BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite trades the underwater rust of Rapture for Columbia, an airborne American city of brass and bunting suspended somewhere above the Atlantic in 1912. Booker DeWitt, a disgraced ex-Pinkerton drowning in debt, is hired to extract a young woman named Elizabeth from the city in exchange for having his slate wiped clean. Elizabeth has been imprisoned there since childhood for reasons nobody will explain, and the two of them have to trust each other long enough to get out alive.

Combat is built around three intertwined tools. Conventional firearms cover the basics, Vigors give you ranged hand-magic — explosive fireballs, lightning, swarms of crows — and Elizabeth herself can open Tears that pull weapons, turrets, cover and other resources in from parallel possibilities mid-fight. Movement leans on Sky-Lines, the elevated rails that connect Columbia's neighbourhoods and double as weaponised roller coasters once you hook in.

Irrational Games used the city as a vehicle for a story about American exceptionalism, racial violence and the consequences of believing your own myths, and the surface beauty of Columbia is mostly there to make the rest land harder. Finishing the campaign unlocks 1999 Mode, a harder difficulty pitched at players who remember when shooters didn't soften their edges, with tighter resource economies and stricter punishment for sloppy decisions.