BioShock Infinite will have a heavy focus on religion, philosophy, and science, but the first in that list has actually affected one of the characters in the game itself. After a discussion on the subject with some of his employees at Irrational Games, Ken Levine made the decision to highly alter this character.
“I had some very valuable conversations,” said Levine. “One of the characters in the game was highly altered based upon some very interesting conversations I had with people on the team who came from a very religious background, and I was able to understand they were kind of upset about something.”
Though the studio’s creative director won’t remove something if the story fits it — regardless of who it may offend — he stated that the points raised by those within Irrational about the character did in fact make the story weaker.
“What I said to them was, ‘I’m not going to change anything to get your approval, but I think I understand what you’re saying and I think I can do something that’s going to make the story better, based on what you said,’” Levine continued. “So I did that, and I’m grateful for them bringing in their perspective. The last thing I wanted to do was change something because it offends somebody, but the thing they pointed out was making it a lesser story.”
This wouldn’t be the first time an Irrational title featured something in its games that touched on a touchy subject. Levine mentioned how nervous the studio was when BioShock provided players the option of killing the game’s Little Sisters.
“I think that we had a similar conversation about BioShock 1,” said the studio head. “It involves infanticide, I don’t think there’s a larger taboo in the world. There were people who were very nervous about that. We didn’t have that because we thought it would be cool. My feeling was if it’s not just there to be exploitive, if it’s true to the story and you’re telling something that you think is honest, then everything has a place.”
BioShock Infinite is set for a March 26 release for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
