Irrational Games has learned since the release of the original BioShock, its first title to appear on PC as well as consoles. The company is determined not to repeat past mistakes with BioShock Infinite, due out March 26.
"This time around things were done differently," technical director Chris Kline told IGN. "From very early on, the PC was given equal standing with the other platforms, with its own 'strike team' of programmers, game designers, UI specialists, and artists who were on-call to address PC-specific needs. The extra time and resources allowed us to really do it right this time around."
Compare that to before, when the team had to make "tough decisions" about how it allocated resources and time to get all versions working properly. Kline admits that optimizing BioShock for PC was a bigger challenge than anticipated.
BioShock Infinite is shipping on three discs to manage all the high-resolution content. "This really stands out when you play on the higher detail settings and higher resolutions that the PC allows," said Kline. "Irrational Games is known for all the detail we put into our worlds, and the higher detail settings available on PC give us even more to work with."
He said that time, passion, and respect are key for finding success in PC development.
"Respect, because to be truly successful at PC development you need to recognize that the PC is a platform with unique strengths that offers an amazing gaming experience and is continuing to grow in both consumer appeal and market share," said Kline. "But it's also a fast-moving target with broad hardware variation among other challenges. Meeting these challenges head-on requires just as much — if not more — hard work and commitment to detail as the console platforms."
This is a different approach than developer Visceral Games took with its recent release of Dead Space 3 — a straight-up port of the console version with no additional enhancements.
Follow @wita on Twitter.
