Disclaimer #1: This post is heavily spoiler-driven. Under absolutely no circumstances should you read it without having completed Bioshock Infinite. I don’t care if you don’t think you’ll ever play it — if you play video games, you should probably play Infinite at some point, so don’t read this. BUT PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO YOUR GAMING FRIENDS. Because I want a discussion/answers/corrections and that won’t happen if this sits here unread by anyone but my nongaming friends.
Disclaimer #2: I am a Communication Studies major (previously an English major). I am not a philosopher. I am not a physicist. I have no clue whether anything I’m about to say, or whether anything within the game, makes actual sense. This is me simply trying to work out precisely what I think happened, and how it makes me feel. I am still trying to parse the extraordinary emotional blow that the final half-hour or so of the game dealt me.
Let’s talk about time, shall we? Because throughout the game, Booker has a habit of asking where he is, and he is constantly corrected to think about it merely as when. He is also informed about constants and variables, and much of what the game says requires you to believe in a predestination of sorts — that time simply is, and is therefore unchangeable. The conclusion, then, leaves me with some serious questions, but before I judge their integrity, let me try to work out what I think the game thinks happened.
Time is not a straight line. It is a tree. Every decision you ever make in your life could have gone one of any infinite number of ways, except of course the binary ones — the ones which could either have gone yes or no — and those still afford two options.
The potentiality of time and decisions, then, is beyond human comprehension. Each tree exists for each person with agency, but consider how many decisions depend on or affect multiple people (and thus the branches overlap and intertwine) and it becomes something I’m not sure I can even think, let alone draw. Talking about it defies human speech, so we’re left simplifying things (hopefully not too much, but then, that’s not my point here) until it’s something manageable.
So as you know, having finished the game, we have two characters who have two names: Booker, who is also Comstock, and Elizabeth, who is also Booker’s daughter Anna. They are characters, but they are also avatars of a concept: representations of every version of them that exists across every universe.
After the Battle of Wounded Knee, Booker, a single person with a single tree, was faced with a binary choice: renounce his sins and be baptized (and become a believer), or (as we watched him once do) refuse the baptism and just live his life however he sees fit. The latter is the Booker we know, the Booker whose memory we relived while Elizabeth watched.
The former, the baptized Booker, becomes a zealot, and takes on a new name to reflect his transformation: Comstock. Yes, there are infinite versions of both Booker and Comstock, but let’s, for discussion purposes, condense all of them down into single timelines: Booker is every Booker that said “no” at the point of offered baptism, and Comstock is every Booker that said “yes” at the point of offered baptism. Timeline 1 branches off here into Timeline 2 at what I will call Crux.
EDIT: CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE IMAGE MOCKUP I CREATED TO ILLUSTRATE MY VIEW OF THE TIMELINES IN THIS GAME. I previously had the image embedded but WordPress automatically displayed it in the blogfeed and I am horrified at the idea of someone unsuspectingly reading it before knowing what they were even spoiling for themselves.
As Timeline 1 continues, Booker has a daughter with an unnamed wife who dies giving birth to her (again, there are obviously versions of Booker where the wife lived, or there was no child, but we’re concerned specifically with the realities in which what I just said is true). His daughter is named Anna. At some point, he gets himself heavily into debt, and eventually becomes completely hopeless as to how to pay it off.
Enter Comstock, who from his timeline has encountered the Lutece “twins” (they aren’t twins, by the way, just alternate versions of themselves who cheated the system, ended up together, and are now stranded in the space between all timelines, trying to save the, for lack of a better word, multiverse from being destroyed). Comstock has become infertile due to exposure to the Luteces’ experimental devices, yet he needs a blood heir (bloodlines are very important, obviously) and so he decides to steal his own daughter.
This is where Comstock — “Yes” Booker — intrudes on the life of “No” Booker. He offers Booker a clean slate in return for Anna. Our Booker begrudgingly took the deal. According to Elizabeth, there are other Bookers who did not take it, but Comstock simply took the girl by force. There are no realities with Comstock and Anna in which Comstock didn’t gain access to Anna. Yes, that’s a bit far-fetched even for this game, but it’s what we’re told, so let’s accept it.
Now comes the singularity.
ONE Booker — our Booker — fought back a second time as his daughter was being passed through a tear into the world that would become this Columbia. Though he could not stop his daughter being passed through, he did stall it just long enough that as the tear closed, she lost a finger. And at that moment, one version of Anna existed in two timelines simultaneously; she became an anomaly. The Luteces theorize that this is what generates her power — an innate need, driven by the universe, for the two parts to find one another someday, which allows her to access all other universes in which that part might exist. At least, I think that’s what they were saying. I’ll have to reread the Vox transcripts.
Comstock and Lady Comstock play a role in what comes next but suffice to say Anna is christened Elizabeth and is taught that she is their daughter. Lady Comstock thinks Elizabeth is the bastard child of some affair Comstock has, and even though the Luteces tried to explain the truth, it was too absurd for her to deal with so she just went on hating the child her whole life. Elizabeth likewise resented her mother for rejecting her as daughter — not realizing that she actually wasn’t the Lady’s daughter. This should hopefully already be understood if you paid attention during the whole ghost thing but just in case it wasn’t, there you go.
And so, many years later in Anna/Elizabeth’s life, Booker gets a chance at redemption: he is going to Columbia, and he is going to bring back his daughter. Of course, between grief and the inter-timeline travel (for remember, where he’s going, Comstock is that timeline’s Booker, so none of his past actually happened in this timeline), he loses grip on reality and remembers events differently from how they actually happened. This is the relevance of the quote on the alternate back of the box from Lutece: “The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist…” (note that it’s from “Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel”).
Let’s fast-forward to the part where you kill Comstock. This is important because at first, it looks like an end to Timeline 2. It isn’t. It’s an end to one of an infinite variety of Timeline 2; all the “Yes” Bookers in other timelines still exist.
Booker wants to just go to Paris at this point. As far as he is concerned, things have been settled, and Elizabeth — his daughter Anna — is free. But she’s too selfless for that. She hasn’t Booker’s ability to forgive herself for the atrocious civil war that she directly (by meddling with the arms supply) and indirectly (by simply having ever existed) had a hand in. Not only does she, this Elizabeth, have a slate which she can’t believe will ever be washed clean, but thanks to Booker’s little tear-driven journey, she knows that at least one other version of her rains destruction on the earth below and kills millions more. And so she decides to end it all — to stop all the bad things that Elizabeth ever had a hand in from happening in any timeline.
Because Comstock will always get Anna, always name her Elizabeth, and always lead to this wretched whitewashed city of Columbia, the only way for her to truly clean her slate is to make none of it ever happen at all — to make there be no Elizabeth, to make there be no Comstock.
And so Elizabeth takes Booker back to the point in the Booker tree where a binary choice was made, the baptism at which he said “No” and went on to have a baby, and at which he said “Yes” and went on to become Comstock. Here we see a dozen or so Elizabeths show up — that’s allegorical. It has to be. There are potentially infinite Elizabeths; the ones who appear at our Elizabeth’s side are representational of that. It’s difficult to be sure whether they are “really” there or are simply something Booker perceives (perception’s a big deal with alternate realities, remember). If they are there, it must be because the four-fingered Elizabeth brought them there, though I’m not sure I understand why they are necessary.
And so “Yes” Booker is drowned before he can become Comstock, and as he dies, that entire half of the Booker tree ceases to exist, including Elizabeth. The multiverse is saved, the atrocities that Elizabeth would be the cause of (directly or indirectly) never happening. It’s bittersweet, because Elizabeth — the lovely, strong, spirited character we have come to care for immensely throughout this whole game — “dies;” in fact, she never exists at all. The sweet comes in the moment after the credits have rolled, in which we see Timeline 1 turned to Timeline 3 — no longer a circle, but a new branch proper, in which Booker doesn’t have an alternate version of himself intrude on his life, and he gets to keep and raise Anna. Both protagonists die and get to live together. It’s neat.
It’s also a bit problematic.
The myriad Elizabeths who kill “Yes” Booker at the baptism are anachronisms. We see them disappear as he dies, but that of course is wishful artistic interpretation. If his death precludes their existence, then they were never there to kill him; and thus he never died to preclude them. We thus see the “end” of the circular Timeline 1, which must repeat itself infinitely: the multiverse ever-threatened, ever saved just in the nick of time.
Comstock has to have lived because if he hadn’t lived, then Elizabeth never would have existed to go back and kill him. His death precludes his cause of death, precludes his death, ad infinitum. Everything that happens in Bioshock Infinite never happened, but it needs to have happened for it to have never happened. It’s an unbroken circle. It repeats itself forever.
And honestly, that sucks. Because it means all that pain and death that Elizabeth sacrificed herself and killed Booker to stop from happening? It still happened/happens/is happening. Their sacrifice prevents the multiverse from being destroyed by an alternate unstable Elizabeth, but it does not personally afford them a happy ending at all. It can’t. There is only one reality. You cannot change history. You cannot fix the past.
It’s wrong to say “none of this ever really happened.” It did happen. I does happen. It will happen. This is the reality for our Booker and our Elizabeth. And it’s an utterly tragic one. Some other Booker and some other Anna (an infinite number of them) live happily ever after, and the multiverse is saved. But the characters we just spent fifteen hours or so with are doomed to this tragic cycle. And like I said: that sucks.
I’m a sucker for happy endings. I just am. I loathe the way this game ended but I cannot deny that it was extremely well-done, and extremely powerful. I cannot deny that this game made me feel emotions I didn’t even know existed. It disturbed me, not in the “ew, gross” way, but in the unsettled, uneasy, pit in the stomach that won’t go away way. As I raced through Comstock House trying desperately to save a screaming, then complacent, then horrifying Elizabeth, I honestly wanted to throw up. I hated what was happening. I wanted to make it all go away.
And what sticks with me, eight hours later, is a sense that I couldn’t. That all of that torture still happened, still happens, is still happening. I don’t really care about all the death and mayhem. It’s selfish, but I’d be fine if the rest of the world burned and Booker and Elizabeth escaped off to some dreamy version of Paris. Because they’re the only characters in the entire multiverse I actually care about. I am unable to share the Luteces’ passive observational attitude towards the inevitability of that suffering. It actually hurts me. And that pain, that hollow feeling in the gut, is the overarching legacy of Bioshock Infinite in my life.
So I’d like to have gone wrong somewhere in my logic. Because while sad, I can accept Elizabeth never having existed. But my heart can’t accept Elizabeth never existing past that moment, but having existed through all the suffering before it.
Am I wrong? Or did I nail it? Help me out, Internet.
I’m not feeling too well.
EDIT: April 1st, 2013, ~12:30 p.m.
Playing through the game again, looking for warning signs of the shocking conclusion, particularly signs that Comstock and Booker are the same person. There’s the spiel Comstock delivers before trying to kill you (with that flame suicide lady on the airship, right after he tells all the guards to stand down so he can talk to you), in which he knows intimate details of your past and your desire to cleanse your sins (including Anna). But so far the best thing I’ve come across is a voxophone called “Born in the River,” which says “The Prophet may know how his own biography’s going to end, but…I can scarcely fathom how I’m going to start it. I mean, other than the kid’s stuff you get at the Hall of Heroes, anything prior to his baptism was — and here I quote, hang on — “left on the riverside.””
Comstock became a new man at the point of baptism. And as we now know, quite literally.
Adam K. Bogert 
I think what is causing dissonance is the fact that the game is, like the original Bioshock, making meta commentary on video games without breaking the fourth wall.
It’s a video game. It exists in a closed circuit- forever. Elizabeth and all the characters don’t exist after the credits roll- they start anew in each replay with some variations. The Luteces’ coin will always land a certain way, but you may pick the other brooch- because that’s how the game has been made.
The video game nature definitely plays a role. Even if conceptually you COULD say that “none of this ever happened,” our experience as a player proves that it did. The saving grace for the characters is their inherent inability to know they are trapped in this loop. But as a player, forming the emotional attachments one does while going through, there really doesn’t seem to be any hope for catharsis at all.
There is a series of books which has an ending I’m reminded of here (to even name it would be a spoiler, but anyone who has read it may appreciate the comparison). That had a more satisfactory conclusion, I thought, because it allowed that the next time around, there was hope for a permanent escape — the loop had changed, even if only barely.
It’s intriguing, though, as I continue to think about what you’re saying. In a way, knowing that my decision to play through the game again is the only thing which will actively put Booker and Elizabeth through hell again…well it almost makes me want to abstain from further play.
I think your theories about the game are really sound. I had some different views of the infinite timelines, but they still mesh with what you had presented.
I had a theory that Booker was potentially Comstock, but until the final scene I wasn’t 100% sure. The way I had perceived the game was similar, but at first with some differences. Instead of looking at it as say 3 different timelines…I looked at it as infinite ones that reflected each other, but had very strange differences. I also looked at each one (after seeing all the Elizabeths in the end) as potentially having an alternate version to that specific timeline. For instance…I saw the main Booker timeline and the direct Comstock timeline being the same one, but with an alternate outcome. In the one, he has the child, but has to give her up. In the other…because he was re-born he never had the child and lost the ability to. With this the Lutece twins basically presented him with their found forks and different realities. This allowed him a chance to have an heir to his throne.
My theory basically works along side yours and might explain how things still could be, even after being stopped. Look at the Gunsmith as a perfect example. There was 3 different outcomes shown for him, but in the one he was alive, but almost caught between two different dimensions. In both he was working, but in one he had his machines and another his mind was stuck thinking they were there, but really he was acting crazy. This caused his brain to bleed trying to bridge the gap between the two realities. In Booker’s case he was never caught between the two, because no one directly interfered with them. He went from his own to the other. So when his brain had to re-create memories he wasn’t stuck in a void between two alternate realities of the same timeline.
This theory would also work with the end of the game. When the Elizabeths drowned him, it was almost like they branched off a 3rd timeline (as you showed) to each of their own timelines with another alternate one. In this case it would make it sound for Booker and Elizabeth/Anna to still be together when she’s a child. As they were wiped out from the original two realities in each of the infinite timelines, there would still be an alternate one where those events still happened making the 3rd one exist. As the Lutece twins had implied you could have a reflection/alternate timeline so both things could theoretically happen.
This game literally blew my mind. I never figured that they would have went this far to create a story. I was really impressed by this game. Honestly this has to be one of the most memorable games I’ve played in the last decade.
I’m not *100%* sure I understand what you are saying (perhaps at some point YOU can try drawing it out, haha), but it seems we’re agreed that the events of the game have to have happened in order for the “new” timeline — in which they didn’t happen — to properly work.
I’d agree this is a mind-blowing and memorable and impressive game. But I also found it emotionally draining, the implications for the characters we’ve come to love are outright devastating. At some point Lutece says something like “he sees a blank page; I see King Lear,” and I’m seeing King Lear. I just wish I had the Shakespearean warning in the title. I wish this were called “The Tragedie of Bioshock Infinite.” Then I wouldn’t feel so…gutted over not getting to see Booker and Elizabeth happy and together.
We can always chat about it one time. It was really hard to explain it. I guess this visual might help a little with it. http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Uw90G8EwI1U/how-parallel-universes-actually-work-scientifically
I should point out my theory goes with Multiverse Theory #3
Well like I said, it sounds like we agree. Seeing as the book Elizabeth literally tries to hit you over the head with is called “The Principles of Quantum Mechaincs” I think it’s safe to say theory 3 — the one with quantum mechanics — is the one Infinite was designed with in mind. 😛
You’ve done a great job by writing this article. I’ve already read many others but so far yours is the best. Its been almost 4 days since i finished the game and Im still down i. dumps. Cant even explain the way I feel, because of the ending and because of an thr emotional attachment towards Elizabeth which developed during the play… Im trying to convince my friends to play bioshovk but had no success this far. I’m gonna die unless i share my feelings and experience with some1 else. Bioshock infinite is something beuond “just a game”. It is a really DIFFERENT experience. I dont even know if I hate or love the ending, all I wanted is to see Booker in Paris alongg with Elizabeth. It would be awesomme if you had choise in the end. Between going to paris and sacraficing yourself.
First, thanks so much for your kind comments. I’m glad you found my thoughts worth reading in a sea of so many.
As for not knowing whether I loved or hated the ending, I’m in precisely the same boat. Up until the last fifteen minutes or so of this game I was pretty sure it was my new favorite game of all time (the current favorite being the original Bioshock). But whereas the ending of the first game left me feeling extremely happy — I saved all the Little Sisters — the ending of this one left me incredibly cold, hollow, and depressed. And I don’t know if I can ever prefer a tragedy, no matter how well it’s told.
I like the idea of choice. “All I wanted is to see Booker in Paris along with Elizabeth” sums up pretty much everything about the ending for me. So long as I don’t get to see that, I’m not sure I’ll ever be at peace with this conclusion.
At first, pardon me for lots of spelling mistakes in my previous posts. Reason of this is malfunction of my keyboard. This game made an impact on me unlike any other. I think the reason behind all the others is that I saw in Elizabeth someone I adore. I’m not even able to read a book or watch a film, since my mind is constantly occupied with this “state-of-art”. I cant even find relief in sleep. I’m seeing disturbing dreams about the ending, being dropped through a different multiverses with the game characters, you may find it amusing 😀 But the worst of all is that I cant even listen to music except its soundtracks. Right now I’m searching solace in my thoughts about an up-coming DLC. Maybe we’ll see something elating in it. Who knows. I’ve got one question. What are “constants” and “variables” ?
No worries about the spelling 🙂 Sounds like you’re in quite the predicament…I’ve been considering trying to immerse myself in some other game or something, but it’s been similarly unsuccessful (thankfully I’m spared the dreams, haha). So I began a second playthrough and bought the soundtrack on eBay.
DLC. At this point I’m on the fence. There are a lot of things I’d love to see fleshed out and for that reason I think I’ll probably buy the DLC, but at the same time unless there’s some sort of uplifting redemption for that ending (which I don’t anticipate), I’m not sure. I’m already crushed by what happened. I don’t need to fall MORE in love with that which dies.
As for constants and variables, it’s fairly straightforward. Some things simply “are.” They are not subject to the deviations from universe to universe (timeline to timeline). For example, Lutece. There is a Lutece of some sort in every universe. Lutece is a constant. But in one universe Lutece was Robert, and in one universe Lutece was Rosalind. Variations — differences — on a constant thing.
For whatever reason, getting “heads” in the coin toss is a constant for Booker; every time Booker enters Columbia and the Luteces have him flip a coin, it’s heads. However a later choice they give — bird or cage — is a variation. The constant is the broach, the variation is which one is chosen.
We are thus led to understand that, for whatever reason, Comstock getting Anna/Elizabeth is a constant. Every universe in which Comstock exists, he gets Anna.
SPOILERS AHEAD
I think that, for me, what makes this game so heartbreaking is the loss of Elizabeth’s innocence. Over the course of 15-20 hours she goes from a wide-eyed, vivacious girl full of optimism and plans for her life to a world-weary, all-knowing traveler who knows that she will never get to visit all the places she wants to go. I know that’s what made the last part of the game so devastating for me. When I landed on the other side of the gap and it was snowing, and I heard Booker say “but it’s July”, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. When I started getting un-dated recordings from Elizabeth, and I heard her alternately screaming and pleading and raging, I started to despair, because I knew that even if I reached her, it was too late. My Elizabeth was gone, broken. She would never be the same. Still, i had to go on. Even though I knew in my gut there wasn’t going to be a happy ending, I stormed through Comstock house. I didn’t go for finesse or exploration, I just bulldozed through enemies with a shotgun and a handcannon. I died more because of my hurried carelesness in Comstock House then I did at at any other point in the game, desperately hoping that I was only hearing possible futures through the tears, and not the past. When I heard them say it’s been six months and that I wasn’t coming for her through one of the tears, I felt like a failure. After being returned to the past and seeing her hooked up to that machine, I felt actual rage. Such great writing in this game; I haven’t gotten this much into a character in a long time.
Comstock House has secured its place as the most emotionally-draining segment of any game I’ve ever played. I’ve encountered “difficult” things in the past, but that sequence, listening to the torture and the brainwashing through the tears and the progressively-dark voxophone recordings, is legitimately gut-wrenching. That, for me, is what makes the ending so difficult to handle, because there doesn’t seem to be any recompense for Elizabeth. We see a world in which she is brutally destroyed, but we never get to see a world in which she is happy, truly happy.
I suppose I’ll reply the game too. But watching Liz, her pure innocent blue eyes, knowing her fate and my disability do change it might put me in a deeper melancholy. Anyways, starting it right now!
Relevant: http://adambogert.tumblr.com/post/46882720885/possibly-spoilerish-statement-follows-very-vague
I broke the rule.
I read this out of curiosity, despite not having touched a video game since my brother’s star wars nintendo at age 11. I figured there was no chance I’d ever play this game–because, well, I haven’t since I was 11, so why start now?–so spoilers probably wouldn’t affect me.
But WOW. Despite having literally zero back knowlege about the game, this gave me chills. I never realized games could have such an intricate and stirring story. Makes me want to play the game myself just to see more of it! Great post, Adam.
Thanks!
Honestly, there are definitely elements of the game to obfuscate its greatness (not least of which being the pretty extreme violence throughout). So I can’t say for sure that everyone who sets out to experience this game will have the one I’ve evidently conveyed to you. But I do think the beauty is there.
As it is in many games. Games have changed a lot since you were 11, so in response to your rhetorical question of why start now, I’ll simply have you consider what you would say to me if I said I hadn’t read a fiction book since I was 11, and asked why I should now. Whatever answers you might give are likely good reasons to try giving games another whirl 🙂
I stopped playing games for the same reason I avoid 3D movies–the sensory overload tends to give me a headache. But I’m interested in good stories in any medium, and I know there’s a lot out there I’m missing because I simply haven’t expored the genre yet (comics being another example, a gap in my experience I intend to fix soon.)
Blogs like this one are great for helping me expand my horizons. 🙂
Heh. Well, always glad to help.
As it happens, I also recognized the gap of comics at the end of last year and have done a decent job (in my humble opinion) of filling that gap. So if you do want to discuss them, or are looking for advice, let me know! I also have a comic blog, novellygraphic.wordpress.com.
Cool, I’ll definitely check that one out! Any suggestions what comic or graphic novel is good to start with? I want to check out Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, because I love his prose, and I’m a huge fan of the X-Men movies, but I really don’t know where to begin.
Well, the truth is that I have read very little of Gaiman’s work. I read an anthology of his character Death, which I adored, and I’ve read a couple issues of Sandman besides. It seems universally praised, so that’s likely a good place for you to look, though I cannot give much more firsthand knowledge than that. I’ve asked my comic shop to make sure I get his new six-issue Sandman miniseries called Overture; hopefully it is awesome.
As for X-Men, I have been told by many people that I need to read… well, a lot. Haha. It’s a 50-year-old franchise, and while much of my reading has consisted of things over the past ten years there are definitely some fans who say it started to go downhill over the last ten years. Joss Whedon has a somewhat legendary run you might want to look into; as does Grant Morrison. If you want accessible, your best bet might be the new series which started this year — All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and just plain X-Men. That’s pretty much where I decided to jump on, and I have quite enjoyed them all. But like I said, it’s possible they are inferior to the older stories, so it depends on what your’e looking for.
I never knew Joss Whedon did X-Men! That certainly sounds promising.
Do you have a personal favorite book or series (not necessarily X-Men related) that you always recommend, or one that you think represents the best aspects of the art?
The answers to those questions are different.
The book I just wish more people were reading is “Morning Glories.” It’s in the early 30s issue-wise, and is planned to go for 100-120, so it’s about 1/4 finished. If you check out my pull list (currently reading) on Novelly Graphic, you’ll see what it is I’m reading and a tiny bit about why.
However in terms of capturing the best aspects, what really sold me on the unique power of graphic novels was in fact reading Watchmen. That may be considered cliché, but it’s the truth. I didn’t care a whole lot for the film, but this summer I finally read my brother’s copy of the graphic novel and by the end of it I understood why it had won so many awards and why it was so highly-praised. And the “why” isn’t something I can articulate — it just seemed obvious, after reading Watchmen, that Watchmen needed to be a comic.
It’s entirely likely that, by killing Booker before he can become Comstock at the end, that they inadvertently created three timelines- they didn’t prune the branches, they grafted another on. The “Burial at Sea” DLC addresses this directly- Elizabeth- the one you, as Booker, protected- continues to exist despite her supposedly not existing. Not only that, her purpose in the games is to kill another alternate version of Comstock!
Although, I still can’t determine for the life of me why Elizabeth CAN die, and why she loses her powers after dying once, and why she dies permanently the second time. Facilitates storytelling, I guess. And the fact that there may be THREE timelines now, instead of one or two, would be perfect sequel material.
(Too bad Irrational disbanded- I’d love to see a well-made sequel- but not in the way Bioshock 2 was to Bioshock 1. The title “Bioshock Infinite 2” would, in addition, sound stupid.)