The critical and commercial success of Bioshock Infinite owes much to the work Irrational Games did in modeling, animating and scripting the companion character Elizabeth. Shawn Robertson served as animation director on the project, and at GDC 2014 he took the stage to explain in remarkable detail how the character design of Elizabeth evolved throughout the game's development and ultimately involved someone from every department of Irrational. While he does focus on animation, Robertson's talk includes valuable learnings for developers of all stripes as he runs down the various systemic and narrative techniques Irrational developed in an effort to breathe life into Elizabeth's character. It's a thoughtful talk that's worth your time to watch; the free video (embedded above) of 'Creating Bioshock Infinite's Elizabeth' is now available to watch here on the GDC Vault.

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