Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea

Part of Bioshock Infinite’s multiverse nonsense is establishing Columbia and Rapture, the settings of both Infinite and its predecessor, are meant to act in parallel to each other. There’s always a lighthouse, there’s always a man. All that jazz Elizabeth says in the ending. But honestly, the ending that has stuck with me over the past decade wasn’t Infinite’s pontification on constants and variables, it was how it tied these two worlds together in a literal way, rather than a cerebral one.

Elizabeth travels to Rapture in the two-part Burial at Sea DLC, and where Infinite made her a larger-than-life, multiverse-jumping heroine, Burial at Sea strips away her powers and makes her human once again. Sure, she still has all her universe-jumping knowledge, but she must use it as a regular person. However, she doesn’t remember why she did it. She feels great levels of sympathy for the Little Sisters living in Rapture and how the systems of this city have put so many children in harm’s way. As she is caught up in Rapture’s conflict before the events of Bioshock, she tries to remember, and is ultimately cornered into a situation she knew would ultimately lead to her demise. But as she takes her final breaths, she remembers why she did it. She put the pieces in place for Bioshock to unfold as it did seven years prior, ultimately leading to the (canonical) ending where the Little Sisters are liberated from Rapture. It’s tragic, but it embodies the parts of Bioshock Infinite that weren’t laughably centrist and tone deaf. — Kenneth Shepard