Vigor

"A Life with Vigor is a life that's Bigger!"

- Fink Manufacturing advertisement

"If I told you a man could shoot lightning from his fingers now, would you believe me? If I told you a man could hoist a one-ton stallion straight into the air, would you believe me?"

- Vigor Barker at the fair

Vigors are the wondrous tonics of Columbia, granting extraordinary abilities to its user after consumption. They are powered by Salts which can be found in phials in their raw form or by consuming special foods. Like Plasmids, Vigors do cause notable side effects, visible on the user's arm. They also affect the user's mental stability by provoking short hallucinations when consuming a new type of Vigor. However, Vigors (with the exception of one) have an alternate use activated by charging it, ranging from enhanced attacks to stationary traps dealing four times as much damage.

There are eight Vigors in BioShock Infinite, which can be either found by exploring Columbia or bought from Veni! Vidi! Vigor! vending machines. Each tonic has two upgrades obtainable from the same machines, but for greater prices. Their effects can also be combined, giving the best of two Vigors.

Research and Concern
Although Vigors differ from Plasmids in their application (drunk rather than injected directly into the blood stream), they share the same origin. Using the Lutece Device to look at other worlds, Jeremiah Fink eventually witnessed in November of 1894 the work of the geneticist Dr. Yi Suchong in Rapture and his creation procedures for Plasmids. From this point, he assembled a laboratory to research and release them as Fink Manufacturing products. Fink also organized several underwater expeditions all around the Atlantic ocean in order to acquire and study Sea Slugs, whose ADAM is the base for Plasmids and Vigors.

Research wasn't without risk and led to accidents, such as Devil's Kiss Vigors setting fire to a factory building in October 1900, which was then separated from the city to avoid its spread but condemned all workers trapped inside. The incident was covered up by Fink Manufacturing who assured the population of the tonic's safety once released, although it only resumed production eight years later by Police demand. These incidents eventually raised public concern as far as in early July 1912, and Fink reassured Columbia's fair inhabitants that it was a necessary evil for their own safety. He also took the opportunity of hosting the 1912 Raffle and Fair the same month to promote and sell his products, including Bucking Bronco trials and free Possession giveaways. Yet, a few people were still cautious about the next Vigors and preferred to wait for Fink to improve their stability.

Even with active marketing to sell Vigors, Fink was losing money due to the cost of the underwater expeditions. In early June 1912, he went to think about changing the structure of his Vigors to their original form and less expensive on ADAM: injectable Plasmids. He also went to copy the design of syringes used in Rapture to cut the cost of making individual bottles for each tonic.

Marketing and Uses
Vigors were advertised as either domestic aids (lighting a fire, lifting heavy loads or subduing automata), alternative energy source to power Automated Stallions and Gondolas but also self-defense tools (Murder of Crows, "proven deterrent against hooligans"). Like other products from Fink Manufacturing, a few of them were actually credited to one or another inventor.

When the Vox Populi started taking action against the Founders, Vigors were requested by the Police to use them all as weapons. The conflict saw each side equipping themselves to take an edge, and Fink Manufacturing producing them in grand quantities. Vigors were then advertised in short films to be used offensively instead of being aids. Whatsmore, some Vigors started to show their heavy toll on their users' body and mind, whether it be the Zealots of the Lady mastering the abilities of Murder of Crows and becoming delusional in their grief or Colonel Cornelius Slate overdosing on Shock Jockey to force Booker DeWitt into attacking him, and displaying blue crystals sprouting from various spots on his arms and forehead.

Burial at Sea - Episode 1 Plasmids
Several Vigors reappear as Plasmids in the Burial at Sea DLC. While Yi Suchong observed and documented the sudden appearance of Tears in Rapture, which revealed Columbia, he discovered that his own formulas for Plasmids had been stolen by Fink. Fink had modified the formulas with an ingestable oxidation agent to create Vigors. To return the favor, Suchong would steal Fink's modified Plasmid formula.

Sold as drinkable Plasmids, these would be marketed as a substitute for citizens who did not like injections. Suchong would also use this modified Plasmid formula to create Old Man Winter, a new drinkable Plasmid which would have similar but different effects from its injectable counterpart, Winter Blast. While being similar to Vigors, the defensive effect of these Plasmids are not as potent or as lasting against Splicers, due to their ADAM-enhanced bodies. The mental and physical side-effects from overdosing on drinkable Plasmids were much more severe then those caused by injectable ones, such as those seen on Frosty Splicers. These side-effects appear to be brought on solely by over-consumption, rather than ADAM withdrawal.

Early Vigors
There can be found some predefined Vigors in the game files. Further reference can also be found in The Art of BioShock Infinite.




 * Devil's Kiss (Same as in the game)


 * Electric Touch (Turned into the Gear "Electric Touch")


 * Frostbite (Reused its icon and revamped it for "Old Man Winter")


 * Fungal Healing


 * Kinetic Overflow


 * Mesmerize (Renamed "Possession")


 * Murder of Crows (Same as in the game)


 * Return to Sender (Same as in the game)


 * Rift Tethers (Renamed "Undertow")


 * Bucking Bronco (Same as in the game)


 * Spider Trap


 * Weapon Slave (Turned into two different Gears "Ghost Posse" and "Spectral Sidekick")


 * Telekinesis (Gameplay)

Rejected Vigors
Fink Manufacturing aggressively developed Vigors for many different uses, but a number of concepts were rejected for having no market for them, as well as unwanted results. A chalk board describing these rejected Vigors can be found in Fink's laboratory.

Amnesia
Byline: Forget everything you know.

Marketing Note: How do you plan to sell this dud?!

Plant Peeper
Byline: Read the inner thoughts of your houseplant!

Marketing Note: No demand for this type of product.

Dead Ringer
Byline: Re-Animate dead loved ones & pets!

Marketing Note: No one wants a moldy puppy!

Behind The Scenes

 * The Vigor advertisement "A Life with Vigor is a life that's Bigger!" is based off an advertisement for Curaçao liqueur, Triple Sec Allary.
 * These Vigors are ingested, unlike their Plasmid counterparts, which are injected. Vigors also have no recorded negative side-effects. However, there is concept art in The Art of BioShock Infinite containing Vigor-abusing workers known as "Vigor Junkies", suggesting they were originally intended to degenerate their users as did those in Rapture.
 * The Vigor vending machine's name, "Veni! Vidi! Vigor!" is a play on the famous phrase spoke by Caeser,"Veni, Vidi, Vici", which translates roughly to, "I came, I saw, I conquered."
 * If the player does not pick up Vigor bottles when they first appear, they can purchase them later for 150 Silver Eagles, or pick them up in other areas.
 * It wasn't until the 2012 Beast of America trailer that a BioShock Infinite trailer showed heavily physical side effects to the player's flesh, while using Vigors during gameplay. The previous trailers and gameplay demos only had a normal arm with minimal Vigor effects.
 * An early concept in The Art of BioShock Infinite shows small modules attached to the player's hands which were used to inject the fluids of the various Vigors into the user when casting them. One appears to have a hummingbird dipping into a small vessel containing the Vigor. Another shows a mosquito-like construct injecting it into the user.
 * Using all eight Vigors against at least one enemy grants the player the "Well Rounded" Achievement/Trophy.
 * There are eight official Vigor Combinations. Performing each of them unlocks the "Combination Shock" Achievement/Trophy.
 * In an early version of the game, the system for Vigor usage was limited to the Vigor bottles themselves, as disposable and unreloadable powers, or mentioned comparatively as "Plasmids and EVE combined". That version intended each Vigor ability to have their own numbered of doses, and the doses would have been scattered throughout the game, such as on corpses and in stores. Players could only use their available Vigors and thus forced to use a variety of strategies. In late 2012, this system was revised with the usage of EVE-like Salts, which had Vigor abilities work from a single bar meter. Ironically, the system for finding similar Vigor bottles would work the same as the previous system, only as Salts.
 * In the downloadable content Clash in the Clouds, the Vigors Undertow, Possession, Devil's Kiss and Bucking Bronco can be collected as free samples. The other Vigors must be purchased from the vending machines in the Columbian Archeological Society.
 * Vigors are often referred to as Plasmids in the in-game files of BioShock Infinite. Devil's Kiss is in some places named Incinerate!, and there are several references to the Enrage Plasmid instead of the Possession Vigor (also called Mesmerize).
 * Unlike their injectable counterpart, Plasmids, which all have a blood-red color, the color of a Vigor varies depending on what type it is.
 * Vigors, like Plasmids, are powered by ADAM. Fink produced ADAM from Sea Slugs captured during underwater expeditions to the Atlantic Ocean. The cost of the expeditions and each drinkable Vigor requiring 10 times the amount of ADAM, put a financial strain on Fink. He was planning to change them into injectables before the Vox Populi assaulted the factory. Frank Fontaine also cancelled "drinkable" plasmids for similar reasons.
 * In an early 2010 demo shown at E3, there was an unnamed Vigor with the power of levitation.  It was soon scrapped, but the main function of it soon evolved into Return to Sender (repelling enemy fire) and Undertow (the ability to grab objects such as enemy weapons).
 * For Burial at Sea - Episode 2, Shock Jockey was considered as being one of the Drinkable Plasmids Elizabeth could use. Ultimately, it was cut.