News

BioShock Infinite's ending may cause controversy
Posted: 01.03.2013 03:26 by JonahFalcon Comments: 10
Gamers with strong religious backgrounds should be warned that the ending of BioShock Infinite may offend their sensibilities, as creator Ken Levine has stated that one artist nearly quit over it.

According to Levine, "There was a scene in the game at the end where one of our artists got to a point in the game, played it, turned off BioShock, opened up his computer, opened Microsoft Word, and wrote a resignation letter. It had offended him so much.”

The controversy seems to revolve around the antagonist Comstock, and his faith. “I realized that something I could connect to was a notion of forgiveness and what an important part that is of the New Testament and why Christ was such a revolutionary figure,” Levine stated. “And thinking about how I would incorporate the power of that notion to Comstock into his world was, to me, the key. Because who hasn’t done things that they don’t want to be forgiven for?"

It seems that certain things had to be done to make Comstock a more Messianic figure.

Levine explained, “And it occurred to me that I had to figure out why people follow him. That was the key to his character. Why do people follow him? What does he provide to them? And I struggled with that for a long time because obviously an ecstatic religious experience is something that a religious leader provides but I don’t have a connection to as a writer. And it’s always hard when you’re trying to write something that you have never felt. And that would feel dishonest to me.”

BioShock Infinite is due to be released on the 26th March 2013 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Source: PC Gamer

Comments

By djole381 (SI Elite) on Mar 01, 2013
djole381
Publicity stunt.
By noobst3R (SI Core) on Mar 01, 2013
noobst3R
Excellent. I hope it offends as much religious people as possible. :)
By JonahFalcon (SI Elite) on Mar 01, 2013
JonahFalcon
There's nothing good about deliberately offending people for their beliefs. That shows a lack of respect. Challenging them or making pointed insights, yes. Doing it to denigrate them? No.
By djole381 (SI Elite) on Mar 01, 2013
djole381
The problem here (if this isn't a publicity stunt) is that we don't know what in the game is so offensive that causes such reaction. As for religious people that find this game offensive - DON'T PLAY IT!
By LukeDion1987 (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 01, 2013
LukeDion1987
It's not that the game is offensive, it's only the ending... So argument ''DON'T PLAY IT'' is little not in place here...
By djole381 (SI Elite) on Mar 01, 2013
djole381
@LukeDion1982
The argument is valid as the ending, which is only a small part of the game, was enough for the game artist to quit his job (which is incredibly idiotic). Therefore, people who find these kinds of things offensive shouldn't play this game at all.
By noobst3R (SI Core) on Mar 01, 2013
noobst3R
I think if you're so easily offended that you think you should quit your job because a game has something to say about your religion, you deserve it.

They thought me all about being polite and nice to people and respect their beliefs, but you're just a pompous c*nt if you act like that.
By Hammerjinx (SI Veteran Member) on Mar 02, 2013
Hammerjinx
idk. If I felt very strongly about something and my boss asked me a lot of questions about it and I felt like we'd had a good talk and I'd really gotten through to him and then I found out that he took my information and perverted it and made my position look stupid *and* that it was essentially flavoured the experience of the project that I had been working on... I'd be pretty pissed.

So, say I had a conversation about evolution, and that got put into *my* game, but it was mangled to make it look stupid and amoral, and then it turned out that the game was a Creationist propaganda item. I would quit.

I'm not saying an equivalent happened here, djole's suggestion of a publicity stunt is far more likely, but there's other reasons to be offended at religious content than your own religion.
By herodotus (SI Herodotus) on Mar 05, 2013
herodotus
Well it didn't affect "Battlestar Galactica", which was quite religion/beliefs-focused by Season 4 so why on earth do they think it will bring about a potential 'controversy'?
Good heavens - it's a bloody videogame.
I agree with djole - this is a PR stunt!
By FoolWolf (SI Elite) on Mar 04, 2013
FoolWolf
As long as the end is good I don't mind, but if this is a stunt or the end is stupidly religious one way or another that doesn't translates well to the game it is just stupid.
Still not sure regarding this game - might be a future STEAM sales or something...