Where the world of BioShock’s and BioShock 2’s Rapture was filled with Ayn Rand philosophies and a sometimes Orwellian outlook on life, the forthcoming BioShock Infinite’s Columbia was born out of the idea that certain Americans, at the time, thought they were above everyone else. It comes as no surprise, then, that Ken Levine is finding inspiration for Columbia’s revolutionary Vox Populi in the people of Occupy Wall Street.

Gamasutra points to an interview with Levine in the Washington Post where the Infinite director claims Occupy Wall Street has been helping him find the motivations behind Vox Populi’s actions. Though Levine states in the interview that he doesn’t “… want to be making games that are expressing a political or philosophical view,” he does want to have people question what they think.

With Occupy Wall Street, he sees a lot of similarities between the real group and the fictional group he’s trying to breath life into. “Occupy Wall Street has been helping me because I’ve been struggling to figure out how the Vox Populi get to the point in the [E3] demo,” Levine said. “Hopefully, Occupy Wall Street won’t get to the point that the Vox Populi does, but seeing it spread and taken more seriously, that’s been interesting and really helpful.”

Even though we probably won’t be seeing a physical “Occupy Columbia” movement in the actual game, it is interesting to see how current events help shape a video game that takes place more than a century ago. Levine finds the cyclical nature of movements like these to be fascinating, and we can’t wait to see how this inspiration translates into making a stronger narrative for BioShock Infinite.