BioShock is celebrating its 15-year anniversary today, August 21, 2022. Below, we take a look at how the religious commentary in its sequel, BioShock Infinite, lacks the sharpness it needs to resonate.

Playing BioShock Infinite at launch, several things stuck in my mind as a young Mormon. Zachary Hale Comstock, the game’s principal villain and cult leader, is a kind of Brigham Young: a fiery prophet, claiming visions and prophecies while he grasps at power. His floating metropolis of Columbia is a kind of Salt Lake City: a grim capital on the cloud, both a refuge and a prison. Though the game is drawing on a melting pot of historical and fictional inspirations, these parallels have kicked around in my mind for nearly 10 years. Creative director Ken Levine even named Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as inspirations for Comstock in an interview back in 2013. To the game's credit, these are touchstones rather than full-on parallels. In turn, though, the depiction of Comstock and his religion lacks precision: Rather than haunting resemblance, it plays as frivolous caricature. It is that flatness that fuels the game's best-remembered false equivalences between the revolutionary Vox Populi and the white sepulchers of Comstock's floating city.

Part of that caricature is the game's reluctance to clarify Comstock's particular theology. We can infer that Comstock's religion (which never gets a denominational title) believes in modern miracles, as Comstock claims to have spoken to an angel and produced a miracle child. It practices baptism by immersion. White supremacy and racism are woven into every aspect of its doctrine. It uplifts the founding fathers to the level of sainthood. Besides these basic traits, there is no context for Comstock's religion. There are no adjacent movements or sects. Though Comstock's journey to become a prophet began with a baptism, the game never makes clear what group he entered. This lack of specificity unties Comstock from any particular historical moment. BioShock Infinite seems to draw more from the conservative Tea Party movement--which, though politically focused, had a devotional character--more than any specific religious group, especially from the time period.