BioShock Infinite delayed again, PC version will not have GFWL

A major complaint everyone had with the original BioShock was its use of the SecuROM DRM. PC gamers can now rest assured that the upcoming BioShock: Infinite will not have one of the most notorious PC DRMs known—Games for Windows LIVE. Ken Levine confirmed this in a tweet.

"“@H0LL0W_DoWPro: @IGLevine Will GFWL required to play Bioshock Infinite on PC?. Hope it wont.” -nope," said Levine on his twitter account. This is good news as Games for Windows LIVE has many problems, one of which being that you have to be connected online to be able to save games. Other issues include wiping out game save files and having problems updating itself.

Also announced by Irrational games was that the release date for BioShock Infinite has been delayed by a month, pushing its release back to March 26, 2013.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

[@galleryid:295812]

“It’s primarily polish and bug fixing,” creative director Ken Levine told IGN. “You know, ’let’s make that narrative scene that much better. Let’s do another pass on the timing of that scene. Let’s do another balance pass.’ It’s a game we could have shipped in February. It just wouldn’t be the game that we think the fans deserve. And that doesn’t mean it was far off from that, but they deserve what they deserve. And when we ask people to pony up a lot of money for this game, we have to feel confident that we’re giving them something that they deserve.”

Irrational has also released some new screenshots for the game that show some of the varied environments and the weapons with which you’ll get to cause mayhem. The screenshots also show a lot of the period-specific aesthetic of the game, showing strong influence towards a 30s setting. Also shown are the brutally burnt hands of the main protagonist, presumably due to the use of fire-based plasmids.

Earlier this month, Levine had revealed some more information about the game, including the box art. Levine has revealed that the TV ad would not be shown during the upcoming VGA awards, but the game may be demonstrated at the event. He also said the PC version of the game would support gamepads, and more information on the PC version would be revealed soon. Levine teased about ‘a cool something to show us about Elizabeth in the back of the box, and the key art soon.’

It was recently revealed that BioShock Infinite would not have a multiplayer game mode. This came to light when Levine tweeted that it would not have multiplayer in reply to a query about multiplayer modes. The lack of multiplayer in the next game ensures that the company will spend development effort on the single player campaign. This may mean the game would deliver a much more polished experience than it would if multiplayer mode was to take up development time.

Back in October, 2K Games released a trailer for BioShock Infinite titled Beast of America, which, according to the company, was made entirely of in-engine footage. The trailer shows some of the possibilities that the game has when it comes to gameplay. Some of the weapons include your standard pistols and shotguns, but alternative weapons come in the form of grappling hooks for navigating through the floating city, and plasmids – which are magical powers you give yourself through the use of certain chemicals. In the previous games, plasmids have included mundane tricks like setting things on fire and even extreme techniques like being able to shoot bees.