Vigor



Vigors are the primary abilities that Booker DeWitt acquires in BioShock Infinite. Similar to Plasmids, they grant the user access to extraordinary abilities, and are powered by a single resource: Salts. Vigors were made by Jeremiah Fink after witnessing Dr. Suchong experiment with ADAM to create Plasmids. Fink stole these Plasmids and realized that by adding an oxidizing agent to them he could make them drinkable, rather than needing to be injected by the user. Fink needed to collect ample Sea Slugs via "underwater expeditions" to the deepest parts of the Atlantic Ocean. The cost of 'drinkables' requires 10 times as much ADAM to produce, putting a strain on Fink.

As with Plasmids, Vigors do cause notable side effects, visible on the user's arm. Every Vigor has an alternate use activated by charging the Vigor, ranging from enhanced attacks to stationary traps (it should be noted that offensive Vigor Traps deal about 4x normal damage). There are a total of eight Vigors, each of which can be upgraded twice over the course of the game at the Veni! Vidi! Vigor! vending machines scattered throughout Columbia.

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 physically altering 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 then ADAM withdrawal.

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

 * 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.
 * 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 thoroughout 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 colour, the colour of a Vigor varies depending on what type it is.
 * Vigors, like Plasmids, are powered by ADAM. Fink gained the ADAM he needed through contact with Suchong, as well as "underwater expeditions" to the Atlantic Ocean. The cost of the expeditions, and each drinkable Vigor requiring 10 times the amount of ADAM, put financial strain on Fink. (Which is why he was planning to change them into injectable 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 abillity to grab objects such as enemy weapons).