So, you know how BioShock Infinite does that extremely jarring thing of applying the typical lib anticommunist "both sides suck" thought terminating cliché to a slave revolt? That's probably a product of rewrites.

In early interviews, Ken Levine talks about the Vox as "starting as kind of a student movement, working to unionize workers, protect rights of minorities" and an "internationalist movement, a worker's movement". IIRC there's even some vestigial elements of that in the final game, like the red color scheme, and an audio log that unsubtly draws a parallel between the Vox and the khmer rouge, something about going after people with glasses/intellectuals (I might be missremembering this last one, since I couldn't find it by CTRL + F on a transcript).

  • Tervell [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    There were so many rewrites on Bioshock Infinite I’m certain the final script wasn’t in place until maybe 9 months before release, despite 6 years of development

    That's apparently just how all Levine projects go:

    During a panel discussion a few years ago, Levine explained the final act of his process. “In almost every game I’ve ever worked on, you realize you’re running out of time, and then you make the game,” he said. “You sort of dick around for years, and then you’re like, ‘Oh my god, we’re almost out of time,’ and it forces you to make these decisions.”

    From this article (or archived here). Typically you wouldn't see having to do massive crunch at the end of development as somehow a positive, but the genius auteur mind of Ken Levine understands that being forced to rush things right at the end is good for art actually.

    • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      This is what Mensa brain savant Ken Levine calls "environmental storytelling"—simply make your company a hostile hellhole to work for, and the story gets done.