BioShock Infinite/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Oddly, in the form of a difficulty level, called "1999 difficulty", meant to replicate the Nintendo Hard difficulty and "once you've made a choice, you can't go back on it"-nature of games such as Deus Ex and Irrational's own System Shock 2.(which was released in 1999.)
  • Broken Base: Elizabeth's design was changed in a 2011 update from raven black hair, freckles with glassy, large eyes to brown hair, no freckles and smaller eyes. [dead link] Fans are pretty split on if they want the old Elizabeth back or like the new one. The general consensus is that the older one looks like she can handle herself better than the newer, cute Elizabeth. There's also the fans who don't care either way.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Ken Levine has claimed he is aiming to eliminate this, after seeing how prevalent it was in the original Bioshock: active powers ("Vigors") have only a set number of charges (the weakest Vigors have dozens of charges while the most powerful ones only have one or two) meaning the player can't stick with the same Vigor through the game. Meanwhile, passive abilities ("Nostrums") come in two varieties: "unstable" or "potluck" Nostrums that force you to choose on the spot between 4 random upgrades and "stable" Nostrums that do Exactly What They Say On The Tin...but are much more expensive, meaning it will be much harder for the player to purposely create an overpowered build along the lines of the "Wrench Ninja" from the previous game.
    • The buttons to pick up weapons, Vigors and Nostrums and money are all different, seemingly to make the player stop and think about what they pick up, rather than mashing A/E/X to loot everything that isn't bolted down, as in the previous BioShock (series) games.
  • Hell Is That Noise: The Songbird, oh so very much.
    • As well as the ironically dubbed "Boys of Silence".
    • Add the Sirens to that list as well.
  • Periphery Hatedom: Late 2010s far-left supporters on Reddit hated the game to a giant degree for portraying both the Vox and Comstock as bad, and claim that Donald Trump's ascension made the game age badly by proving somehow both left and right don't have both "bad sides", and only the right have bad sides. Most of these people never played the game and only watched the game through Let's Plays on YouTube.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political?:
    • The game will apparently take on themes such as American Exceptionalism, as well as the racism and xenophobia of the late-19th and early 20th century America. Ken Levine, however, denies claims that the game is a thinly veiled parody of the Tea Parties.
    • Some previews show that Vox Populi (which have the exact opposite ideology as the city's rulers) are just as bad, so it's more of a Take That at political extremism in general. Levine did some research for the Vox by attending Occupy Wall Street rallies. Make of that what you will.