After 2K Games revealed the cover art of BioShock Infinite to much dismay from the series' core fans, Ken Levine – creative director of Infinite – has explained the decision to ignore the game's incredibly important and iconic female character, its breathtaking flying city location, and its variety of unique antagonists in favour of the generally unseen male protagonist Booker DeWitt doing his best impression of Nathan Drake.
In a detailed statement made to Wired, Levine says that the cover was designed for “the uninformed”, i.e. the person who doesn't spend a lot of time reading up on games and following their creation, but just wanders into a shop one day with a bit of spare cash and buys whatever looks most appealing. Levine says he does want to encourage those people to look further into what the game has to offer, but they need to be drawn to pick up the box in the first place. He makes a comparison with BioShock, which he says that if he came to it blind he would imagine from the cover art was “about a robot and a little girl”.
While it might have prevented quite as much complaining if the team had made this explanation when the cover art was originally revealed (since Levine says they “expected” some fans to be disappointed), it does make a lot of sense. After all, as Levine points out, this game has to make money if more like it are to be made, and if it makes a difference between the next BioShock game getting approved or not, then “the cover is a small price for the hardcore gamer to pay”.
