Over the years, games have taken up a more ‘casual’ playing style than the pre '00 era of games, where they offered a more difficult play-through, and challenged the player. Unlike games of today, you couldn't stand in one spot taking a barrage of bullets to then go behind a rock and heal up instantly.

Irrational Games have heard the plea from old school gamers and announced today that Bioshock Infinite will feature a new mode titled "1999 Mode". This mode is designed to challenge players with a riskier play through, instead of just artificially inflating the difficulty of enemies.

“We want to give our oldest and most committed fans an option to go back to our roots,” said Ken Levine, Creative Director of Irrational Games. “In 1999 Mode, gamers face more of the permanent consequences of their gameplay decisions. In BioShock Infinite, gamers will have to sweat out the results of their actions. In addition, 1999 Mode will demand that players pick specialisations, and focus on them.

The new mode is set to feature more demanding weapon, power, and health management along with a "Game Over" screen if you die and no respawning if you lack the resources to stay alive.

It’s not simply a matter of adjusting the difficulty sliders in the game – the team went much further than that. Resource planning? If you’re to survive this mode, proper planning will be crucial. Combat specializations? You’ll need to develop them efficiently and effectively throughout the story; any weapon will be useless to you unless you have that specialization. Combat? You will need to carefully target every shot, and your health will be set to an entirely different baseline.

BioShock Infinite is set for a 2012 release on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. You can check out our game page for more info, screenshots and videos.