Bioshock: Infinite Multiplayer Modes Supposedly Axed

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By Catherine Cai
published

Irrational Games is having some struggles with Bioshock: Infinite.

Bioshock: Infinite is experiencing some development pains, according to Kotaku's inside sources at the developer, Irrational Games.

First announced back in 2010, Infinite's a release that's greatly anticipated by the gaming world. After the disappointment of Bioshock 2, players hope that Infinite will be something of the same tree as the well-received original.

In the past few years of development, the Infinite team has seen quite a few key departures from the creative team. However, according to Irrational founder and creative director Ken Levine, despite the departures, most of the old guard of the creative team from Bioshock 1 still remain:

"As far as the team itself, the lead artist, the art director, the creative director, the lead effects artist, the senior sound guy, the lead programer and the lead AI programmer from BioShock 1 are all on BioShock Infinite. I don't think there's a single senior BioShock team member that isn't here, which I think is amazing and a testament to their commitment to the studio. And there are a ton of amazing people who weren't on BioShock 1 that are on BioShock Infinite."

In the midst of these departures, Irrational Games was also forced to delay the game from an anticipated Fall 2012 release to 2013.

Now, according to Kotaku, the multiplayer modes in development for the game have been cancelledd. Though multiplayer was never a certainty for the final product, it was apparently a large focus for the Irrational Team. The developed hoped that multiplayer would deter players from trading in the game as quickly as had been done with the original.

There were two multiplayer modes that Irrational had planned. One was apparently a cooperative tower defense mode and the other a co-op mode where four players work together to go through single player maps. Unfortunately, neither worked out and both ended up getting scrapped.

Despite the slew of bad news, there's some good coming for Irrational. Rod Fergusson of Gears of War fame has departed Epic Games to help aboard at Irrational with Infinite. For now, we can only hope that Irrational scrapping those multiplayer modes will mean an amazing single player experience—like the original—for Infinite come 2013.

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Catherine Cai
15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • alidan
    a gears of war person going to help infinite... i dont like that, not one bit...

    that said, multiplayer being axed isnt bad, considering bioshock didn't lend itself well to that.
    Reply
  • sp0nger
    Bioshock 1 was amazing for its single player, if bioshock infinite holds up to that as it appears it will the single player is all i need!

    still saddens me tho that there having problems!
    Reply
  • mayankleoboy1
    it would be great if single player could have a co-op game play.
    Reply
  • bryonhowley
    This can only be good I can't stand multilayer in any game anyway it is of no use.
    Reply
  • im with alidan, GOW developer will ruin bioshock, gears of war is boring action, while bioshock has an interesting story to it, and that is essential to the success of the game.

    that being said the multiplayer was never a big part of bioshock, its like multiplayer for god of war... just useless and loosing the point to the game.
    Reply
  • unksol
    I could see coop being a fun option, but bioshock is about single player. I happened to enjoy bioshock 2 as well.

    What's with the last paragraph though? "A slew of bad news"? where? The only bad news I saw was the bit about a gears off war developer joining up...
    Reply
  • billcat479
    I agree with some that keeping their eye on a good single player game is a better choice. That first game had such a neat setting and game play and story made it a total immmersion experience.
    If they get into trying to make it good for one player and multi player some times the game gets lost trying to get them both to work well.
    I have never been a real fan for mult-player games unless they were designed that way from the start. It's kind of why Unreal tourn. was such a great on line game because that was what they worked towards and so made it well.
    I loved the first bio-shock for it's uniqueness.
    There were no games that had such a new and weird setting and game play I almost felt I was part of the game and it always made me feel like I was in the Overlook Hotel from the Shining when I was in that game. What a feeling and what a game that was.
    They just couldn't get back into it with the second one and I hate it, well, disliked it more accurate. It had it's moments but it lost the immersion factor that the first one did and it was not easy to play. Could never seem to get the right control setup on the game. It was too bad.
    Reply
  • belardo
    So after 2-3 players... the game is never played again. And with their DRM... the game cannot be re-sold as a used title.
    Reply
  • TrantaLocked
    Lol, disappointment of BioShock 2? Holy crap. I wonder if an average score of 88/100 is a DISAPPOINTMENT.
    Reply
  • I liked Bioshock 2 better. Guns and player hand models were so badly drawn and animated in the first one... Enemy models also were all the same, stuttering, out of synch with the whole world rendering frequency and with terrible terrible animations as well, 10 years old quake 2 did better job, but i guess that was the unreal engine 2.5 problems...
    Reply