Booker is never compared to Comstock or vice versa.
This kind of parallel character arc is a wonderful idea, but it never manifests itself in the game proper. In the other life, he feels forgiven for that violence, which frees him to commit even greater acts of atrocity. How does he deal with that violent side of himself and how does that change him? In one life, he regrets that violence and tries to repent, which sadly only leads to more violence. The game wants to explore how we construct an identity by showing us the parallel lives of this intrinsically violent man. I can’t believe they were ever the same person. The game toys with a fascinating theme - that one can abuse the forgiveness inherent in religion to justify countless atrocities - and its attempt to make that theme personal by applying it to the player character is ambitious and worthy of praise, but it ultimately doesn’t work because the game doesn’t set up enough parallels between these two characters. The final revelation that Booker and Comstock are two branches of the same person, one consumed with guilt and the other consumed with forgiveness, just doesn’t work for me. The characters, or rather Booker specifically, gets the narrative short shrift compared to the city, and as a result, the game’s final moments suffer. Unfortunately, the game spends more time telling the story of Columbia than the story of Booker and Elizabeth, even though the latter is clearly what this game is actually about. It’s about how guilt and forgiveness can influence our lives and change who we are. Infinite is really a character-driven story about Booker Dewitt and Elizabeth. Bioshock Infinite isn’t about Columbia the same way that Bioshock is about Rapture. But in actuality, all those –isms are just window dressing to help establish the setting. This post contains spoilers for Bioshock Infinite.īioshock Infinite is a game about a lot of things: Racism, sexism, nationalism, religion, and how all those things interact and influence each other.