Bioshock Infinite uses self-reflexivity and a multiverse plot twist to critique the limitations of narrative interactivity in video games. It acknowledges that "decision moments" often only lead to cosmetic differences and don't truly impact the narrative outcome, which is predetermined by the game's designers. Characters like the Lutece Twins further reinforce this by causing the player to question whether their choices are actually meaningful or just following a dictated path. The game aims to combine authored narrative with player agency but also highlights the contradictions between the two.

1. BIOSHOCK INFINITE and SELF-REFLEXIVITY
Self-reflexivity is also often known as
“_____________ of the fourth wall”, when on-
screen characters ____________ aware of
their existence in a game and engage with
the player directly. Taking cues from film and
____________, story-driven games have
cleverly used self-reflexivity to discuss such
as the narrative limitations imposed by
interactivity, society’s attraction to violence
in entertainment, and geek culture’s _____________ in reality.
Bioshock Infinite follows Booker DeWitt’s journey into the floating utopia of Columbia to retrieve a
psychic girl named Elizabeth. A popular reading of the game frames it as a “meta-commentary” on the
___________________ nature of video game storytelling. In its ending, Bioshock Infinite introduces a plot
twist revealing that the game exists in a multiverse, where an infinite number of alternate timelines are
generated by every possible choice that a ________________ makes in a game. The universes are
characterized by “constants” and “variables”, elements of the plot that are consistently the same across
play-throughs and elements that differ
depending on player ___________. These terms
refer to embedded and emergent narrative in
games, “constants” being embedded narrative
elements such as cut-scenes,
_________________, and background chatter,
and “variables” being emergent elements such
as character customization and combat tactics.
For games like Bioshock Infinite, narrative is
delivered as an incomplete product – players must fill in the blanks that the authors have left, creating
their own, personal _____________ of Bioshock Infinite.
That said, games like Bioshock Infinite are incapable of creating complete player control because the
designer authors all possible choices and _____________. Players are constrained to only the narrative
and strategic paths that designers create.. Nonetheless, story-driven games constantly seek to combine
authored narrative and player-agency despite the fact that the two ___________ each other. How can
Mass Effect or The Walking Dead provide a truly player-
driven narrative when a writer pens all dialogue choices,
determines where the story will go, and how it will all end?
Bioshock Infinite critiques this by adopting similar
“decision-moments” at certain points of the game, such as
the decision to choose _____________ two different

2. brooches for Elizabeth. Bioshock
Infinite subverts player expectations by
making these binary “decision-moments”
irrelevant to the narrative, most often leading
to _________ cosmetic differences on a few
side characters. The game knowingly
acknowledges that players have been
conditioned by similar games to believe that
these “decision-moments” are ______________
its narrative outcome.
A duo of characters named the Lutece Twins reinforces this critique of interactive narrative. The
Luteces ______ extradimensional scientists who occasionally appear before Booker thro ughout his
adventure, providing him with cryptic advice. They are based loosely off the characters of Tom
Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. In an early encounter, they hand Booker a _________
and ask him to flip it, and it lands on heads, like it did for the last 122 times. A similar scene occurs
in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern where the constant outcome of a coin-flip causes the characters to
__________________ whether an omniscient force dictates their existence.
WORDBANK
 Player
 Are
 Literature
 Contradict
 Disinterest
 Between
 Critical
 Version
 Dialogue
 Problematic
 Choice
 Coin
 Breaking
 Outcomes
 Become
 Minor
 Question