BioShock Infinite was originally slated to offer a multiplayer mode. The mode was scrapped after much deliberation by the game's developers, who decided that dedicating time and resources to multiplayer would only detract from its single-player focus.
Speaking to Destructoid, Irrational Games boss Ken Levine says that he was the first person to champion the mode when it was brought up in proposals.
"I was the first guy who said, ‘Look, let’s try [multiplayer]‘ but it was tough, because it had to be something unique to us," said Levine.
"The first game we made that didn’t have multiplayer was BioShock, and it was by far our most successful game. And so, I think the last thing we wanna do is throw this thing in the box just so we can put a bullet point."
According to Levine, the studio experimented with many different ways to implement multiplayer but found that it was unable to come up with anything really worth doing. They decided not to cease their experimentations at the expense of the game's main campaign and soon scrapped it.
The game's delays were the cause of much drama, with speculation that it had been delayed for the company to implement multiplayer.
BioShock Infinite comes out next week for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.