2K Australia's role in BioShock Infinite's development

2K Australia assisted in the construction of BioShock Infinite's fleshed-out floating metropolis of Columbia, Irrational Games user experience specialist Bill Gardner told Polygon today.

"The scope and the scale is blown up completely. So to have them to really focus on fully realizing the world and make it feel lived in, just build the geometry involved in Infinite: We needed all of the help we could get," he said of 2K Australia.

The Australian-based studio had a full team working on Infinite, including the technical side of development, with work being done on the coding of the game and other development facets; however, the Australian team's notable contribution was assisting in the creation of the heavenly yet tortured floating city that is the centerpiece of the upcoming BioShock title.

"In terms of the art and design and audio, they were mostly channeled into levels," Gardner said. "So you think about the scope of Infinite, you got a taste of it, you can really cram an entire level of BioShock 1 [in there]. Rapture, if you overlaid it on Columbia, it'll pale in comparison.

"At one point you go to this beach, and out of curiosity I measured it. The Medical Pavilion level from BioShock 1 was roughly the same size as that beach was, which is a fraction of this level in BioShock Infinite."

The Canberra studio has been though several name changes over the past few years. It was previously marked as Irrational Games (Australia), before it became 2K Australia, headed by then studio director Martin Slater. It was rechristened 2K Marin in 2010. 2K Marin have another studio based in Novato, California. The studio became known as 2K Australia again in 2011.

2K Australia is currently developing an XCOM tactical shooter, which could be released as a third-person shooter, Polygon reported last October.