![]() Instead, the game paints a more complicated picture about the interpretation and the “writing” of history, and of the history of injustice in particular.ģ To arrive at this argument, I will first provide some theoretical background for understanding video games as ludic, narrative, and visual media, before introducing BioShock Infinite in slightly more detail. 1 Additionally, in connection with the game’s ludic and narrative elements, these visual depictions are finally revealed to be quite ambivalent, going beyond a mere satirization, parody, or critique of the excesses of nationalism, patriotism, and similar ideologies. Particularly, I will demonstrate that while Columbia’s rulers envisioned the city as a utopia, the city’s visual depiction actually reveals it to be fraught with questionable morals and violations of rights-a kind of multi-layered oppression and discrimination expressed specifically in the game as injustices based on race and class. ![]() This visual representation constitutes a compressed zeitgeist of the historical US of the time, exaggerating some of the reactionary political trends that characterized parts of US society. I will argue that these themes are not actually, as one might expect, evoked most strongly through its “mandatory” ludic elements, the playing of BioShock Infinite, or its main plot but via its (often optional) visual aspects, the way it presents the city of Columbia to players. 1 In the overall game, gender also plays an important role, yet it is mainly developed through differ (.)Ģ In this article, I will analyze how BioShock Infinite interweaves visual depictions of injustice and immorality with ludic and narrative elements.With its historically inspired setting and distinct focus on telling a compelling story, BioShock Infinite found both critical and commercial success, having sold more than eleven million copies (Handrahan) and thus testifying to the influential position video games have assumed as part of American popular culture. While the game’s main setting is clearly fantastic, it exhibits a world influenced by political movements and ideologies that were prominent in the US around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century: Columbia’s leaders and large parts of its society exhibit exaggerated traits of American exceptionalism, nationalism, patriotism, and (particularly religious) fanaticism-and the racism and sexism usually found in extreme versions of these tendencies. In the game, set in the year 1912, players explore and shoot their way through the fictional floating city of Columbia, which seceded from the US mainland a few years before. 1 A scene depicting the imminent stoning of an interracial couple, a painting showing George Washington warning the people to “guard against the foreign hordes,” the misrepresentation of the Massacre at Wounded Knee as a heroic battle-the 2013 video game BioShock Infinite is replete with jarring and controversial images of injustice that especially relate and allude to US history. ![]()
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