Irrational Games has revealed that a single level of BioShock Infinite contains roughly ‘three or four times’ the number of scripting than all of BioShock 1.
Speaking with Eurogamer, series creator Ken Levine admitted he didn’t take into consideration how much writing would be required in order to tell the tale of main characters Booker and Elizabeth.
"When I first came up with these characters Booker and Elizabeth talking to each other and interacting with their world, I didn’t consider how much writing that was going to be," said Levine.
"Just one level of BioShock Infinite writing and the amount of character interaction we have is probably three or four times as much writing as in all of BioShock 1.”
"I’m doing the vast bulk of it and it really is… it can get overwhelming. But on the other hand it’s a world that I absolutely love to write. Mostly because it’s a new challenge. Thinking how these scenes are going to play out, how we keep them interactive and how you communicate the ideas."
Despite the abundance of narrative content, Levine is keen to strike a fine balance between gameplay and non-interactive sequences. He did, however, admit it provides quite a challenge as the two concepts struggle to harmonize at times.
"It would be so much easier just to write tonnes of cut scenes – I could tell the story much more easily. But my gut feeling, which probably comes from being forever changed by playing System Shock 1, is to keep the experience going,” explained Levine.
"That makes it more challenging, as you keep on ramping up the audience’s expectations of the kind of stories you’re going to tell. So you come up with certain rules, like, if there’s ever a moment where the player is locked to the ground, there must be some context. We don’t just lock a player’s feet to the ground. There has to be a reason why they can’t move – they’re using a machine or something.
"You fight against the suspension of disbelief as soon as you lock a player in place or start moving him along without the player controlling it," he added.
"But it’s challenging because these two elements often struggle with each other. And in that struggle you often say either I need to take a lot of control away from the player, or I need to simplify things. And generally anything encouraging you to simplify things is a good impulse. If a scene isn’t working it’s generally because you’ve made it too complex."
BioShock Infinite is set in the early 20th century on board an airborne city known as Columbia. The shooter is due out on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 in October 2012.