BioShock Infinite
In this first-person shooter, players take control of ex-Pinkerton Booker DeWitt, sent to Columbia to recover a woman named Elizabeth. Heavy elements of Christianity, American Exceptionalism, and racism are present in the game. Players will also encounter a variety of weapons and weapon-types, fighting while flying through the air, traveling between multiple realities, and birds. Special thanks to GamePhobias & vgtriggers on tumblr for pulling together some of the information below.
- Release date: 02-26-2013
- Developer: Irrational Games
- Publisher: 2K Games
- Platforms: Linux, MacOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Triggers for this game
Animals & Wildlife
Birds
Many birds throughout the game, including a giant mechanical bird, crows that gnaw on flesh and people, and a vigor that allows you to sic crows to attack people and kill them (as well as an enemy who uses this vigor too).
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The giant mechanical bird will help you take out enemy airships later in the game. He dies a sad death following doing so.
- Can't be avoided
Crime
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Guns & Shooting
Regular guns, fire-based weapons
- Can't be avoided
Kidnapping
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Elizabeth is kidnapped while running away from Booker
- Can't be avoided
Murder
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Elizabeth graphically murders Daisy Fitzroy.
- Can't be avoided
Theft
Must steal items from around you to survive & can loot dead bodies for supplies
- Can't be avoided
Torture
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Elizabeth is implied to be tortured during the Asylum level. A midgame cutscene shows graphic torture, including stretching the person on a rack and beating them.
- Can't be avoided
Death & Loss
Abandonment
End of game spoilers in spoiler tag
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
END OF GAME SPOILER: Booker is Elizabeth's real father and sold her off to pay off his gambling debt
- Can't be avoided
Death of Friend
Depending on choices
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Death of Parent
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Elizabeth learns Mrs. Comstock was likely her mother after visiting the memorial to the late woman. Elizabeth drowns the Songbird, who you watch slowly succumb. Comstock himself dies brutally, involving head bashing and drowning.
- Can't be avoided
Death of pet
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The giant mechanical bird dies a sad death following helping you.
- Can't be avoided
Death of Spouse or Partner
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
References to Booker's daughter Anna as well as Mrs. Comstock
- Can't be avoided
Drowning
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Booker nearly drowns after arriving in Columbia and being baptized, as he is dunked into the water a second time and held under until he passes out and has a flashback to a past event. Comstock dies brutally, involving head bashing and drowning.
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Death & Loss
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Elizabeth asks Booker to kill her if she's nearly recaptured
- Can't be avoided
Missing Person(s)
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Booker's daughter Anna
- Can't be avoided
Suicide
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
When possessing or mind controlling enemies using a vigor, they will commit suicide after attacking others. At the end of the Museum level, Slate begs Booker to kill him, clearly showing suicidal thoughts/tendencies. The player can choose whether or not to kill Slate. END GAME SPOILERS: The game ends with Booker choosing to die via Elizabeth's hands. He does not commit suicide himself but he chooses to die.
- Can't be avoided
Disturbing Sounds & Sound Design
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Drugs & Alcohol
Alcohol Consumption
Can drink alcohol to regain health
- Is avoidable
Alcoholism
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
In flashbacks, it's implied that Booker was an alcoholic
- Can't be avoided
Tobacco & Smoking
Can smoke cigarettes to regain health
- Is avoidable
Financial & Resource Management
Gambling
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
In flashbacks, it's implied that Booker was had a gambling addiction
- Can't be avoided
Income Management
Need silver eagle coins to pay for ammo refills, new vigors, or other skill/weapons improvements
- Can't be avoided
Scarcity
Resources, money, and ammunition
- Can't be avoided
Genocide
Historical
References to fighting against Chinese people during the Boxer Rebellion (with pride)
- Can't be avoided
Indigenous People
References to the events at Wounded Knee (with pride)
- Can't be avoided
Gore
Amputation
Elizabeth is missing a finger and has a prosthetic
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Gore
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
A nun sets herself on fire early on in the game, causing a structure fire you must escape from.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Hate & Discrimination
Ableism
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The Handyman is an enemy that is physically large and does not use taunts the way other enemies do. Mostly speaking through grunts and having slightly misshapen heads, one could assert that they are examples of how intellectually or developmentally disabled folks are utilized in Columbia to serve eugenicist ends.
- Can't be avoided
Antisemitism
Multiple antisemitic comments throughout the game
- Can't be avoided
Dehumanization & Objectification
Players will regularly encounter harmful and demeaning comments about the Vox Populi, an underground group pushing for human rights.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Hateful Imagery
Multiple racist images throughout the game. Players will encounter stereotypical cartoonish graphics of Indigenous people, Black people (using minstrel or monkey imagery), and Chinese people. Also, Comstock has his old Confederate uniform in his bedroom, lit up and on display.
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Hate & Discrimination
In an early scene, Booker wins the lottery and an interracial couple is brought out for him to 'punish' by throwing a baseball at. The player can choose to either hit the couple or try to hit the announcer.
- Can't be avoided
Misogyny
Various messages ask the men to fight to protect their womenfolk
- Can't be avoided
Racism
Overt racism, white supremacy, and the notion of "protecting our race" are all present in the game. Any BIPOC folks encountered in the game are either enslaved and treated as lesser or on the run for fighting for equal rights. Slurs are present in the game, including towards Irish and Chinese folks —the spoiler tag has specific examples.
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Slurs used include yid, gook, potato eaters, squaw
- Can't be avoided
Sexism
Various messages ask the men to fight to protect their womenfolk
- Can't be avoided
Horror Themes
- Can't be avoided
Ghosts & Hauntings
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Comstock uses Elizabeth's powers and anger to turn Mrs. Comstock into a ghost, forcing Elizabeth and Booker to fight her. Mrs. C raises nearby corpses from the dead which you'll have to fight as well.
- Can't be avoided
Jump Scares
Asylum level
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Horror Themes
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Elizabeth is initially locked up and observed. When she finds out people have been watching her this whole time, she feels violated.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Psychological Horror
Asylum level
- Can't be avoided
Zombies & Undead
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Comstock uses Elizabeth's powers and anger to turn Mrs. Comstock into a ghost, forcing Elizabeth and Booker to fight her. Mrs. C raises nearby corpses from the dead which you'll have to fight as well.
- Can't be avoided
Law Enforcement
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Mental Health
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Hallucinations
Booker has flashbacks that feel like hallucinations at times
- Can't be avoided
Psych Ward
Asylum level
- Can't be avoided
Natural Events
Storms
Thunder, lightning, blizzard
- Can't be avoided
Non-Sexual Abuse & Violence
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Child Abuse
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Locking Elizabeth away on her own for ages. Daisy Fitzroy beats and almost executes a child before Elizabeth stops her.
- Can't be avoided
Child Endangerment
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Locking Elizabeth away on her own for ages
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Magical Violence
You use vigors (a type of drinkable alteration) to gain new skills. Each vigor comes with animation when you first imbibe it that looks painful (hands turning into fire or stones, etc.). Vigors include the ability to sic crows on enemies, fire, electricity, storms, wind, water, tentacles, create a magnetic shield, and possession or mind control. The latter will end in the enemy targeted committing suicide.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Non-Sexual Abuse & Violence
Worker exploitation — In the Fink Manufacturing area, loudspeakers play Fink discussing how he keeps his workers safe (long work days, no vacation, paid in company store currency). However, these are not actually beneficial for workers but for him as a business owner.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Phobias
Acrophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Columbia is a city built in the sky, requiring players to experience heights quite frequently. In multiple instances, players must ride on barge airships and rails meant for sky rail cars.
- Can't be avoided
Aerophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
In multiple instances, players must ride on rails meant for sky rail cars. Mistiming jumps to solid land can lead to falling and death.
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
- Can't be avoided
Megalophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Overly large statues
- Can't be avoided
Melissophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
During a cut scene, Elizabeth opens a void for a bee to go in order to get it out of the elevator.
- Can't be avoided
Misc. Phobias
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Aquaphobia (Fear of water), Basophobia (Fear of falling), Carcinophobia (Fear of cancer), Electrophobia (Fear of electricity), Hagiophobia (Fear of saints or holy things), Homilophobia (Fear of sermons), Hoplophobia (Fear of firearms), Keraunophobia (Fear of thunder and lightning), Methyphobia (fear of alcohol), Ophthalmophobia (fear of being stared at), Ornithophobia (Fear of birds), Pharmacophobia (fear of drugs), Poinephobia (fear of punishment), Pyrophobia (Fear of fire), Sitophobia (fear of food or eating)
- Can't be avoided
Necrophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
The corpses of enemies, townsfolk, and others are plentiful in the game. You can loot dead bodies for supplies and at multiple points fight enemies who can raise the dead. One fight occurs in a graveyard.
- Can't be avoided
Ommetaphobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Weapons can gouge out eyes. There is also a lot of eyeball imagery, including a watchful eye image players will encounter multiple times.
- Can't be avoided
Thalassophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Multiple times in the game, Booker will have to walk in water. Him and others fall into deeper water in cut scenes. Towards the end of the game, Elizabeth takes Booker to the underwater setting Bioshock is famous for.
- Can't be avoided
Traumatophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Early into your efforts to escape Columbia, Booker can get stabbed through his right hand and show this injury throughout the rest of the game.
- Can't be avoided
Trypanophobia
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
If you die, Elizabeth will revive you using a syringe. In Burial at Sea, Booker and Elizabeth both inject themselves with plasmids and Eve hypos.
- Can't be avoided
Physical Health & Body Issues
Misc. Physical Health & Body Issues
Eat food to gain health
- Can't be avoided
Pain & Physical Suffering
In addition to pain inflicted upon you by enemies, you use vigors (a type of drinkable alteration) to gain new skills. Each vigor comes with animation when you first imbibe it that looks painful (hands growing fire, stones, barnacles, storms, etc.).
- Can't be avoided
Progressive Illness
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Comstock has cancerous tumors and is dying
- Can't be avoided
Religion & Sects
- Can't be avoided
Religion
Father Comstock is a prophet and seen as a god-like figure, leading Columbia to follow a religion that feels like a mash-up between Christianity (especially Mormonism) and American Patriotism/Exceptionalism and Civil Religion. There are hymns, a Savior child, angels, discussions of Eden, and the veneration of US Founding Fathers as prophets and god-like figures as well.
- Can't be avoided
Sex & Erotica (Consensual)
Sexual Commentary
Flirtatious comments from NPCs
- Can't be avoided
Traumatic Events
Accidents
Multiple airship crashes
- Can't be avoided
Human Experimentation
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
Towards the end of the game, Comstock and his scientists experiment on Elizabeth.
- Can't be avoided
Structure Fire
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
A nun sets herself on fire early on in the game, causing a structure fire you must escape from.
- Can't be avoided
Violence in History
Misc. Violence in History
References to and reenactments of historical events including Wounded Knee, the Boxer Rebellion, and working for the Pinkertons
- Can't be avoided
War & Military
Fictional War
ShowHide potential spoilers or triggers
A civil war breaks out in Columbia throughout the game
- Can't be avoided
Historical War
References to and reenactments of historical events including Wounded Knee, the Boxer Rebellion, and working for the Pinkertons
- Can't be avoided
Did we miss something? Submit your suggestion here!