BioShock Remastered: Complete Guide

A full guide to surviving Rapture in BioShock Remastered. It covers plasmids, tonics and weapons, the Little Sister choice and its endings, a level-by-level outline with missables, achievement tips, and fixes for running the 2016 remaster on a modern PC.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the final Steam build of BioShock Remastered (no gameplay patches in years; 2K only runs sales now). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

Mix plasmids and guns every fight. Shock a Splicer with Electro Bolt, then hit them with the Wrench or a gun for bonus damage. Electrocuting enemies standing in water hits everyone in the pool.
Research everything with the camera. The Research Camera gives permanent damage bonuses and free tonics against each enemy type. Photograph early and often, especially Big Daddies.
Hack everything. Turrets, security cameras, bots, vending machines, health stations and safes can all be hacked. Hacked vending machines are cheaper, and hacked health stations hurt Splicers who use them.
Choose Rescue or Harvest deliberately. Rescuing a Little Sister gives less ADAM up front, but every few rescues she leaves you a gift with extra ADAM and items. Rescue all of them for the good ending.
Don't pick a fight with every Big Daddy. Trap them first: Cyclone Trap, proximity mines, Insect Swarm, or Hypnotize Big Daddy to make one fight for you.
Use Power to the People stations. Each one gives a permanent weapon upgrade (two per weapon). They're scattered through the levels and easy to miss.
Pick the ammo type for the enemy. Armor-piercing rounds for Big Daddies and turrets, electric buckshot and frag grenades for groups, fire for Splicers in oil.
Vita-Chambers make death cheap. You respawn nearby with enemies still damaged. You can turn them off in the options, which some achievements need.

Core Systems

Controls

Everything can be rebound in Options, and the Remastered version has full controller support. A few habits help more than any keybind:

Bind first aid and EVE hypos to easy keys. You'll use both mid-fight constantly.
Put your two or three most-used plasmids next to each other so you can switch without scrolling.
Learn the ammo-swap key. Changing ammo type on the fly (AP rounds for a Big Daddy, electric buck for a crowd) is a core skill.
The Research Camera takes up a weapon slot. Swap to it, snap, swap back.

Resources

Resource	Used for	Where it comes from
Health	Survival	First aid kits, health stations, food
EVE	Casting plasmids	EVE hypos, food, some tonics
Dollars	Vending machines, bot shutdowns, hack buyouts	Corpses, containers, safes
ADAM	Buying plasmids, tonics and slots at Gatherer's Garden	Little Sisters (harvest or rescue)
Components	U-Invent crafting	Scattered in containers

Plasmids

Plasmid	Use
Electro Bolt	Stuns, extra melee damage, chain-shocks enemies in water, briefly shorts out turrets, cameras and bots
Incinerate!	Burns Splicers, melts ice, ignites oil slicks
Telekinesis	Grabs and throws objects, catches grenades and throws them back
Winter Blast	Freezes enemies. Shatter frozen enemies for instant kills
Cyclone Trap	Launches enemies that step on it. Great for Big Daddy setups
Enrage	Makes enemies fight each other
Insect Swarm	Damage over time and distraction
Security Bullseye	Marks a target for cameras, turrets and bots
Hypnotize Big Daddy	Temporarily turns a Big Daddy into your bodyguard
Sonic Boom	Knockback
Target Dummy	Decoy that pulls aggro

Tonics

Tonics are passive perks in three trees: Combat, Engineering and Physical. Buy extra slots at Gatherer's Garden with ADAM, and use Gene Banks to swap plasmids and tonics around.

Combat: Wrench boosts, Armored Shell, Static Discharge.
Engineering: Hacker's Delight, Security Evasion, Speedy Hacker, Alarm Expert.
Physical: EVE boosters, health boosters, Natural Camouflage, Medical Expert.

Weapons and ammo

Weapon	Ammo types	Best against
Wrench	None	Shocked or frozen Splicers, early game
Pistol	Standard, armor-piercing, antipersonnel	Early all-rounder; AP for turrets
Machine Gun	Standard, armor-piercing, antipersonnel	Sustained fire, Big Daddies with AP
Shotgun	00 buck, electric buck, exploding	Close range; electric buck stuns
Grenade Launcher	Frag, proximity mines, heat-seeking RPGs	Big Daddies, groups
Chemical Thrower	Napalm, electric gel, liquid nitrogen	Crowd control
Crossbow	Steel-tip, incendiary, trap bolts	Silent kills, trip-wire traps

The Little Sister Choice

There are 21 Little Sisters. Each one is guarded by a Big Daddy (a drill-wielding Bouncer or a rivet-gun Rosie). Beat the guardian and you choose:

Choice	Immediate ADAM	Long-term	Ending
Rescue	Less	Every few rescues, a teddy-bear gift in a Little Sister vent with bonus ADAM, items and unique tonics	Good ending if you rescue them all
Harvest	More	No gifts	Darker ending; harvesting them locks you out of the good ending

Recommendation: rescue all of them. The ADAM difference nearly closes once the gifts come in, and the good ending is the one people talk about. For the darker ending, harvest consistently. Mixing the two is a trap.

Level Walkthrough Outline

#	Level	Key things
1	Welcome to Rapture	Wrench, Electro Bolt, first Gatherer's Garden
2	Medical Pavilion	Dr. Steinman, Incinerate!, first Little Sister choice, first Big Daddy
3	Neptune's Bounty	Peach Wilkins, the Fighting McDonagh's, more weapons and plasmids
4	Smuggler's Hideout	Short level; one of the best spots to learn Big Daddy traps
5	Arcadia	Julie Langford, Lazarus Vector quest
6	Farmer's Market	Side trip to gather what you need to finish the Lazarus Vector in Arcadia
7	Fort Frolic	Sander Cohen's "masterpiece" quest (Completed Cohen's Masterpiece, Found Cohen's Room). Missable: the "Irony" achievement
8	Hephaestus	Andrew Ryan's office and the story's biggest twist
9	Rapture Central Control	Short level
10	Olympus Heights	Tenenbaum's safe house, Fontaine's apartment
11	Apollo Square	Chasing Atlas through Rapture's slums
12	Point Prometheus	Becoming a Big Daddy: collecting the suit parts
13	Proving Grounds	Escort mission; Little Sister gathers ADAM while you defend her
14	Fontaine's Lair	Final boss

Missables and collectibles

Irony (Fort Frolic): after you kill Sander Cohen, photograph his body with the Research Camera. Take the photo before you leave the level so you don't have to rely on backtracking.
Audio diaries: over a hundred, and the Historian achievement needs all of them. Several levels become unreachable after the story moves on, so sweep each area before leaving.
Golden Film Reels (Remastered): each one unlocks a Director's Commentary video with Ken Levine and Shawn Robertson.
Power to the People stations: each gives one weapon upgrade. Missing them leaves weapons weaker for the endgame.
Research every enemy type: hard to finish late if you skip photos early. Big Daddies and Houdini Splicers take the most photos.

Remastered Extras

Museum of Orphaned Concepts: a gallery of cut concept art and models.
Challenge Rooms: the three PS3-era challenge scenarios, now built in. They're harder puzzle-combat arenas with their own rewards.
Director's Commentary: Imagining BioShock: unlocked through Golden Film Reels.
High-res textures, 4K support and full controller support.

Achievement Tips

Achievement	Tip
Irony	Photograph Sander Cohen after killing him
Seriously Good at This	Complete the game on the hardest difficulty setting
Brass Balls / I Chose the Impossible	Hidden achievements tied to no-Vita-Chamber runs on the top difficulties. Check the in-game description, then save manually and often
Little Sister Savior	Complete the game without harvesting any Little Sisters
Toaster in the Tub	Shock an enemy in the water
Lucky Winner	Hit the jackpot at a slot machine. Save-scum near a machine
Skilled Hacker	Complete 50 successful hacks. There are also one-off achievements for hacking a bot, turret, camera, vending machine and safe
Tonic Collector	Collect or invent 53 tonics across the Physical, Engineering and Combat tracks
Research PhD	Max out all possible research. Stock up on film
Historian	Find every audio diary
Weapon Specialist	Acquire all upgrades for all weapons: find every Power to the People station
Challenge Room set	Each of the three rooms (The 'I' in Team, A Shocking Turn of Events, Worlds of Hurt) has Rescuer, Expert and Collector achievements, plus one special (Pacifist, Master Electrician, Tough Guy)

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Forgetting the Camera. Research bonuses are some of the biggest damage increases in the game.
Fighting Big Daddies head-on with standard ammo. Switch to armor-piercing or grenades, and set traps first.
Wasting ADAM on unused plasmid slots. Buy tonic slots and upgrades that change how you fight.
Harvesting "just one." It can cost you the good ending. Commit to a path.
Skipping hacks. Hacked turrets and bots do a lot of work for free.
Leaving Fort Frolic without the Irony photo if you care about achievements.

Advanced Tips

The Electro Bolt + Wrench combo is famous for a reason. With Wrench Lurker and Wrench Jockey tonics, a stealthy melee build is strong even on Hard.
Trap-Bolt corridors. Crossbow trap bolts plus Cyclone Trap make any Big Daddy fight a set piece you control.
Hypnotize Big Daddy + Security Bullseye: turn a Big Daddy into your tank, then mark enemies so the security grid helps.
Stun before you hack. An Electro Bolt briefly shorts out turrets and cameras, so you can walk up and hack without eating bullets.
Winter Blast then shatter is the fastest way to deal with Houdini Splicers and armored Splicers.
Use Vita-Chambers aggressively. Big Daddies keep their damage when you respawn, so a war of attrition always works on Easy and Medium.

Running It on a Modern PC

Stutter and mouse feel: turn off in-game VSync and cap frames with your GPU driver if the mouse feels floaty.
Crashes on launch: try windowed mode first, then run as administrator. Some players have fixed crashes by disabling overlays.
Ultrawide: the Remastered FOV slider helps, but ultrawide UI scaling isn't perfect.
Subtitles and audio: enable subtitles in Options. Several audio diaries are quiet under combat noise.
Original vs Remastered: owning the original on Steam usually got you Remastered as part of BioShock: The Collection. Both show up in the library.

FAQ

How many Little Sisters are there? 21, spread across the main story levels.

Can I get the good ending if I harvested one? To be safe, rescue all of them. Harvesting damages or removes your chance at the good ending.

Is BioShock Remastered different from the original? It's the same game with updated textures, 4K and controller support, the Challenge Rooms, the Museum of Orphaned Concepts, and a director's commentary unlocked by Golden Film Reels.

Are Vita-Chambers mandatory? No. You can turn them off in Options, and the hidden no-Vita-Chamber achievements need them off.

What's the best plasmid? Electro Bolt stays useful from the first level to the last. Incinerate! and Telekinesis are close behind.

Is BioShock Remastered on sale often? Yes. 2K runs regular seasonal sales. BioShock: The Collection was 80% off during the February 2026 Publisher Sale.