On BioShock Infinite's Boys of Silence

So you may remember (or see in the archive) that a while ago I talked a bit about BioShock Infinite. It wasn't really about the game as a whole though, and I haven't talked about that at all actually. Maybe I will someday, but not today! Suffice it to say for now that I really liked it, though. But, as anything in life, as always, it wasn't perfect. One of my biggest disappointments was actually one of the enemies, the Boys of Silence. So today I want to talk a little about why that is, and what I would have done to fix it.

I should point out that there will be spoilers for Infinite in this post. HOWEVER they won't really be story spoilers, and may even be stuff that you've read about in articles or reviews. So if you haven't played the game but aren't too worried about hearing about the Boys of Silence encounter, you should be safe to read on. If there is anything super spoilery, I'll make sure to give another warning.

So anywho, if you're unfamiliar with the Boys of Silence, let's take a look at 'em.

Well, that's the action figure (which I own :D) but it shows the full body. So there ya go.

So yeah, kinda freaky right. Now, if I remember correctly, I read that these guys were blind from birth, and for some reason harnessed into those huge freaky helmets. There's probably an entry on the BioShock Wiki that explains more, I'll probably read that some time. But what's important for now is to know that ORIGINALLY, they were supposed to be blind and be really good at hearing, because of the big sound funnels.

Why do I say 'originally'? Well, because in the actual game, their role is bizarrely completely reversed. Basically, they stand in the centre of a room, with a light coming out of their mouth-hole that acts as their line of sight (???). So, while he's looking away, if you're quiet, you can sneak by him completely (??????). If he DOES see you, though, he doesn't even attack you himself! He just raises a bunch of corpses conveniently splayed about his room. It makes for a reasonably fun encounter, but given what the character was supposed to be, it was a pretty big let-down for me.

In fact, it has been confirmed that the Boys were supposed to be completely different. In the mini art book that came with the collector's edition, it describes how originally, the Boys were supposed to be fought directly. They would absorb sound and store it in their helmets (I guess), then when they had absorbed enough, they would open their mouth hole and release it all in a devastating attack.

That seems pretty cool to me, but I can see how it would be problematic design-wise. See, in an FPS like this one, any form of attacking (shooting) is pretty loud. In this case, being loud would cause the Boys to use their big attack more frequently, which would prompt you to try to be quiet. So this creates a bit of a paradox for the player, where they would need to attack the Boys, but do so without using any loud guns? I'm not sure how well I'm explaining this, but I just see it as the design being a bit contrary to itself, which is counter-intuitive. And in games, counter-intuitiveness generally leads to frustration.

So, yes, I understand why they needed to change the original design. But I still think they could have done something more interesting than turning the Boys into security cameras. What I would have done is played on their name, Boys of *Silence*. Remember in BioShock, those splicers that were covered in plaster in Fort Frolic? They never made a sound, even when attacking you, which made them particularly creepy. That's what I would have done with the Boys, made them move around quickly and erratically, but completely silently. That makes sense from a logic perspective (they can hear really well, so they would want to do things quietly so as to not annoy themselves), and would be a cool homage to the first game.

So I would have the Boys running around, maybe not being as agile as a Big Sister in 2, but still being kind of similar to that. Then, every once in a while (maybe after taking some damage), I would have the Boys open their mouth hole and let out a piercing shriek, which blurs the player's screen for a second. When the screen unblurs, the Boy would be gone. Then, as the player runs around looking for him, eventually they would turn and the Boy would be right there in front of them and shriek in their face or something, and the fight would resume. That's about it, would obviously need some more polish and tweaks but I think that would have been a pretty neat fight.

**BIGGER SPOILAR BELOW, SKIP NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN'T BEATEN THE GAME**

I mean I pretty much got this idea from a moment that IS in the game, when you see Elizabeth in the big machine through the security camera, then turn around and a Boy is right there. That scared the bejeezus out of me. And I thought, that was such a cool moment, why couldn't the Boys' actual fight be more like that, right?

**END SPOILARZ, UR SAFE NOW**

So yeah, it really feels like the Boys were a casualty of deadlines. It seemed like they had a cool concept, but just didn't have the time to make it work. Which is kind of weird to say considering how long the game was in development, but what can you do. It's just a shame to me, since I think they had one of the most interesting visual designs and concepts of any of the enemies in the game.

BUT like I said, it was just a small blemish on a brilliant game, and I still consider BioShock Infinite to be one of my favourite games of all time.