CCRB RECORD No. 0006
BioShock Infinite
Determination: Explicit — Corruption 3, Blasphemy 3, Denial 2
Baptism is the mechanic that lets you enter the city, performed in the name of a prophet, the Founders, and the Lord.
BioShock Infinite's religious content is structural rather than incidental, and the previous record understated it by recording only the fraud. Columbia is a floating theocracy founded by Zachary Hale Comstock, who styles himself the Prophet and Father Comstock, claims the archangel Columbia gave him a vision of the city as another Ark and a New Eden above the Sodom below, and whose word is law. The Founding Fathers are venerated as a pantheon of saints; Comstock's dead wife is a saint; his daughter Elizabeth is the Lamb of Columbia, shown in artwork modelled on paintings of the Nativity. The player enters through a welcome centre built as a church and cannot proceed without being baptised by Preacher Witting, who performs the rite in the name of the Prophet, the Founders, and the Lord. The player is named in prophecy as the False Shepherd. The reveal is that Comstock is Booker DeWitt…