The city in the sky; Columbia. Almost as outrageous as a city built on the bottom of the ocean but we all know how that turns out right? Where to begin with this gem of a game. Irrational Games and 2K really delivered.
Visually, this is a stunner. I played through the PC version of this game (for those of you that don't know I'm a console gamer at heart, Team Xbox, yay!) although, as is customary for me when playing on a PC, I was using my trusty X360 controller because I'm absolutely horrendous with a keyboard and mouse. Typically, my laptop runs games at the highest of graphics/video settings but I played through on every quality level to test out the best performance I could get. Even at low quality Infinite blew my mind away with its HD-ness.
And the twist to the plot line. Wow. I think that's what I'm going to try and delve into. It's a wickedly confusing ending and I needed a few reruns just to fully grasp what it meant. So, SPOILERS AHEAD.
First, understand that Infinite employs the multiverse theory so if you don't understand that, get on it now, stat. We begin with Songbird destroying the siphon that controls Elizabeth. This frees Elizabeth to create new tears, not just open them which she does to protect Booker and herself from Songbird as he comes flying towards them.
The tear opens and we find ourselves in none other than Rapture, the city under the sea, while Songbird drowns outside. Booker asks, "What is this place?" To which Elizabeth replies "It's a doorway. One of many." Keep this statement in mind, it comes into play later. They take a bathysphere to the surface and find themselves at the lighthouse where Booker began the game.
Going through the door, they find themselves outside yet again only this time there are hundreds of lighthouses. This is where the multiverse comes into play. Each lighthouse, each doorway poses an alternate universe (not a new one) where different choices are made while somethings remain constant. Constants and variables. Another lighthouse leads to the next scenario.
Booker's baptism and rebirth. To atone for his sins at Wounded Knee. At the last second he refuses his baptism. They go through another door. Lutece is in Booker's office. Bring us the girl and wipe away your debt. Booker gives baby Anna to Lutece. Elizabeth tells him no matter how long you wait, you always give him the baby. This is one of the constants.
Through another door and we are back to the original lighthouse and then to a new scenario. Comstock is with Lutece with Anna about to jump through a tear to Columbia where the other Lutece awaits him. Booker tries to renege on his deal and get Anna back. In the resultant scuffle the tear closes on Anna's little finger and cuts it in half. This revelations tells Booker, and the player, that Elizabeth is in fact his daughter. The AD branded on his hand as a sign of his grief stands for Anna Dewitt.
Back to Booker's office twenty years later. This time a tear opens and Lutece stands in it offering Booker his chance of redemption to get his daughter back. Going through we discover, through conversations between Robert and Rosalind Lutece, that "The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist". Booker has no memories of the universe he has been dragged into and so creates new ones. This is why he can't remember Anna. This is why he doesn't know who Elizabeth is.
We now end up back in the rowboat sailing to the lighthouse. Elizabeth tells you that "This is where it started". You decide to go back and kill Comstock in his crib so none of this happens. Elizabeth leads you through the final door. To Booker's surprise you are at the baptism again. Booker is to be born again. "You chose to walk away. But in other oceans you didn't. You took the baptism." Booker is baptised and reborn under a different name. Zachary Comstock. Elizabeth and her alternates from other universes drown him and Booker submits to end the struggle before it begins. As he dies, each Elizabeth fades away as if they never existed.
* * *
What does this all mean? Let's start with the baptism. In some world's Booker rejects it and returns to his life with Anna and his gambling debts. In others, he becomes Comstock and founds Columbia, the great floating city. In these worlds he meets Rosalind Lutece who helps him build the city and allows it to float (it is Rosalind's technology that defies quantum physics) and they experiment with the space time continuum through tears. This is how Comstock has been able to predict the future and come to be known as the Prophet in his cult above the Earth.
From the voxophones we learn that Rosalind is not actually a twin but that Robert is, in fact, her from a parallel universe where she was born as a male. This is they are identical. She pulls him into her world and he lives with her, helping Comstock. We also learn that Comstock has been aged as well as been made infertile in his experimentation with tears. This puts a halt to his plans to have an heir that will save the world. However, because he knows about the multiple universes, he is able to sent Robert Lutece back to the universe where Booker rejected the baptism. Remember, Elizabeth tells Booker that he always gives up Anna. So in every universe Booker gives Anna to Comstock to wipe away his debts.
In addition, the voxophones also reveal that Lady Comstock thought Elizabeth to be the result of an affair (as she knew she wasn't her child) and threatened to reveal this. Comstock has her killed and then kills off the Luteces as they have become a liability...in one universe. In another Robert and Rosalind decide to come back and stop Comstock. This is where Booker comes in.
It is entirely plausible that every time Booker comes back to life, it is simply the Luteces retrieving another Booker from another universe to finish the job a previous Booker has started. Also, there is the idea of the endless loop where Booker is constantly trying to get his daughter back from Comstock as Comstock is never wiped out until he never existed. We can see evidence of the endless loop in the coin toss where Booker gets heads...and always does for about 100 different trials (possibly 100 different loops?)
Booker cannot be saved and Anna cannot be with Booker unless Comstock never existed. As Booker becomes Comstock he must be killed before he gets the baptism in the universe where he accepts it. This is where Elizabeth takes him in the final doorway and where he is killed. This is why all the Elizabeth's fade away; without Comstock to take Anna, there are no Elizabeths. But here's the stinger: if Comstock is killed before he is born, what happens to Booker in the world where he rejected the baptism?
This post-credits scene implies that Booker wakes up in the world where he rejected the baptism to find his Anna still in the crib. Further, since Comstock has been defeated, Elizabeth doesn't exist because Anna hasn't been taken and this is the only scene in the ending where she is not with you. However, we don't see the baby so we can't come to a definite answer. I like to think that she is there. I became Booker, dammit, I want to see him rewarded!
But what most people fail to see is probably the most important bit of information in the whole ending. The biggest twist. What if the city in the sky existed in another universe, just in a different place? Like, say, underwater? What if Columbia is Rapture in a parallel universe? Find some compelling evidence here:
"It's a doorway. One of many."
Wickedly confused,
The Sleepless Dreamer
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