Well, it’s pencils down time at Irrational Games.

Our goal has always been to make the player a participant in our games. The worlds of Rapture and Columbia are dripping with detail and story. Combat is full of player-driven options. We don’t want you to observe Booker DeWitt as he fights his way through BioShock Infinite. We want you to be him.

BioShock Infinite’s city of Columbia is a place of mystery, danger and action. And after nearly five years of building it, I’m proud to tell you it no longer belongs to Irrational Games. It belongs to gamers.

The toughest question to answer is “How do you write for a BioShock game?” Wait, let me back up.

I started at Irrational almost a year ago. At that point, there wasn’t a “writing team”, it was just Ken Levine. Luckily, Ken is a smart guy and knew that this upcoming game was going to be big. Bigger than any game he’d worked on before. So I tricked him into hiring me, and a couple months later we realized it was still a really big game, so Joe Fielder tricked us into hiring him as well. And the three of us, along with Jordan Thomas, tried to wrangle the beast that is BioShock Infinite.

The writing team at Irrational is structured a lot like a television writing staff. (At least I assume. I’ve never worked in TV, so maybe they don’t have a special room for footrubs and/or quiet sobbing.) We’ll sit down with a problem to solve (“How do we make Infinite make any sense?”) and pitch various ideas (“Free drugs in every box?”) until one of them sticks. (*INSERT ENDING OF BIOSHOCK INFINITE*) Then we’ll grind on that idea until it either sucks and we start over, or it becomes something… well, good. Hopefully.

But the key is this: We’re never satisfied. Something can always be better. The first idea is never the best one.

Our roles at Irrational are pretty well defined: Joe is the guy who can churn out an insane amount of writing in a very short amount of time, and I hate him for it. I’m really good at finding pictures of dogs who think they are people.

And Ken is able to take everything, mash it up, and deliver a coherent, challenging, and medium-defining piece of art.

So back to the first question: “How do you write for a BioShock game?”

You just start. And then you do it again. And again. And again. And eventually you get something pretty damn cool.

Hopefully, on March 26th, you’ll all agree with us.

In a clever touch, BioShock Infinite subtly parallels the first moments of the original BioShock. In both games you find yourself adrift, slowly making your way towards a lighthouse that juts proudly from the angry sea. The key difference this time is that you don’t plunge into the frigid depths of the Atlantic, but soar far into the heavens above in search of Columbia, a rogue city-state that seceded from the U.S. in an alternate-history version of 1912.

In both games, things are not as they first seem. BioShock’s undersea city of Rapture ran on ambiguous agendas cloaked in philosophy and punditry, but the world was clearly in its death throes from the moment you entered its haunted hallways. Columbia’s sickness is also terminal but lies deeper, eluding immediate detection. In fact, your first 30 minutes in Columbia are almost idyllic. The glow of candles lights your way into the city and angelic choirs drone pleasantly in the background. It pays to move slowly in order to better soak in the game’s dazzling eye for detail, whether it’s the colorful citizens crowding a carnival, hummingbirds buzzing busily from rosebush to rosebush, or children splashing in the spray of an opened fire hydrant. Columbia is alive.

Of course, this being BioShock, you know there’s a snake lurking somewhere in this Garden of Eden. And that snake would seem to be Father Comstock, a self-proclaimed prophet of Columbia who preaches self-righteous racial purity. Comstock feuds with the Vox Populi, a rebel subculture with different but perhaps similarly questionable motives. As in BioShock, the battle between these two philosophically disparate forces is the impetus for much of the game’s plot.

You play the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, an experienced but haunted private investigator. DeWitt has been pressured into infiltrating Columbia in order to evacuate Elizabeth, a teenage captive who possesses the astonishing power to open “tears” in space-time. Elizabeth is a frequent companion, and Irrational Games has gone to considerable expense and effort to make her presence a welcome one. No combatant, she’s smart enough to duck out of sight when the lead starts flying and will helpfully lob healing items and ammo when you’re in danger. Better still, she adds a delightful glimmer of humor and innocence to a game that tackles some extremely dark and disturbing themes.

Compared to 2006’s BioShock, Infinite’s shooting fundamentals feel more confident and satisfying. I played with a variety of weapons — pistol, SMG, carbine, sniper rifle, and RPG — and they all proved to be potent, versatile death dealers. Though the game has shifted to a two-weapon system, you’re still able to upgrade your weapons via vending machines scattered around Columbia, enhancing accuracy, damage, clip size and much more. The revamped control scheme wisely reassigns some key actions, including a dedicated melee attack via the Triangle button and sprinting activated via L3. Overall, the DualShock 3 controls feel solid, familiar, and reliable. While the final version of the game will support the PlayStation Move motion controller, I wasn’t able to try it out this time — we’ll be looking to do so as soon as possible.

Vigors are Infinite’s answer to Plasmids, and they’re a bit more multifaceted here. Each Vigor can be used in two different ways; tap Devil’s Kiss and you’ll lob an explosive fireball, charge it up and you’ll drop a devastating mine at greater cost. Murder of Crows seemed particularly well suited to crowd control, while Bucking Bronco catapults enemies out of cover and into your sights. My favorite was probably Possession, which enabled me to remotely hack enemy turrets and score extra coin at vending machines. As with BioShock’s Plasmids, you can upgrade Vigors to add additional effects and benefits, though the upgrade paths here seemed more diverse.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the PS3 version of the game looked sharp and ran smoothly, even when the scenery soared past in the game’s vertigo-inducing Skyhook segments. Load times were infrequent, too.

Want to know more about BioShock Infinite? Drop me some questions in the comments and I’ll get you answers as quickly as possible.

What are you waiting for? Click play already! BioShock Infinite comes out in February for PS3 complete with PlayStation Move motion controller support and a bonus copy of the original BioShock.

Thanks, I’m here all week. The veal is on special.

Imagine you get to work with Robb Waters, the concept artist who visualized the cover of System Shock. The Trickster in Thief. Man-Bot in Freedom Force. BioShock’s Little Sisters. Sander Cohen. And BioShock Infinite’s Songbird.

Now imagine you can get him to personally conceive and oversee the production of the coolest statue in the world.

Then imagine we put that huge sucker in a period-style box, with custom artwork by Robb and Irrational concept artist Jorge Lacera. And that box went in the collector’s edition box, so you could leave that guy unpunched in his original packaging while you tear happily into the rest of the goodies.

Now imagine that nine-and-a-half-inch statue looked like this:

That monster is what’s in the Ultimate Songbird Edition of BioShock Infinite. But if your sugar daddy won’t pony up for the whole megillah, there’s also the Premium Edition, which includes a giant pile of swag:

• A 3-inch baby version keychain of the sold-out Murder of Crows vigor bottle replica.
• A 5 x 7-inch lithograph by Jorge Lacera.
• A 25 millimeter, resin-cast Handyman miniature from the upcoming BioShock Infinite board game by Plaid Hat Games, makers of Summoner Wars.
• A mini art book, full of BioShock Infinite concept art and commentary, with a hand-distressed cover.
• Various digital goodies: exclusive in-game gear, a digital soundtrack, and platform specific downloadable content (Avatars for Xbox LIVE, and Themes for PC and PlayStation 3).

Of course, all of the above is also included in the Ultimate Songbird Edition. And for the true nerds in the audience, the Songbird statue, the Murder of Crows keychain, and the Handyman all come in separate custom packaging.

Both collector’s editions will be available in limited quantities, so yadda yadda, sign your life away right now!

You owe it to yourself (and to poor, sad Ken Levine, who can always be spotted by his tiny crutch that sits forlornly by the Christmas dinner table) to check the thing out in this lovely display made by our amazing web team. I like it. My mother likes it. So it must be good.

All collector’s editions are available for pre-order now in the US and in Europe and Australia starting Monday, October 22nd.

So what do you think? Are you ready to face the Heavy Hitters? Either way, you’ll find out when BioShock Infinite launches October 16th, 2012

But the third installment of Heavy Hitters may surprise you. Instead of using brute force and heavy artillery, these guys only use sound — it’s all they’ll need to get your adrenaline flowing as you check your ammo and run for cover. When encountering the Boys of Silence, Booker and Elizabeth can choose to sneak past these sentries or engage them directly to silence them forever. Just don’t give them a chance to summon reinforcements…

In case you missed the other videos in our Heavy Hitters series, catch up with our first episode above, where Irrational Games introduces you the indomitable, fearless Motorized Patriot and the very first enemy most fans saw in the BioShock Infinite announcement trailer: the gigantic yet agile Handyman. Man? Machine? Hand model? You’ll have to find out for yourself when the game launches October 16th, 2012.

Greetings PlayStation Nation! Today, the team at Irrational Games is proud to announce that BioShock Infinite will be released on PS3 this October 16th, 2012. Our President and Creative Director Ken Levine has been talking about the game for years now and, like the rest of the Irrational Games team, he’s thrilled that we can finally share the game’s final release date. “After BioShock, we had a vision for a follow up that dwarfed the original in scope and ambition,” he told me. “BioShock Infinite has been our sole focus for the last four years, and we can’t wait for fans to get their hands on it.”

The game will support the PlayStation Move motion controller and we’ll have further details to share on how it will work soon. In addition, you will get a free copy of the original BioShock on the game’s Blu-ray Disc. In the meantime, you can visit IrrationalGames.com to learn more about the game, or pre-order to ensure you get your copy on October 16th. BioShock Infinite will be available on PlayStation 3 internationally on October 19, 2012.

I know Ken pretty well, as far as these things go, but I’ve always wanted to learn more about his background: where he came from, what it was like for him growing up, and how he came to be an unabashed lover of geek culture (which manifested itself in a spirited defense of geeks in the pages of Game Informer magazine). I recently caught up with the man to delve further into these topics and, hopefully, catch a glimpse of what makes him tick.

PlayStation.Blog: Where did you grow up? Did you feel ostracized for being a self-described geek?
Ken Levine: I was born in Flushing, New York, of all places. I grew up in a small town in northern New Jersey. We used to go to New York a lot… but yeah, I was a Jersey boy.

I think it’s hard for younger people to understand today what the world was like before the internet. It was a desert for nerds — there was very little out there. There were comic books, maybe one science-fiction movie a year. When Star Wars came around, it was a revelation. It was the first time there was such a fully realized sci-fi universe that you could see. I saw it opening weekend and it was like touching a third rail. But back in those days, if a comic book got canceled, there was no way to find out because there was no internet. You’d keep going back to the comics stand and it just wouldn’t be there. You only discovered new stuff by going to the store to see if they had anything new.

We had to hide what we liked because we were nerds. We’d get made fun of…being a nerd just wasn’t part of popular culture at all. But that didn’t stop me from being obsessed with it. I used to play Dungeons & Dragons by myself, in my bedroom, because I had nobody to play with. I’d just roll up characters all day long! [laughs]

PSB: I’ll interject for a critical question: Deep down, are you a Star Trek guy or a Star Wars guy?
KL: I’m both. I loved Star Wars for how visceral it was, and for how it created its world visually. I really care about visual consistency. I think it’s easy to forget now how visually consistent that world was in Star Wars, like that oil vat that C3PO descends into. They didn’t have to say, “This is how C3PO cleans himself!” They just showed it with those little details.

Star Trek didn’t have the budget for that, they didn’t have the people for it. It was a little more ramshackle. But I love the metaphorical aspect of Star Trek, that they were telling stories about today, about politics, about culture through the lens of this world. I love different things about both franchises.

PSB: Were your parents horrified by your sprouting geekdom, or did they support it?
KL: I was really lucky — my parents supported it. I don’t know if anyone remembers, but when Dungeons & Dragons first came out, a lot of people thought playing it led to demonic cults. My parents said, “This is an amazing way for Ken to express himself creatively.” They completely supported it and the comic books. The highlight of my childhood was the day my parents got me an Atari 2600. My dad was in the jewelry business, and he made some deal to get a 2600, and I got it for Hanukkah one day and I didn’t even know it was coming.

But being a nerd was something I did at home. I brought comics into school one day and the other kids made fun of me, so I couldn’t bring them in any more. It was tough because there was no nerd culture. There were nerds individually, but there was no way to connect those nerds.

PSB: Growing up, where you a sci-fi or fantasy reader? What were your favorite books?
KL: I was never a huge reader of science fiction and fantasy. If I was going to read science fiction, it would usually be dystopian fiction like Orwell [Nineteen Eighty-Four] or Brave New World. For a while I was obsessed with the novel Logan’s Run, but overall I was never a huge sci-fi or fantasy book reader. I was into them on the gaming side, though, with D&D and the like.

PSB: Was there a book you read that made you say, “I can do this. I can write fiction?”
KL: No. Actually, I wrote a play. I would get around creative stuff back then by working as a sound designer, like a sound tech, and I was working at a theater at a summer camp. The theater was planning this showcase, and they said, “We can put on a play if someone wants to write it.” So I said, “Okay, I’ll write a play.” And I did, and it was an amazing feeling to actually write something. And people liked it, so I realized that writing was something I could maybe do. So I started writing and writing… But nothing lead me to writing. I didn’t know how to write a play, but I wrote this little play on an afternoon off.

PSB: What was the play about?
KL: I think it was called “Graduation Rehearsal.” It was about two kids in a high school graduation rehearsal, a guy and a girl, who were having this conversation. You find out that the boy had killed his brother in a hunting accident — that was the twist! And it was about how he was really damaged by that. I don’t know where the story came from, I just tuned into it. People liked it, and I enjoyed writing it, creating this tiny little world that’s just this boy and this girl.

PSB: What are your favorite movie monsters? Growing up or otherwise.
KL: It was a remake, but I think I’d say John Carpenter’s The Thing. It had a cool monster and some great moments, but what was terrifying about it was that it could be inside anybody — that element of paranoia. Once the monster shows up, and the rubber mask is on, it can only be so good. It’s what leads up to that. Remember that scene where Kurt Russell is testing the blood of the scientists? It was just that actor’s performance that sold that monster, the way he reacted when the monster’s blood was burned and how he was connected to that blood.

PSB: You’re a self-described history buff. What time period do you find yourself most drawn to?
KL: When I was younger, it was mostly about wars: the Civil War, World War I, World War II. But since then, I’ve been getting way more into social movements. BioShock was part of that; thinking about the social currents after World War II that led to the changes of the Sixties. And since I’ve been working on BioShock Infinite, I’ve been looking at the turn of the century, the period between 1900 and World War I. What America was going through, how technology changed the world…

Right now, I’m reading a book called The Ghost Map, which is about the cholera epidemic in London in the 1850s. But what it’s really about is how someone figured out that cholera came from drinking water and how he evolved the scientific method, which didn’t really exist at the time. Nobody knew; people thought cholera came from the air you breathed, from moral turpitude, all these things. This guy figured out that everybody who got cholera had been drinking water from the same contaminated well. He figured it out with basic scientific research…the fundamentals of which didn’t exist at the time. It’s so interesting to see how things you take for granted now, like the scientific method, and how science basically evolved from amateurs.

PSB: Do you see any historical parallels to where the world is now?
KL: It’s always a parallel, right? Nothing that happens is entirely new. When we were working on BioShock, we were talking about notions of government — the role of government, how big it should be, how small it should be. And this was before the Tea Party came onto the scene with this push for small government. It wasn’t that we foresaw that; we had seen it in the past with the John Birch Society and Ayn Rand. All these themes repeat themselves.

I think that the reason BioShock resonates is not because we’re trying to tune to the latest and greatest things that are happening in society. We looked at things that have happened over and over and over again — because that means they’re meaningful and people relate to them. Good or bad, these concepts are important to people.

PSB: You say that history repeats itself, but does that apply to the impact of the Internet? Has there ever been a technology that has revolutionized society as much as the open, chaotic democratization of information?
KL: Technology is always transformative. When gunpowder came along and the gun became cheap, it caused empires to fall. You could put huge amounts of firepower in the hands of some farmer. Before that, if you wanted to be powerful, you needed a big suit of armor and a sword and a horse. That’s why knights were these elite weapons, they could afford it. When gunpowder came along, it democratized power. And it therefore helped enable these revolutions that came along at the same time. Technology democratizes power, and the more you democratize power, the harder it is to hold onto power.

BioShock Infinite explores themes of xenophobia, jingoism, and civil unrest, topics that are driven by Ken Levine’s passion for history and sociocultural movements.

PSB: What are the repercussions, do you think?
KL: If you want to learn about politics and society, read George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The animals take control of the farm and become just like the humans. It’s cynical and it’s sad, but there is progress too. But sometimes there are people who aren’t like that, who break the cycle. Sometimes people think that BioShock Infinite is taking a swipe at America…but if you look at the founders of America, they didn’t do that. They told George Washington that he should be king, president for life…and he said no. If guys like that hadn’t set the example, it’s not clear where this country would be today.

Occasionally you have these extraordinary individuals who foment real change, but they’re very rare. Historically speaking, it tends to be “meet the new boss… same as the old boss.”

PSB: American Exceptionalism, nationalism, and xenophobia are themes that drive BioShock Infinite. Are these topics especially relevant now?
KL: When we started making a game, we don’t tear anything from the headlines. Just like with the first BioShock, I’m not surprised to see that the headlines came back to align more closely with the game. There are certain themes just repeat over and over and over throughout history: it was common in the 30s, in the 50s with the Red Scare. You see these things over and over again, especially during tough financial times. It’s not something that we planned on, it’s just that we’re touching themes that are very core to America and to every country.

PSB: What are your favorite misunderstandings from that first BioShock Infinite reveal video? I’m sure you’ve heard a few.
KL: Some people have thought it was Andrew Ryan doing the conducting, and that was never our intention. Some people thought that the Handyman was a Big Daddy, and he’s not. Those are the big ones. I think it’s natural: we threw so much at people, I think we underestimated how much we were putting out there. People’s heads were sort of spinning at first, but once they caught their breath, they started to get it.