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 of trauma 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 in partnership with Suchong Laboratories successfully manufactured this potentially world-changing device for Ryan Industries, who proceeded to deploy it in the city. According to one of Dr. Yi Suchong's audio diaries, the key players in its development were his former colleague Dr. Gilbert Alexander and Augustus Sinclair himself. Suchong was also involved in the project, but claimed at first that he failed to grasp his colleagues' explanations of the science behind it, harnessing the gene-manipulating powers of Plasmids in conjunction with quantum physics, and initially found the prospect of resurrecting the dead highly dubious.

Widespread advertisements for the Vita-Chamber describe it as "restoring vigor and spirit with the touch of a button." This implies that the chamber's true purpose of life-restoration was hidden from the populace and that the machine was simply marketed as a relaxation/rejuvenation device. A Vita-Chamber installed at the Adonis Luxury Resort was even placed for use as part of the facility's spa 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 trauma. 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. It also appears that the Vita-Chambers can revive a body which has been dead for a long time, as Subject Delta was revived 10 years after his death, during which time his body most likely decayed.

Genetic Key
As explained in Suchong's diaries, 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 Ryan, or someone with a similar genetic code. This is the reason only Jack, who is Ryan's illegitimate son, can resurrect at these chambers. 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, though it will not bring Ryan back to life.

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.

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 signature.

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.

BioShock 2 Multiplayer
The function of the Vita-Chamber is not included in the multiplayer, but a closed chamber can be seen in the multiplayer map of Arcadia.

The exclusive Gene Tonic: Resurrection is a "Tonic" version of the machine that --as the name implies-- resurrects a killed player.

Minerva's Den
Vita-Chambers make a return in BioShock 2's downloadable content, Minerva's Den. In one of Reed Wahl's audio diaries. it is implied that The Thinker reprogrammed and granted Sigma access to the devices, were he to fall in combat.

BioShock Infinite
The Vita-Chamber of the Rapture Metro Bathysphere Station at the Welcome Center is seen when this place is revisited at the end of BioShock Infinite.

Burial at Sea - Episode 2
In BioShock Infinite's downloadable content, Burial at Sea - Episode 2, a stage one prototype of the Vita-Chamber can be found in the hidden research area of Dr. Suchong's Free Clinic. A chalkboard beside the device shows its schematics with notes from Suchong's diary on the project, such as the plans to first outline the mass production and distribution of the Vita-Chamber throughout Rapture to complete stage one. A note at the bottom of the board mentions how each device must be tuned to Andrew Ryan's specific genetic frequency before distribution.

Bugs/Glitches

 * In some cases with BioShock, 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.

Behind the Scenes

 * The "Vita" in Vita-Chamber is from the Latin vita, which means "life."
 * An alternative name for the Vita-Chamber is Resurrection Station, cited both on the file name of its advertisement and on the description of Health Upgrade.
 * The game's Vita-Chamber feature is an alternative to the Save-Die-Reload mechanism used in most games. The Vita-Chamber itself is inspired by the Quantum Bio-Reconstruction Machines from both System Shock and System Shock 2, the spiritual predecessors to BioShock, however they were less present in levels and needed to be activated first before teleporting the player back to it at each death.
 * A similar device called Resurrecto was originally planned in the early Beta version of BioShock Infinite, but was ultimately replaced by two Tear-like animations, and at cost of some of the player's money upon each death and a game over if it went below 0 in 1999 Mode.