Irrational Games (makers of BS Infinite) received a bit of a backlash from fans concerning the Bioshock Infinite Season Pass. In the box of every copy of the game came an advertisement inviting you to spend an extra $20 dollars on the season pass, which would eventually give you three downloadable content packs as they were released with no promise of when that content would be available.
Seems a lot of people excitedly bought this along with the game back in March, then got frustrated when no news of any DLC or release dates was forthcoming from Irrational all these months after the excitement of the game wore off.
In response to the backlash they promised to make an announcement at the end of July, detailing the content along with release dates.
Well, today was the day. And the first DLC was released today along with the announcement. Clash in the Clouds. Just a crappy arena game mode everybody hoped would be the sort of thing Irrational wouldn't bother with. Bleh. Remember when this sort of thing was included on games to give them a sort of added value after you beat them? Now apparently it is the sort of thing you're expected to pay an extra $5 bucks for. Super lame. It has some bonuses like new audio diaries, and some sort of museum. Still, big disappointment this is one of the three, and the only one we are likely to be seeing anytime soon.
However, the other two DLC are both new story content. Burial at Sea. It'll come in two parts, both a whopping $15 bucks a piece, together adding up to half the price of the original game. Suddenly that $20 season pass sounds worthwhile.
Burial at Sea parts 1 and 2 will take us back to Rapture in a detective noir style story, featuring an alternative Booker and Elizabeth living in Rapture just before the fall of the city. In part 1 you play as Booker, and in part 2 you play as Elizabeth. It actually sounds pretty cool.
Part of me is annoyed that they ditched on expanding Columbia's story any further, in favor of returning yet again to Rapture. Another part of me is excited to be going back to my favorite fictional city and getting to see it before the war. All around I am not sure how to feel about the main characters being Booker and Elizabeth again. I know they can explain it via their multiple time lines, but it still seems silly. Booker and Elizabeth are suppose to be from the early 1900's, while Rapture is 1950's. How would different decisions they made and branching realities result in their being born a generation later?
I always hoped for a DLC like this, but I always kind of imagined it as its own little spin off, disconnected from the main story. Since Bioshock Infinite tied Columbia to Rapture at the end, I'm sure they are going to try to explain this in more depth, and they'll have to explain the presents of Booker and Elizabeth in the 1950's underwater city. I feel like what was once a really cool story is starting to get pretty convoluted.
Before it was sci-fi in that you could never really have a city under the sea, and that it had futuristic technology. Now it is this whole complicated multi-demensional thing, complex to the point that it is full of holes and isn't very convincing. I'm starting to really miss the simplicity of the story prior to Infinite, and the complex messages it managed to deliver through that simple, yet very rich, story.
:(