BioShock Infinite’s Bread Boy proves game development is a fathomless mystery

The second part of BioShock Infinite’s Burial At Sea DLC takes place in Paris, so in some ways it’s no surprise that a boy can be found dancing endlessly around a noticeboard wielding an oversize baguette. Paris, you know. The French love big long sticks of bread. It’s a fairly blunt stereotype, to say the least, and perhaps for that reason it fast became a meme. It has even been cosplayed.  

But, the Bread Boy became a Bread Boy for a fairly logical game development reason, and as we’ve come to learn, many aspects of game design players take for granted are actually the result of extremely unintuitive tricks. Gwen Frey worked as senior technical animator on BioShock Infinite, and in a thread on Twitter she has finally revealed the (impeccable) logic behind why the boy is dancing with bread—and it’s not because dancing bread boys capture the essence of Paris.