Overview:
- Estimated achievement difficulty: 5/10 [Achievement Difficulty Rating]
- Offline: 63 [1200]
- Online: 0
- Approximate amount of time to 1200: 25-30 Hours / 15-20 if using the difficulty exploit [Estimated Time to 100%]
- Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 2 [1 if using the difficulty exploit]
- Missable achievements: 16 [all missable achievements are labeled in the guide]
- Does difficulty affect achievements: Yes
- Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No
- Extra equipment needed: No
Special Thanks:
~ nekov4ego: Most of the information provided in the Challenge Rooms section of this guide is courtesy of nekov4ego. The great videos attached to that section of the guide were created by him.
~ Fizzmatix: The original collectable guide for the Xbox 360 version of this game that is linked in this guide is courtesy of Fizzmatix.
Useful Links:
~ Estimated Time to 100%
~ Achievement Difficulty Rating
~ BioShock: Plasmids, Tonics, Upgrades, Diary's & Little Sister Guide by Fizzmatix
Introduction:
Welcome to Rapture and welcome to one of the greatest video games to be released in recent memory. BioShock is a first person shooter with light RPG elements that concentrates on environment and narrative. The year is 1960. You play as Jack, a plane crash survivor who comes upon a lighthouse in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As you descend into the city of Rapture, you are caught up in a political power struggle for control over a fallen utopia. How exactly you will fit into the picture remains to be seen. This remastered version of the original game (released in 2007) includes updated textures, graphics, frame rates, the Challenge Rooms DLC, as well as director commentary videos that are unlocked by finding golden film reels throughout the game.
NOTE: This achievement guide and roadmap is for the remastered version of BioShock that is included in BioShock: The Collection. At the time of this writing, this game is not available to be purchased separately.
THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS GUIDE
Abbreviated Walkthrough:
There is an exploit that can be used that will make earning achievements associated with difficulty levels much easier and I will detail this at the end of this abbreviated walkthrough; however, this walkthrough and guide will be geared for players that wish to earn the achievements legitimately. Skip down to Step Four of the abbreviated walkthrough for the details on the exploit.
Step One – Playthrough on Hard Difficulty without Vita Chambers:
Starting from the Main Menu, select Options and then Gameplay Options. Then switch Disable Vita-Chambers to ‘On.' This is not required but it ensures that you do not make a mistake throughout your playthrough. During this playthrough, you should knock out all of the achievements in the game except for the “Seriously Good At This” achievement as well as the achievements that are tied to the Challenge Rooms. Please note that if you choose to play the game on the hardest difficulty (Survivor) right off the bat, you will not unlock the “Brass Balls” achievement for beating the game on Hard without using Vita-Chambers. For whatever reason, this achievement does not stack with Survivor difficulty. Therefore, it is a waste of time and energy to play the game on Survivor without using Vita-Chambers.
NOTE: Please be sure to read through the entire guide before starting this playthrough. All sixteen missable achievements are clearly marked at the top of their individual solutions.
Step Two – Playthrough on Survivor Difficulty (New Game+):
Now that you are familiar with the game as well as the game mechanics, this playthrough shouldn’t be too bad. Survivor difficulty was not originally included in the initial Xbox 360 release in 2007 and so it may be foreign to some BioShock veterans. This difficulty has been made easier on this remastered version (as opposed to the original PS3 version) of the game due to a New Game+ that is now included in the game. Be sure to select New Game+ from the Main Menu before starting your Survivor playthrough. On Survivor difficulty, you take more damage, enemies take less damage, and there are fewer supplies strewn about Rapture. If you wish, Vita-Chambers can be turned back on for this playthrough which should also make things a little easier as well. Although it's a good idea to earn as much ADAM as possible for upgrades, you are not forced to take out every Big Daddy since all of the achievements related to the Little Sisters and upgrading your character should have been unlocked during Step One. Once this playthrough is complete, you should only be missing the achievements that are tied to the Challenge Rooms.
Step Three – Challenge Rooms:
Now that you should have all of the achievements tied to the campaign, it's time to take on the Challenge Rooms. These achievements range from very easy to quite difficult. Each Challenge Room will require a minimum of two playthroughs in order to get all of the achievements, however, most will likely require multiple attempts.
There are two ways to look at the Challenge Rooms. One is to split it by the different Challenge Rooms, which there are three, and the other is to split it by the four different types of Achievements, that follow the pattern:
- Challenge Room Completed Achievement
- Time Limit Achievement
- Special Objective Achievement
- Collecting All Roses Achievement
The Challenge Room achievements will be covered in detail (including videos) in the bulk of the guide.
Step Four – Exploit (Optional):
If you wish to use an exploit, you can save yourself a lot of time and energy as well as a playthrough. What you want to do is to play the game on the Easy Difficulty with the Vita-Chambers turned off. Go ahead and earn all of the achievements as described in this guide on your way to the final boss encounter against Fontaine. Make sure that you have a save at the beginning of this battle.
During this battle, you are going to be fighting Fontaine in three different phases. Each time you deplete his health bar through combat, Fontaine will retreat to a contraption in the middle of the room. You must then run up to him and press in order to drain ADAM from him. You will need to do this a total of three times. Right as you insert the syringe into Fontaine for the third time, pause the game. Switch the difficulty to Hard and then un-pause the game.
After the final cut scene comes to an end you should get all of the difficulty achievements up to and including Hard. You should also get the “Brass Balls” achievement for beating the game on Hard without using Vita-Chambers. Now, you should reload your save from the beginning of the battle with Fontaine and fight him once again. During the third injection of the syringe, pause the game again and change the difficulty to Survivor. Once the final cut scene is over again, you should get the “Seriously Good At This" achievement. You can now proceed back to Step Three and work on the Challenge Room achievements.
Mop-Up:
If necessary, it's time to clean up any achievements that you may be missing. It's a good idea to keep many saves at your disposal so you can reload different points in the game if you need to.
Conclusion:
BioShock is probably my favorite game that I have ever played and I truly believe that it is one of the finest games ever made. I envy you if you are experiencing this game for the first time. The achievements for this game are not the easiest out there but are nowhere near the most difficult. With a little time and energy, you should be able to get all 1200 in about 25-30 hours. If you don’t have a problem with using an exploit, you should be able to shave about 10 hours off of this estimate.
[XBA would like to thank Thai J for this Roadmap]