Irrational Games, developer of the original BioShock, chose not to include a multiplayer feature on their critically and commercially successful game. Now that they are back on board with the franchise, they might not include multiplayer again for the upcoming BioShock Infinite.
Speaking with Kotaku, Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine says it plainly, “We have not made any determinations about multiplayer.”
"I will say that we experiment with things, but for us we are never interested in making a multiplayer mode you could just play in some other game. Because, A) that's not creatively interesting and B), financially, you're wasting your time. They're going to go play Halo. They're going to go play Call of Duty,” Levine said. “If we do something new — if we do something like Left 4 Dead that has something new to say — people will come to your game. If you don't, don't waste your time."
Despite going on record at the New York Comic-Con last year about playing more multiplayer games (in what sounded like testing and evaluation, rather than recreation), Levine maintained that multiplayer was not a sure thing for the upcoming BioShock Infinite.
"You're not much of a game designer if you can't draw lessons out of A) good games and bad games and B) games that are not really applicable to what you are doing," he said. "You need to look past the surface." He mentioned that character interaction is a major aspect of the character flow and design. Character interactions from Left 4 Dead became a major inspiration for how the characters from BioShock Infinite interact.
The inclusion of multiplayer in one game from a franchise is incredibly rare. The last title to do that was Metroid Prime. Multiplayer was added to the sequel, but not the title after.
What makes the possibility of no multiplayer more likely is that Irrational has been very vocal about remaining disconnected from BioShock 2, a game that included multiplayer and was not as well received as the original.
