Having an AI-controlled companion in game is never an easy thing…even if you've developed one of the most notable games of this console generation.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Ken Levine, head of Irrational Games, reveals that his staff wanted to have protagonist Booker DeWitt's companion, Elizabeth, cut from the game and that they "didn't know what to do with her."
A million times during the course of the game, because it was so hard to get right, there were people who said, 'we really should cut Elizabeth.' When we started working on it, we'd do level reviews and I'd say, 'So where's Liz right now?' They'd say, 'Well, she's back in the closet over there,' Nobody knew how to manager her.
One of the main complications, Levine states is, "You were trying to build a level but you also have to think of this whole other thing. In most first-person shooters you don't have to think about another entity with you in the world unless they're just walking behind you and shooting."
However, and unfortunate for some of the people at Irrational, Levine wouldn't have it and insist that Elizabeth be in the game and they even had a group of people specifically focusing on how Elizabeth will work properly in the game.
Fortunately in both cases, or unfortunately for the people who were involved, I get to say, 'No, we're doing this.' It was really tough. We eventually had a group we called the Liz Squad, who owned her. That's a multi-disciplinary group, led by John Abercrombie, who did the AIs on BioShock 1, with me on the writing and directing side, artists and animators and the motion capture.
It's also worth mentioning that the suggestion to cut Elizabeth was similar to what happened on BioShock 1 with the Big Daddy and we all know how that turned out.
Can Elizabeth break the mold of the bumbling and annoying AI in-game partner or are some of the people at Irrational right in wanting to cut her out? We'll know the answer to that for sure once BioShock Infinite hits in March of 2013 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
If given the choice, would you want an AI to be your companion in BioShock Infinite or should Levine give players a choice if they want a partner in the game or not?
