Setting the Skyline straight - Some Thoughts on Bioshock Infinite's Multiplayer Fiasco

It would seem that chances are Bioshock Infinite won’t be having multiplayer. I say chances—I don’t say it won’t have multiplayer at all. Let’s stick to the facts here.

Certainly, saying “NEWSFLASH - BIOSHOCK INFINITE MULTIPLAYER CUT!” makes for a better headline, but it is misleading. As far as we know, and so far we only know that from Kotaku, there have been cuts in the multiplayer part of the game. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be any of it in there though, just that some of the things Irrational Games was working on didn’t really come together. Who knows, maybe there still is some multiplayer mode that’s not yet been revealed to the press.

Why is this a thing that should concern us, the players and eagerly waiting fans? First of all, as a pure consumer, it doesn’t. Most people looking forward to Bioshock Infinite aren’t in it for the multiplayer, but for the campaign, the meat-and-potatoes of the game. But we’re not the only ones caring for this game. The game's publisher 2K Games and their investors care about this game too. And let’s face it, a game that doesn’t have multiplayer is seen as a bad sale. Whether that’s true or not is strongly debatable, but the public opinion among analysts and shareholders seems to be that a game that ships without multiplayer is a bad thing that won’t sell as good as a game that does have it from the start.

And that’s where we can indeed get worried. It’s probably rather unlikely that Bioshock Infinite will be cancelled and not see the light of day at all. For such a thing to happen, there has been too much invested into the game at this point, and it would probably (I’m no expert) cost 2K more to cancel it than to just release it, multiplayer or not. But if Infinite doesn’t float (oh god, what did I do there!), chances are that there won’t be as much money in it for Irrational’s next project. What might happen, and here I’m playing analyst, meaning I’m looking into my imaginary crystal ball, is that Infinite’s multiplayer gets delivered as DLC after the game proper is finished. Or we’ll see more, more refined multiplayer modes delivered after the game is finished and released.

The latter option is more likely in my personal opinion. Sure, few true fans will buy this game for the multiplayer alone, but there’s a lot of people out there who might be less inclined to trade this game in - or buy it used and THEN trade it in - after a few days if it has a multiplayer mode that sticks. Sure, selling a copy of a Bioshock game off just like that might seem like heresy to us more hardcore fans of the series, but we’re not necessarily the people that make this game a huge success. So in the long run, we might want to be a bit worried by that. Just a bit. We’ll get THIS particular game all right. Unless 2K corporate steps in and forces Ken Levine at gunpoint to make it into a third person cover based brawler or something.