BioShock Infinite: Clash in the Clouds

I keep coming back to Gears of War's Horde mode as the reference point for this kind of add-on, and Clash in the Clouds is what happens when that format gets handed to a combat system built for chaos instead of cover. Where Horde is about holding a position and fortifying it, this one wants you constantly airborne, swapping weapons mid-fall and setting people on fire on the way down. Released in July 2013 as the first add-on for BioShock Infinite, it strips the story out entirely and keeps only the fighting. Sixty challenges, four purpose-built maps, one hub area, and no Booker-and-Elizabeth plot beats to break up the shooting. That is either exactly what you wanted from more Infinite, or precisely the thing that will annoy you. The structure is blunt in a good way. Each map runs a ladder of waves that escalate in enemy count and nastiness, and you are stuck with Infinite's two-weapon limit the whole time, so every round becomes a question of what you can scavenge off the floor and what you can afford to drop. Vigors carry the load: Bucking Bronco to hang a crowd in the air, Devil's Kiss to detonate them, Possession to buy yourself a few seconds of breathing room. Gear loadouts can be reshuffled between attempts, Tears give you cover or firepower when Elizabeth opens them, and the Sky-Lines turn each arena into a rail you can strike from. The pack also hangs optional bonus objectives off individual waves, restrictions like clearing a round without Vigors or finishing kills from a Sky-Line, and that is where the real difficulty lives. What it does exceptionally well is expose how good Infinite's combat actually was underneath its own campaign. The main game kept interrupting itself with sightseeing and exposition, and plenty of players finished it having used maybe three Vigors and one gun the entire way through. Here you cannot coast. The waves force combinations you would otherwise never try, and by the thirtieth challenge you are possessing a Motorized Patriot, riding a rail to reposition, then dropping a Murder of Crows on the reinforcements spawning behind you. The enemy mix does the heavy lifting: Handymen chase you off the Sky-Lines, Firemen punish camping, and later rounds start stacking multiple heavies on top of ordinary Zealots. When it clicks, this is the best that combat system ever looks. The problems are just as visible. It is repetitive by design, and four maps is not many across sixty challenges, so the back half leans on difficulty rather than novelty to stay interesting. Late waves can feel less like a skill test and more like a patience test, especially when one bad spawn wipes a run you have been grinding for twenty minutes. The hub gives you somewhere to spend earned money on collectibles and audio logs, which is a decent gesture, but it is not the story content a lot of buyers were waiting for. The Mixed user rating on Steam and a Metacritic score in the high sixties mostly reflect that mismatch in expectations rather than a broken product. There is nothing here for anyone who wants pacing, atmosphere or characters. It is a shooting gallery with excellent guns. So who is this actually for? Players who rolled credits on Infinite and immediately thought the combat deserved a better showcase than the campaign gave it, and score-chasers who enjoy optimizing a loadout against a fixed, knowable problem. If you bounced off Infinite's shooting, or you only tolerated it to reach the ending, nothing in here will change your mind and you should head straight for the narrative add-ons instead. Treat it as a focused combat expansion with a hard ceiling and it holds up fine years later. Go in expecting more Columbia and you will be clicking through waves wondering where everybody went.

Alex · Scout Team

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