Irrational Games brought another 2K Games ' subsidiary , 2K Marin , aboard to help build out the architecture and details of Columbia . Irrational 's director of design Bill Gardner stated that the scope of Columbia was much more expansive than Rapture in terms of virtual space , using an example of the whole of one '' BioShock '' level , the " Medical Pavilion " , able to easily fit into a beach on Columbia , a fraction of the overall level there , and thus necessitating the additional help . The Irrational team reviewed much of the American culture and propaganda at the turn of the 20th century , using the artwork to create some of the in-game posters . Levine commented that at the time , such imagery was " really subtle " , and considered that their re-envisioning of these posters within '' Columbia '' was " a great way to communicate ideas visually " . Other sources of inspiration for the game 's art included photographs from before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake , and from Sears-Roebuck catalogs from the turn of the century . Another source of inspiration for the art style was developed by considering '' Infinite '' to represent " The Fourth of July , 1912 " , just as '' BioShock '' resonated with the theme of " New Years Eve 1959 " . By selecting this hypothetical date , the team quickly identified films to draw imagery from , like '' The Music Man '' , '' Meet Me in St. Louis '' , and '' Hello , Dolly '' which exhibited ideal views of Americana at the turn of the 20th century . The bright , open-air environments of Columbia presented a challenge to the team to keep aspects of the horror genre within the game ; Levine stated they took some inspiration from Stanley Kubrick 's '' The Shining '' and David Lynch 's '' Blue Velvet '' , transforming an " antiseptic environment " into the " scariest The idea of using tears in the fabric of space-time was influenced by a similar story decision in '' BioShock '' . With Rapture set in the 1960 , the Irrational team had looked to the scientific progress of James D. Watson and Francis Crick towards understanding DNA in 1953 , and built the idea of ADAM and gene modification . For '' Infinite '' , the same concept was used with the development of quantum theory by Albert Einstein , Max Planck , and Werner Heisenberg that would later bore out in the Many Worlds Theory . Incorporating the use of tears was a challenge from the story standpoint but one that Levine enjoyed , noting that this leads to the impression of Booker being an unreliable narrator for the events of the game . One of the game demonstrations showed Elizabeth accidentally opening a tear into a 1980s setting after trying to revive a fallen horse . This setting was in contrast to their initial idea , a woodland glade , which Levine felt was n't " striking or different enough " than the rest of Columbia . Instead , they borrowed assets from a previous project that , according to lead artist Shawn Robertson , Irrational was " literally about to throw away " , finding the contrast and abrupt differences from the Columbia setting helped to emphasize the use of tears in the game . In regards to the ending , Levine has stated that the ending of '' Infinite '' is " like nothing you 've experienced in a video game before " ; the story purposely avoids a problem that arose from the original '' BioShock '' in which , after the death of Andrew Ryan before the last third of the game , " the story loses some of its steam "
1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Development of BioShock Infinite