In case you missed it, Irrational Games announced last week that Bioshock Infinite will feature a special “1999 mode”. The mode promises to up the difficulty level to a point that veteran gamers harking back to the 90’s and before will be right at home with.

Some of the gameplay features unique to 1999 mode:

•    Upgrades will be permanent;
•    Respawning will be restricted;
•    Weapon, power and health management will be more demanding;
•    And you’ll see “Game Over” a lot.

Game Informer recently caught up with Bioshock Infinity mastermind and general games-industry legend, Ken Levine to find out more about his thoughts on 1999 mode.

Ken Levine

When asked why Levine feels that 1999 mode is worthy of “precious development time and budget”, he had this to say:

“It occurred to me in a revelation, what was missing in BioShock 1 – the sense of permanence. And then once you realize that, you’re like,  ‘Okay, we need to deal with that problem.’ I miss that; my favorite part of playing those old-school games is making those decisions.”

“The big difference in terms of choices in this mode is that you’re not going to be able to be a jack-of-all-trades, much like in games we’ve done before. If you’re going in one direction, like one weapon or a certain type of vigor, that’s going to come at the expense of other weapons and other vigors.

“If you’re specialized in, say, rifles, and you’re out of ammo for that and you come across a bunch of pistols or rocket launchers or something, you’re going to be not so good with those weapons and you’re going to feel that pain. You’re really going to be incentivized to find resources for the weapons you’re good at.

“I think that’s going to be really interesting when you get into those fights where you feel like you’re up against it in a way that you’re not normally.”

Source: Game Informer