Irrational creative head Ken Levine has admitted that at one stage during its development, BioShock Infinite had the look of the series’ first game, only in the sky.

‘For a long time, it looked like ‘BioShock 1 in the sky,” Levine told Gamasutra in an interview.

The studio’s product development director Tim Gerritsen said the look had a European feel to it.

“”It had a very European look; it was very art-nouveau.”

When it became clear that concepts of the game had been too much alike the first game, change was needed.

“That’s when we came to the conclusion we had to do some aggressive change to make it a distinct look,” added art director Nate Wells.

“It was uncomfortable for us,” chimed in lead artist Shawn Robertson. “Ken started literally pushing back the clouds — ‘bluer, bluer!’ We were really uncomfortable with it, our initial reaction is it’s a little bit cartoonish…. but when we saw it in context, that was our a-ha moment.

“That searching and that failure was absolutely essential. By spending some time muddling around… by failing, you find it. That was an idea that I don’t think that we could have landed on; we wandered to it. You need that galvanizing idea, but you can’t… just do nothing until you have it.”

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BioShock Infinite launches next year for PS3, 360 and PC.