2K Games has announced that BioShock Infinite will not be released in October 2012 but on February 26 2013. This could be related to a rumoured online mode in the upcoming game.
Ken Levine from Irrational Games said in relation to the delay: “When we announced the release date of BioShock Infinite in March, we felt pretty good about the timing. Since then, we’ve come to realize that some specific tweaks and improvements will make Infinite into something even more extraordinary. Therefore, to give our talented team the time they need, we’ve decided to move the game’s release to February 26, 2013. We wanted to let our loyal (and very patient!) fans know this as soon as possible.”
“I won’t kid you: BioShock Infinite is a very big game, and we’re doing things that no one has ever done in a first-person shooter. We had a similar experience with the original BioShock, which was delayed several months [from] our original ship date drew near. Why? Because the Big Daddies weren’t the Big Daddies you’ve since come to know and love. Because Andrew Ryan’s golf club didn’t have exactly the right swing. Because Rapture needed one more coat of grimy Art Deco.”
“The same principle now applies to BioShock Infinite. What does this mean for you? It means a bit more waiting, but more importantly, it means an even better BioShock Infinite. The great can be made greater, and we owe it to both ourselves and to you, our fans, to take this opportunity. Irrational Games is one of those rare developers lucky enough to ask the people who sign the checks: ‘Hey, can we have a few more of those checks?’”
“We are also going to hold off on showing BioShock Infinite at the big events of the summer, like E3 and Gamescom. That way, the next time you see our game, it will be essentially the product we intend to put in the box. Preparing for these events takes time away from development, time we’re going to use instead to get the best version of Infinite into your hands in February.”, the developer said.
Bioshock Infinite could have been delayed because of a multiplayer mode. Irrational Games searches for a network programmer which could be related to an online mode in the game. The positions vacant ad says:
“The BioShock Infinite team bets big on everything we do – we strive to be careful about the problems we tackle, innovative in our approach, solid in our implementation, and we polish the heck out of everything we do. Networking is no exception, Right now we’re looking for an talented and experience individual to help us with the networking aspects of BioShock Infinite. This position will require a combination of initiative, leadership, design, coding, and daily problem solving on multiple target platforms.”
The programmer would “work with the team who created BioShock network code”, have “previous experience developing network backend support on a multi-console title with support for matchmaking, stat tracking and analysis, in-game push updates, etc” and have “shipped at least one commercial network-connected game title, preferably on a console”.
■ Jensen6
