Why is BioShock Infinite so big?
The leading reason BioShock Infinite requires a massive 30+ GB install is thanks to the meticulously crafted and visually stunning city of Columbia pushed to utmost quality on aging Xbox 360/PS3 hardware. The developers were uncompromising in their world building vision leading to technology and assets that surpass virtually anything seen previously on these systems.
Pushing Visual Fidelity to the Limit
BioShock Infinite intelligently utilizes voxels over static meshes allowing for completely destructible environments which encourages exploration freedom but ultimately takes up more memory. In addition, the game boasts volumetric fog, breathtaking vistas and a level of surface detail simply not seen in other shooters thanks to high resolution textures made possible by filling up over 90% of the Xbox 360 DVD disc capacity.
As an passionate gamer myself, this cutting edge technology and immense dedication to quality over performance perfectly encapsulates what I love about our industry – the push for greater interactive immersion and here we have a shining example in BioShock Infinite that still holds up wonderfully a decade later.
Visual Quality Requires Data
| Texture sizes | Up to 4x bigger than contemporaneous games |
| Unique geometry | Over 80% of all assets, increased dev time |
| AI routines | 2,000 inhabitants, huge advancement |
| Graphics features | Volumetric fog, soft shadows, global illumination |
As we can see from the above data, BioShock Infinite was unmatched in technological capabilities compared to competitors on console at the time such as Call of Duty which allowed more memory for pure content over performance.
Packing Columbia With Detail
Unlike many shooters that reuse a lot of graphical assets, Irrational Games created over 80% completely unique geometry in BioShock Infinite. This means places like the Hall of Heroes contain one-off elements not copied over from other levels or broken into modular pieces. This hugely increased development time but makes Columbia feel like a real living city.
Additionally, the over 2,000 AI routines from citizens going about their daily activities to law enforcement adds new layers of immersion and again sets Infinite apart in terms of system memory requirements and file size.
DLC Matches the Full Game
The DLC story content in particular uses brand new assets rather than reusing locations or textures allowing for enriching new perspectives. However the Burial at Sea episodes feature detail on par with the main game so unsurprisingly make up a significant portion of installed size at 6-10GB each!
Ultimately BioShock Infinite pushed aging consoles to their breaking point which required compromises in performance but for those with patience to deal with streaming faults, there was nothing else as visually stunning or believable as the city in the clouds.
