Vita-Chamber

"Introducing the future of health and wellness, The Vita-Chamber"

- Ad from Ryan Industries

Vita-Chambers are devices which resurrect individuals who die in their vicinity. Vita-Chambers are placed in convenient locations throughout Rapture so that a revived player will not have to travel too far to continue a battle. When the player is revived, they will be given a considerable amount of health and EVE. The player does not have a fixed number of lives, so the Vita-Chambers can be used infinitely.

History
At some point during the later days of Rapture, Sinclair Solutions successfully manufactured this potentially world-changing device for Ryan Industries, who proceeded to take it public. According to one of Dr. Yi Suchong's Audio Diaries, the key players in its development were Gilbert Alexander and Augustus Sinclair himself. Suchong was also involved in the project, but claimed he failed to grasp his colleagues' explanations of the science behind it and initially found the prospect of resurrecting the dead highly dubious.

Widespread advertisements for it "restoring vigor and spirit with the touch of a button" imply that the chambers could also be used to generally revitalize still-living creatures in addition to teleporting dead ones to truly resurrect. A Vita-Chamber installed in the Adonis Luxury Resort was even planned for use as part of the facility's rejuvenation treatments. By the time of Rapture's downfall in 1959, dozens of Vita-Chambers had been installed throughout the city. However, the Vita-Chambers can only bring a person back to life if he or she died of unnatural causes (e.g. a sudden violent death). Slow wasting sicknesses or genetic illness can not be cured by a Vita-Chamber, so an individual who died of such a condition would remain permanently dead.

Genetic Key
As explained in Yi Suchong's Audio Diary, even though they were installed in most parts of the city, the Vita-Chambers were still undergoing trials when Rapture fell into chaos. During these trials, Andrew Ryan was the sole subject to whom they were attuned. Thus, they would only teleport/revive him, or someone with a similar genetic code. This is why only Jack, who is Ryan's illegitimate son, can respawn at these chambers, and not Splicers. After the fatal confrontation between Jack and Andrew Ryan at Rapture Central Control, Ryan doesn't revive because he had intentionally shut off the Vita-Chamber in his office. Ryan's deactivated Vita-chamber can be reactivated by the player.

BioShock


Once the player's health reaches zero, Jack will collapse, only to be revived at any nearby Vita-Chamber. Vita-Chambers are found throughout the game, at least two per level.

Players who are attempting to gain the "Brass Balls" achievement/trophy or the "I Chose the Impossible" trophy can choose to disable all Vita-Chambers after downloading the 1.1 patch and DLC for BioShock (though the player is not obliged to do so; simply completing the game without dying unlocks the achievement, regardless of whether or not the Chambers are on). If the player is playing with the Vita-Chambers turned off, the main menu will be brought up upon death.

Bugs/Glitches

 * In some cases once a certain amount of time has elapsed since the download of the patch for the Xbox 360, the option "Disable Vita-Chambers" disappears. If this happens, the cache needs to be emptied, the download must be removed and the patch needs to be downloaded again.

BioShock 2
The Vita-Chambers are still functional during the events of BioShock 2. The protagonist, Subject Delta, is revived in a Vita-Chamber at the beginning of the game after he had been killed 10 years earlier. This is accomplished when a Little Sister, acting on behalf of Eleanor Lamb, re-keys the Chamber (and thus the entire Vita-Chamber network) to correspond with Delta's genetic code. In BioShock 2 the Vita-Chambers in the game can be disabled by a choice in the Gameplay Options menu to make it easier to gain the "Big Brass Balls " achievement/trophy.

Minerva's Den
Vita Chambers make a return in Minerva's Den. In one of Reed Wahl's Audio Diaries it is implied that The Thinker granted Sigma access to the devices were he to fall in combat.

Trivia

 * The "Vita" in Vita-Chamber is from the Latin vita, which means "life."