best example can be found in the Hall of Heroes, a deeply ugly monument to Columbia’s involvement in two real-world events: the Boxer Rebellion – where the US aided in the violent quashing of an anti-colonial uprising in China – and the massacre of nearly 300 Native Americans at Wounded Knee. Using a show-don’t-tell approach, Infinite’s messages require piecing together from the cues found in its satirical, hyper-nationalistic visual design and flawed characters. The first half of the story is surprisingly light on shootouts, instead content to let its examinations of oppression breathe while Booker and his NPC companion, Elizabeth, soak up the horrors of the society around them. This provides a fair share of Infinity Ward-ish dramatic setpieces, but just as frequently uses its iron grip to slow down the ride. And I don’t say that disparagingly while Infinite’s precise direction abandons the mechanical ecosystem of Big Daddies and Little Sisters that made Rapture feel so organic, it replaces it with a focused and purposeful rollercoaster. Sequences like these are the result of Irrational’s surprising pivot from the systemic design of the original BioShock to a heavily scripted approach, crafting what is essentially a steampunk Call of Duty campaign. I still often think about the industrial district, where workers fight a bidding war over low-paying jobs in a prescient condemnation of the gig economy. These are showing their age – hang about too long and the illusion is shattered when you realise these characters stand in place for eternity – but they remain powerful observations of society’s crimes. Many of Infinite’s victories are in worldbuilding, with the lore of Columbia depicted through museum exhibit-like scenes that play out dystopian vignettes. But in 2023, as multiple prominent battles over human rights are fought in the real world, the city’s approach to evangelical populism makes Columbia more haunting than it's ever been. Ten years ago, such themes in a video game were considered topical. It deplores the opinions of Columbia’s ruling class and industrial leaders, and uses deeply uncomfortable language and imagery to depict the rancid heart of this cloudbourne city. While those explorations falter in the second half, Infinite’s first chapters tackle its themes with unflinching confidence in both its own convictions and its audience. On its tenth anniversary, it remains an admirably bold FPS that confronts topics of racism and classism in a manner that few AAA games have attempted since. But BioShock Infinite is not just the sum of its errors. It’s impossible to forgive those mistakes. And so BioShock Infinite doomed itself to live in the shadow of its greatest mistake. That its message will eventually be lost among its multiverse ambitions. That you will spend the final half of the game gunning down the oppressed working classes. The mishandling of this moment telegraphs all of BioShock Infinite’s problems that it will eventually descend into a situation that paints Black revolutionist Daisy Fitzroy as a monster no better than Columbia’s ultra-nationalist leader, Zachary Comstock.
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