BioShock · Volume 1 of 3BioShock - The Complete 100% Walkthrough

Every level. All 122 audio diaries and all 12 Power to the People stations. Every trophy, including the Platinum, the full research/hacking/invention ledger, and the Little Sister choice that decides which ending you get. Written for BioShock: The Collection on PS4/PS5/Xbox/PC; where the original 2007/2008 releases differ, the difference is noted.

1. What "100%" Means in BioShock

BioShock (Irrational Games, 2007; ported to PS3 in 2008; remastered into BioShock: The Collection in 2016) drops Jack's plane into the Atlantic and his bathysphere into Rapture, Andrew Ryan's underwater city built to run on no gods, no kings, and a great deal of ADAM. A voice calling itself Atlas guides you through it. Nothing about that guidance is as simple as it sounds.

Unlike a route built around one big collectible, BioShock's 66 trophies are spread across several independent ledgers, and clearing all of them means engaging with nearly every system the game has:

• The story and its difficulty tiers: one clean playthrough, plus the harder difficulty settings the Gold trophies actually gate. Nothing here is missable in the sense of "gone forever" the way a treasure can be, but the endings do depend on choices you make as you go.
• 122 audio diaries: Rapture's own oral history, tagged inline as you find them. All of them together earn the Silver Historian. A handful are in levels you cannot return to, so cleanup-by-revisit isn't really an option here the way it is in some other games.
• 12 Power to the People stations: one-time weapon upgrades, two per weapon across six weapons. All twelve together (all six weapons fully upgraded) earn the Bronze Weapon Specialist, plus five incremental trophies for one through five weapons upgraded along the way.
• Research, hacking and invention: a research camera ledger (photograph every enemy type to max level), a hacking ledger (50 successful hacks, one of each machine type), and an invention ledger (100 items built at a U-Invent station, every ammo type at least once).
• Plasmids and Tonics: 11 Plasmids and 58 Tonics across four upgrade tracks, with trophies for buying your first slot, maxing one track, and maxing all four.
• The Little Sisters: 21 of them, each one either harvested (160 ADAM on the spot) or rescued (80 ADAM plus a larger gift from Dr. Tenenbaum every third rescue). Rescuing every one you can earns the Silver Little Sister Savior, and it's also the ending you probably want to see.

Tip. BioShock has no chapter-select. Whatever you leave behind when you take an elevator, bathysphere, or story-gated door is very often gone until New Game Plus. The efficient plan (§3) is one careful playthrough that collects everything, followed by a second, harder playthrough for the difficulty-only trophies.

Spoiler policy

The routes below necessarily describe what each level contains and where its story goes. Cutscenes and reveals are summarized in a line, not restaged; you'll always know what to do next, and Rapture's two biggest twists stay exactly as unspoiled as this guide can leave them.

2. How to Use This Guide

Two kinds of pickup get an inline badge, in route order, restarting at 1 in every level:

An entry like JE4 Vandalism means "the fourth audio diary of the current level, in route order." Trophy moments, plasmid/tonic pickups and notable mechanics appear as callouts exactly where they happen, so one attentive pass through a level catches everything a first run can catch.

Audio diaries don't glint like a treasure would; they're tape recorders sitting on desks, floors, corpses, and the occasional bathtub, and the game's own darkness and flooding do most of the hiding. The rule that finds nearly all of them: check every desk, every corpse, every dead-end alcove, and don't leave a room until you've walked its edges. Power to the People stations are large, unmissable machines that hum audibly from a room away; the challenge with them is usually access (a locked door, a spared NPC, a switch on the far side of a counter), not visibility.

One habit worth building immediately: BioShock does not let you revisit most levels. A handful of early areas (Welcome to Rapture, most of Medical Pavilion, Smuggler's Hideout, Rapture Central Control) are gone the moment you leave them, and five of the game's 122 diaries are permanently missable if skipped in a non-revisitable area. Clear a level's desks and corners before you move on; there is no chapter-select cleanup pass waiting for you later.

3. The Road to 100%

The efficient path is one full collection playthrough, then one short, harsh New Game Plus:

flowchart TD
    P1["Playthrough 1 - Medium or Hard<br/>All 122 diaries, all 12 P2P stations<br/>Every Plasmid/Tonic, full research and hacking ledgers<br/>Rescue every Little Sister you can"] --> CHECK["Trophy list audit<br/>Historian, Weapon Specialist, Research PhD,<br/>Skilled Hacker, Tonic Collector, Little Sister Savior"]
    CHECK --> NGP["New Game Plus<br/>Carries Plasmids, Tonics, weapons and upgrades<br/>Set difficulty to Survivor, disable Vita-Chambers"]
    NGP --> HARD["A Man Chooses - finish on Survivor<br/>I Chose the Impossible - Survivor, no Vita-Chamber<br/>Brass Balls also clears on this run (Hard is lower than Survivor)"]
    HARD --> PLAT(["PLATINUM"])

The road to the Platinum. Everything collectible happens on pass one; both remaining Gold trophies fall out of a single harder pass with the loadout you already built.

Why this order?

1. Collect everything on your first, comfortable pass. Medium or Hard is generous enough to let you read every desk and corpse without dying constantly, and since most levels can't be revisited, this pass is your one real shot at diaries, research photos, and full hacking/inventing ledgers. Little Sister choices are permanent per-sister, so decide your policy now (see §4) rather than mid-run.
2. Bank every Plasmid, Tonic, and P2P upgrade you can afford. New Game Plus carries all of it forward, which is the entire point of doing the harder run second rather than first.
3. New Game Plus, not a second cold start. Starting over at Survivor with nothing but a Wrench is a much longer, much harder game than replaying it with every Tonic slot full and every weapon already upgraded.
4. Disable Vita-Chambers before you need them, not after you use one. The toggle lives in the Options/Gameplay menu; using even one Vita-Chamber on a Survivor no-death run ends that attempt for I Chose the Impossible, the trophy most guides and trophy-hunting communities cite as the rarest in the game.
5. Brass Balls (Hard, no Vita-Chamber) is strictly easier than the Survivor run, so a clean Survivor/no-Vita-Chamber New Game Plus clears both Gold difficulty trophies (and A Man Chooses) in one pass.

Where the game takes you

timeline
    title The shape of Rapture
    section Arrival - Welcome to Rapture through Smuggler's Hideout
        Welcome to Rapture : The crash, the lighthouse, the bathysphere down
        Medical Pavilion : Steinman's wards and the first full Big Daddy encounter
        Neptune's Bounty : Peach Wilkins, the research camera, the first Little Sister
        Smuggler's Hideout : The submarine that explodes the instant you reach it
    section Ryan's city - Arcadia through Rapture Central Control
        Arcadia and Farmer's Market : Saving the forest, Ryan taunting from every radio
        Fort Frolic : Sander Cohen's masterpiece, paid for in three former proteges
        Hephaestus : The power core, and the door into Ryan's office
        Rapture Central Control : A man chooses, a slave obeys
    section After the twist - Olympus Heights through Point Prometheus
        Olympus Heights : Tenenbaum, and the antidote to what you were made into
        Apollo Square : The wreckage of Rapture's civil war
        Point Prometheus : Becoming, partially, a Big Daddy yourself
    section Endgame - Proving Grounds and Fontaine
        Proving Grounds : Escorting a Little Sister through a live-fire gauntlet
        Fontaine : The confrontation, and an ending shaped by every choice before it

Four acts under the Atlantic. Neptune's Bounty and Fort Frolic carry the heaviest diary counts; both reward a slow, room-by-room pass.

4. Mechanics Worth Knowing Before You Start

• No chapter-select, and most levels don't loop back. Treat every level as a one-way trip: search it fully before triggering the elevator, bathysphere, or story door that ends it.
• Little Sisters are permanent per-sister. Harvesting one nets 160 ADAM immediately; rescuing nets 80 ADAM immediately, plus a larger gift (roughly 200 ADAM, and an exclusive Plasmid or Tonic) from Dr. Tenenbaum every third rescue. Rescue every Little Sister you can for Little Sister Savior and the game's better ending; harvesting even one forecloses that trophy for this save.
• Vita-Chambers respawn you on death with full health and EVE, and enemies keep whatever damage state you left them in (a legitimate way to whittle down a Big Daddy across several respawns if you're not chasing the no-Vita-Chamber trophies). They can be switched off entirely from the Options/Gameplay menu, which is required for Brass Balls and I Chose the Impossible.
• Difficulty ladder: Easy, then Medium (the baseline), then Hard, then Survivor, which trims ammo, health and EVE pickups hardest of all and is the only difficulty A Man Chooses and I Chose the Impossible accept.
• Hacking is a pipe-style minigame with alarm and overload trap tiles; a preview shows the layout before you commit, and a cash "bribe" auto-succeeds without playing it at all. Skilled Hacker's 50-hack count includes manual wins, Auto-Hack Tool uses, and cash buyouts alike — you never need to play the minigame fifty times by hand. A failed or aborted hack on a camera or turret can trigger an alarm, which spawns Security Bots in pairs; hacking the device first (or working fast once triggered) avoids the fight entirely.
• Big Daddies come in two types. The Bouncer swings a drill and charges; kite it and interrupt the charge. The Rosie fights at range with a rivet gun and thrown proximity mines and is slower on its feet; avoid open ground against it. A stun (Electro Bolt or an Electric Buck shotgun round) followed by concentrated fire is the standard opener for either.
• The Research Camera scores a photo higher for catching an enemy mid-attack or landing several damage types on one subject; five research levels per enemy type alternate between a damage bonus and a secondary bonus (a Tonic, extra ADAM, and so on). Researching a Little Sister grants a health/EVE maximum increase instead of a combat bonus.
• Weapon upgrades come from Power to the People stations only, two visits per weapon across six upgradable weapons (Wrench and Research Camera don't upgrade). All twelve stations together is Weapon Specialist; the five "N Fully Upgraded Weapons" trophies tick up as you go, so there's no wrong order to visit them in, only stations you haven't found yet.

Warning. Five of the 122 audio diaries are permanently missable, and they're concentrated in the game's least revisitable levels: Welcome to Rapture, the sealed wards of Medical Pavilion, Smuggler's Hideout, and Rapture Central Control. If Historian matters to you, treat those four levels as a full-room sweep before you touch the exit, and don't count on a later pass to fix a gap the way you could in a game with proper chapter-select.

5. The Master Checklist

Per-level diary and Power to the People counts, with running totals for each. Proving Grounds and Fontaine carry neither; play them at full speed once you're there.

One diary, First Encounter, physically sits in Farmer's Market but is filed under Neptune's Bounty in the game's own audio-diary menu; if your in-game tracker's per-level counts look one off between those two levels, that's why, not a diary you missed.

6. The Trophy List - All 66

Nothing here is missable in the permanent sense except the audio-diary caveat above; "Where / how" names the most practical spot, not the only one.

Platinum & Gold

Silver

Bronze - story and progression

Bronze - weapons

Bronze - research and photography

Bronze - hacking and invention

Bronze - Plasmids and Tonics

Bronze - Little Sisters, difficulty and secrets

Bronze - Challenge Rooms (merged into the base list)

On PS3 these eleven trophies belonged to separately-sold DLC with its own list; the Collection folds them into BioShock's one 66-trophy list, required for the Platinum. All are secret trophies inside their named Challenge Room.

PS3-original differences, in one breath: the 2008 PS3 disc shipped without the Challenge Rooms above bundled in; they were separate paid DLC with their own small stand-alone trophy list, not required for that version's Platinum. The Collection merges all of it into this single 66-trophy list. Trophy names and requirement text are otherwise unchanged. One honest gap in this research: the Platinum's own display name beyond the generic "Platinum Trophy" label could not be independently confirmed this pass (some references cite "Would You Kindly..."); treat that specific name as unconfirmed until your own trophy list shows it.

7. Levels 1-2 - Welcome to Rapture & Medical Pavilion

Level 1 - Welcome to Rapture

Collectibles: 2 audio diaries.

A plane crash in the North Atlantic, 1960, and the only door out of the water is a lighthouse that shouldn't be there. Down the bathysphere, past Andrew Ryan's own introduction to his city, and into Rapture proper, guided by a voice on the radio calling itself Atlas.

1. In the Kashmir Restaurant, on the bottom floor near the Atlas statue: JE1 New Year's Eve Alone.
2. In the women's restroom, near a rubble pile: JE2 Hole in the Bathroom Wall.
3. The restaurant's own Gatherer's Garden is dead as a shop (Rapture's economy has other problems by now) and simply hands over the Electro Bolt Plasmid for free. Take it; it's your first tool and it stays useful the entire game, especially against anything standing in water.
4. Through the flooded halls beyond, your first real look at a Big Daddy and its Little Sister passes by a window, working, ignoring you completely. Nothing to do about it yet; the level ends shortly after, at the edge of the Medical Pavilion.

Tip. This level is unrevisitable the moment you leave it, and it holds 2 of BioShock's 5 permanently-missable diaries by reputation. Two rooms, two tapes; there's no excuse for leaving either behind.

Level 2 - Medical Pavilion

Collectibles: 17 audio diaries.

Dr. Steinman has sealed the wards in pursuit of surgical "perfection," and getting past him means fighting through his own operating theaters. The level is also where the game shows you, in full, what a Big Daddy protecting a Little Sister actually looks like up close.

1. Foyer, at the reception desk: JE1 Released Today.
2. Emergency Access room, desk with a typewriter: JE2 ADAM's Changes.
3. Foyer, flooded alcove, chair beside a Circus of Values machine: JE3 Vandalism.
4. Foyer, left of the Health Station: JE4 Love for Science.
5. Enwell Life and Health Group storefront counter: JE5 Parasite Expectations.
6. Near the Surgery entrance, wall-mounted: JE6 Higher Standards.
7. Left of the Twilight Fields Funeral Homes entrance: JE7 Limits of Imagination. The funeral home's morgue also hides the Security Expert Tonic (Engineering track) nearby.
8. Near the Eternal Flame memorial entrance: JE8 Surgery's Picasso.
9. Dental Services entrance, frozen into the ice blocking the doorway: JE9 Freezing Pipes — needs Incinerate! to melt free, which you're about to pick up two stops from here.
10. In front of the Dandy Dental entrance: JE10 Useless Experiments.
11. Incinerate! waits on the floor inside the Eternal Flame Crematorium. Grab it now; several of this level's own diaries and tonics assume you have fire.
12. Telekinesis waits inside Dandy Dental. Between the two Plasmids picked up here, you now carry the game's core toolkit: shock, fire, and the ability to throw almost anything back at whoever threw it at you.
13. Dandy Dental's Telekinesis Testing Area, on the control panel: JE11 Testing Telekinesis.
14. Kure-All, corner of the main room: JE12 Enrage Trial. The Wrench Jockey Tonic (Combat track, +350% Wrench damage) is also nearby in this room.
15. Painless Dental, Operating Room desk: JE13 Plasmids Are the Paint.
16. Surgery foyer, near a Telekinesis-clearable debris pile: JE14 Symmetry.
17. Surgery, northern operating room, near the operating table: JE15 Aphrodite Walking.
18. Same operating room, on the corpse atop the table: JE16 Not What She Wanted.

Trophy - Defeated Dr. Steinman. The chapter's boss fight, once you reach him. Electro Bolt to stun, then unload; Telekinesis returns anything he throws.

1. Past the boss fight, near the level's Gatherer's Garden: JE17 Gatherer Vulnerability, right after the level's first Little Sister.

Tip. This is the last chance at several of the game's permanently-missable diaries; the wards seal behind you. Walk every room here twice before the elevator out.

8. Levels 3-4 - Neptune's Bounty & Smuggler's Hideout

Level 3 - Neptune's Bounty

Collectibles: 19 audio diaries · 1 Power to the People station.

Rapture's fishery and docks, run by smuggler-boss Peach Wilkins, who won't let you through to Smuggler's Hideout until you've fetched a research camera and photographed three Spider Splicers. This is also where you meet your first Little Sister in the flesh, not through a window.

1. Lower Wharf, near a turret, under the boardwalk: JE1 Bathysphere Keys.
2. Lower Wharf, flooded interrogation room beneath Fontaine Fisheries: JE2 Timmy H. Interrogation.
3. Lower Wharf, crawl under the grating toward Upper Wharf: JE3 Fontaine Must Go — grab it on the way through; this crawlspace becomes inaccessible once you're past it.
4. The Research Camera is Wilkins' price of admission to Smuggler's Hideout; picking it up here also unlocks the Security Bullseye Plasmid ledge mentioned below. Photograph three Spider Splicers with it to satisfy him.
5. Upper Wharf, table near the stairwell: JE4 Finding the Sea Slug.
6. Upper Wharf, corpse next to a Little Sister vent: JE5 Picked Up Timmy H.
7. Upper Wharf, corpse near another Little Sister vent: JE6 Masha Come Home.
8. Upper Wharf, next to a Circus of Values machine: JE7 Watch Fontaine.
9. Upper Wharf, the Wharfmaster's Office desk: JE8 Have My Badge.
10. Upper Wharf, a crate below the Wharfmaster's Office: JE9 ADAM Discovery.
11. Upper Wharf, corridor toward Jet-Postal, near the pipes: JE10 Eden Leaking.

Trophy chance. With the Research Camera in hand, a ledge in the Upper Wharf (only reachable now) holds the Security Bullseye Plasmid — turns Rapture's own cameras and turrets against whoever you mark.

1. Walkway near Jet-Postal, on a bench under a security camera: JE11 Fontaine's Smugglers.
2. Inside Jet-Postal, table near a vending machine: JE12 Death Penalty in Rapture.
3. Fighting McDonagh's Tavern, flooded ventilation shaft off the entrance: JE13 Meeting Ryan.
4. Fighting McDonagh's, basement office desk: JE14 Rapture Changing.
5. Fighting McDonagh's, ground floor, center table: JE15 Smuggling Ring.
6. Fighting McDonagh's, ground floor, table near the window: JE16 Working Late Again.
7. Fighting McDonagh's, upstairs Room #6, beside a handcuffed corpse: JE17 Arresting Fontaine.
8. Fighting McDonagh's, upstairs Room #7 (code 7533): JE18 Saw Masha Today.
9. HT1 Power to the People station. Fontaine Fisheries, freezer, bottom floor, near the door to Smuggler's Cave. Any weapon you're carrying can take its first upgrade here.
10. Fontaine Fisheries freezer, next to the safe: JE19 Putting the Screws On.

Trophy - Defeated Peach Wilkins. Clears once you deal with him near the level's end and the way to Smuggler's Hideout opens.

This level is also the game's first Little Sister encounter proper: her Big Daddy has to go down first (see §4's Big Daddy notes), and then the harvest-or-rescue choice is yours and, per save, permanent.

Level 4 - Smuggler's Hideout

Collectibles: 3 audio diaries.

A hidden den beneath the docks, the last stop before the submarine that's supposed to carry Atlas's family to the surface. It doesn't.

1. Storage Cavern, back of the room among crates, after clearing the turret: JE1 Meeting with Fontaine.
2. Control Room area, a locked storage room off the Maintenance Tunnel: JE2 Kraut Scientist.
3. Submarine Bay, just inside the doorway, after the explosion: JE3 Offered a Deal.

The sub goes up in flames the instant the hatch opens, taking the escape plan with it and opening the first real cracks in who's actually been running this rescue. The level is short; use the spare minutes to make sure nothing here got left behind, since like Welcome to Rapture, it does not come back.

9. Levels 5-6 - Arcadia & Farmer's Market

Level 5 - Arcadia

Collectibles: 17 audio diaries · 1 Power to the People station.

Rapture's arboretum and oxygen garden, dying under botanist Julie Langford's watch, with Andrew Ryan taunting you over the radio for most of the walk.

1. Tea Garden, floor left of the entrance: JE1 Seeing Ghosts.
2. Tea Garden, near the "ghost bench": JE2 Big Night Out.
3. Tea Garden, room across from the ghost bench, near the doors: JE3 Mass Producing ADAM.
4. Tea Garden, table near the Gene Bank: JE4 Arcadia Closed.
5. HT1 Power to the People station. Tree Farm, left side, under the large "Farmer's Market" archway sign.
6. Lower Rolling Hills, bench near the stairs, past the RPG turret: JE5 Shouldn't Have Come.
7. Lower Rolling Hills, cave behind the waterfall: JE6 The Saturnine.
8. Waterfall Grotto, bench near the U-Invent station: JE7 The Market Is Patient.
9. Waterfall Grotto, upstairs near the water wheel: JE8 Offer a Better Product.
10. Waterfall Grotto, storage crate near the water wheel: JE9 Early Tests Promising.
11. Waterfall Grotto, a locked machinery room: JE10 Heroes and Criminals.
12. Langford Research Laboratories, near the reception desk: JE11 What Won't They Steal?
13. Langford Research Laboratories, second room, on a table: JE12 Teaching an Old Hound.
14. Langford's office, on Julie Langford's own corpse: JE13 The Lazarus Vector.
15. Langford's office, wall safe: JE14 Lazarus Vector Formula.
16. Tree Farm, crate by the entrance: JE15 Arcadia and Oxygen.
17. Tree Farm, steps toward Farmer's Market: JE16 Maternal Instinct.
18. Arcadia Metro Station, bench right of the entrance (only spawns after Farmer's Market is done): JE17 The Great Chain.

Plasmids and Tonics available here: Winter Blast, Sonic Boom, Cyclone Trap and the Arcadia Gatherer's Garden's first Physical/Engineering/Combat Tonic Slot upgrades all become purchasable in this level; buy your first slot for Bought One Slot if you haven't already.

Trophy - Restored the Forest. Completes once Langford's Lazarus Vector formula makes it into the arboretum's systems, which the Farmer's Market errand below sets up.

Level 6 - Farmer's Market

Collectibles: 8 audio diaries · 1 Power to the People station.

The produce-market wing adjoining Arcadia: stalls, vending machines, and the ingredients Langford needs to finish her formula.

1. Near the entrance, by a pneumo tube, on Tasha Denu's corpse: JE1 Bee Enzyme.
2. Paddon Meats counter: JE2 Pulling Together.
3. Lower storage room, near a Rosie/Little Sister corpse: JE3 First Encounter. This one files under Neptune's Bounty in the game's own diary menu even though it physically sits here — see the note under §5.
4. Lower storage room, desk: JE4 Hatred.
5. Crawlspace behind the counter near a Circus of Values, leading to a freezer: JE5 Desperate Times.
6. On the ground, before the door to Worley Winery/Silverwing Apiary: JE6 Water in Wine.
7. HT1 Power to the People station. Worley Winery cellar, bottom floor, in the flooded area near the U-Invent station.
8. Worley Winery, upper floor dining area, back table: JE7 Functional Children.
9. Silverwing Apiary, entrance counter: JE8 ADAM Explained.

The Insect Swarm Plasmid is purchasable from this level's Gatherer's Garden (mirrors Arcadia's stock, plus a couple of exclusives). Once the formula's ingredients are in hand, the Lazarus Vector goes into the arboretum and Arcadia's lockdown lifts behind you.

10. Levels 7-8 - Fort Frolic & Hephaestus

Level 7 - Fort Frolic

Collectibles: 15 audio diaries · 2 Power to the People stations.

Sander Cohen's nightclub-and-theater district, and Cohen himself, who will not let the bathysphere to Hephaestus move until you've hunted down, dealt with, and photographed three of his former proteges for his "Quadtych."

1. Poseidon Plaza, on the floor near a trash can, right after Cohen's broadcast: JE1 Stood Up Again.
2. Fleet Hall, near the entrance, base of a shelving unit: JE2 Musical Insult.
3. The icy tunnel behind Cohen's Masterpiece gallery: JE3 The Iceman Cometh.
4. Room past the frozen tunnel, near the Cigar Supply storeroom, on a coffee table: JE4 Guns Blazing.
5. Sir Prize casino, lower level, a crate near the Sinclair Spirits P2P station: JE5 Fontaine's Army.
6. Rapture Records, behind the sales counter: JE6 Ryan's Stableboy.
7. Pharaoh's Fortune Casino, 2nd floor, on a pool table: JE7 Bump Culpepper?
8. Eve's Garden, Jasmine Jolene's private room, under the bed: JE8 Pregnancy.
9. Eve's Garden main room, on the bar: JE9 It's All Grift.
10. Flooded basement past Eve's Garden, on a stool: JE10 Come to the Record Store.
11. Near the women's restroom, behind a body display: JE11 The Wild Bunny.
12. Jewelry shop before Le Marquis D'Epoque, on the sales counter: JE12 Artists' Feud.
13. HT1 Power to the People station. Le Marquis D'Epoque, Southern Mall, lower level, behind the cigar room.
14. Near Le Marquis D'Epoque's P2P station, between a corpse's legs: JE13 Fancy Cigarettes.
15. HT2 Power to the People station. Sinclair Spirits, Poseidon Plaza: hit the switch on the side of the counter to open the door behind the falling water, then head downstairs. Only reachable if you spare Sander Cohen rather than kill him in the confrontation ahead; the same mercy also opens a station later in Olympus Heights.
16. Cohen's Collections, on the desk: JE14 The Doubters.
17. The Projector Room, which unlocks once the masterpiece is complete: JE15 Requiem for Andrew Ryan.

Trophy - Found Cohen's Room. Simply entering his personal quarters (accessible around the same point) pops this.

Trophy - Irony. A Research Camera shot of Cohen's corpse, if your route through this level ends that way, earns this one; it's easy to miss if you're not looking for it in the moment.

Trophy - Completed Cohen's Masterpiece. Clears once his "Quadtych" is finished and the bathysphere to Hephaestus opens.

Level 8 - Hephaestus

Collectibles: 17 audio diaries · 2 Power to the People stations.

Rapture's geothermal power plant, and the last thing standing between you and Andrew Ryan's own barricaded office.

1. Storage chest by the 2nd Circus of Values, Central Control's northwest corner: JE1 Ryan Takes F Futuristics.
2. Room with a Circus of Values and a Vita-Chamber: JE2 Scoping the Gate.
3. Room before Ryan's office, corpse on the first right-hand column: JE3 Stopping Ryan.
4. Room before Ryan's office, corpse on the third right-hand column: JE4 Going to Heat Loss.
5. Room before Ryan's office, desk in the room to the right: JE5 A Man or a Parasite.
6. HT1 Power to the People station. Hephaestus Core, southwest corner, directly across from the Gatherer's Garden.
7. Hephaestus Core, stairs above the Workshops sign/Bot Shutdown Panel: JE6 Fontaine's Legacy.
8. Hephaestus Core, near the Gatherer's Garden: JE7 Assassin.
9. Upper Heat Loss Monitoring, floor in the corner: JE8 Kyburz Door Code.
10. Lower Heat Loss Monitoring, flooded area, desk: JE9 Genetic Arms Race.
11. Lower Heat Loss Monitoring, desk near a Gene Tonic: JE10 Getting a Break.
12. Hephaestus Core, desk at the bottom of the walkway: JE11 Impossible Anywhere Else.
13. Desk outside the Workshops entrance: JE12 Running Short on R-34s.
14. Lower Workshops, corpse between two desks: JE13 The Dream.
15. Secret workshop past an access tunnel, desk opposite a device: JE14 Assembling the Bomb.
16. Hidden crawlspace left of Kyburz's office, near the stairs/turret: JE15 Market Maintenance Code.
17. Lower Workshops, desk opposite the stairs: JE16 Device Almost Finished.
18. HT2 Power to the People station. Kyburz's Office, back of the room, north side, past the electric wires.
19. Kyburz's office, back desk: JE17 Great Chain Moves Slowly.

Overloading the reactor and blowing the mag-locks on Ryan's office is the level's real objective; fight through the Splicers and Big Daddies guarding the core, and the way up to Rapture Central Control opens.

11. Levels 9-10 - Rapture Central Control & Olympus Heights

Level 9 - Rapture Central Control

Collectibles: 3 audio diaries.

Ryan's fortress office atop Hephaestus, and the level where BioShock's central twist lands: the trigger phrase, the truth about who Jack is, and a golf club that does the rest of the talking.

1. First control room, desk next to a Vita-Chamber: JE1 The Vita Chamber.
2. Small room past a crawlspace (up the stairs by a Circus of Values, then up again to the right): JE2 Baby Status.
3. Same room: JE3 Mind Control Test.

Trophy - Defeated Andrew Ryan. Clears at the end of the confrontation, on the far side of the reveal this guide isn't going to spoil for you here.

This level is short, unrevisitable, and holds diaries load-bearing for the reveal itself; grab all three before the scene plays out. "Atlas" is not who you thought, and Fontaine is not done with you.

Level 10 - Olympus Heights

Collectibles: 6 audio diaries · 2 Power to the People stations.

A war-ravaged residential district where Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, hiding rescued Little Sisters in the sewers, starts undoing what was done to you, while Fontaine mockingly triggers "Code Yellow" against you over the radio.

1. Bistro Square snack bar, near the Apollo Square bulkhead: JE1 Mozart of Genetics.
2. Suchong's apartment, 1st floor, south room: JE2 Fontaine's Human Jukebox.
3. Suchong's apartment, 1st floor, southernmost room: JE3 Mind Control Antidote.
4. Culpepper's apartment, 1st floor, right of the entrance: JE4 Artist Woman.
5. HT1 Power to the People station. Mercury Suites, central pillar of the main square, opposite the elevator doors.
6. Mercury Suites, 3rd floor, near the U-Invent station/photographer's camera: JE5 Fontaine's Breakup.
7. HT2 Power to the People station. Sander Cohen's Apartment, Mercury Suites (east side), top of the stairs inside his quarters — only accessible if Cohen was spared back in Fort Frolic.
8. Mercury Suites, Fontaine's Apartment, small table between the couches: JE6 Sad Saps.

The tier-3 Plasmids (Winter Blast 3, Insect Swarm 3, Electro Bolt 3, Incinerate! 3) go on sale for the first time at this level's Gatherer's Garden. Recovering Dr. Suchong's antidote formula from Fontaine's people is the level's real goal, and it doesn't come easily.

12. Levels 11-12 - Apollo Square & Point Prometheus

Level 11 - Apollo Square

Collectibles: 6 audio diaries · 1 Power to the People station.

The condemned tenement district that became the stronghold of Atlas/Fontaine's worker uprising during Rapture's civil war. Martial-law checkpoints, Splicer mobs, and the last antidote sample you need.

1. Main square, near the Olympus Heights bulkhead: JE1 What's Happening Here?
2. Near a Gatherer's Garden: JE2 Atlas Lives.
3. Artemis Suites, 2nd floor, Suchong's Free Clinic: JE3 Protection Bond.
4. HT1 Power to the People station. Hestia Chambers, 4th floor, second room of Atlas's headquarters.
5. Hestia Chambers, 1st floor, a steamer trunk near the first staircase: JE4 Meeting Atlas.
6. Hestia Chambers, 4th floor, on a corpse near a safe: JE5 Today's Raid.
7. Hestia Chambers, 4th floor, desk next to a Gene Tonic: JE6 The Longest Con.

Once the last antidote sample is secured, the trail leads directly to Point Prometheus and the beginning of the endgame proper.

Level 12 - Point Prometheus

Collectibles: 9 audio diaries · 2 Power to the People stations.

Rapture's genetic-research and Big Daddy/Little Sister creation facility. To get any further, Jack has to become one of them, at least on the outside.

1. Little Wonders Educational Facility, 2nd floor, desk: JE1 Why Just Girls?
2. Optimized Eugenics, Test Subject Storage, a machine near water: JE2 Marketing Gold.
3. Optimized Eugenics, Plasmid Prototyping, near an RPG turret: JE3 Extra Munitions.
4. HT1 Power to the People station. The Atrium, south side, next to a dead Big Daddy.
5. Failsafe Armored Escorts, Suit Assembly (east upper), filing cabinet: JE4 Protecting Little Ones.
6. Failsafe Armored Escorts, Suit Assembly (central upper), next to a Gene Bank: JE5 Mistakes.
7. Failsafe Armored Escorts, Suit Assembly (west upper), near a computer: JE6 Protector Smell.
8. Failsafe Armored Escorts, Candidate Conversion, back desk: JE7 Missing Boots.
9. Failsafe Armored Escorts, next to a Circus of Values: JE8 Cheap Son of a Bitch.
10. HT2 Power to the People station. Optimized Eugenics, in the Eugenics Analysis room, next to the Gene Bank.
11. Main Hall, 2nd floor, first trash can (melt the ice near the Optimized Eugenics entrance): JE9 Changing Employers.

Trophy - Became a Big Daddy. The suit, helmet, boots, voice modulator and pheromones sequence at the level's climax pops this the moment it's done. It's also your ticket into the Proving Grounds.

If your Plasmid and Tonic Slot purchases aren't finished, this level's Gatherer's Garden carries the last of the late-game stock (Electro Bolt 3, Incinerate! 3, Sonic Boom 2, Cyclone Trap 2, Clever Inventor, Medical Expert 3, Electric Flesh 2); the Proving Grounds machine ahead sells almost nothing new, just extra slots.

13. Levels 13-14 - Proving Grounds & Fontaine

Level 13 - Proving Grounds

Collectibles: none.

A former museum, converted into a Big Daddy training gauntlet. No diaries and no stations here; Fontaine's own commentary plays live over the radio instead of on tape.

1. Disguised as a Big Daddy, your job is escort duty: a Little Sister harvests ADAM from three corpses in turn while you keep Splicers, turrets, and a Bouncer mini-boss off her.
2. Treat each of the three harvest stops as its own small siege: clear sightlines and choke the doorways before she starts, since she's stationary and vulnerable for the harvest's duration.
3. This is a good place to spend Plasmid/Tonic slots you haven't committed to yet, and a good final check on your research and hacking ledgers before the story locks the level behind you.

Level 14 - Fontaine

Collectibles: none.

The climax, atop Point Prometheus/Fontaine Futuristics. No collectibles, just Frank Fontaine, ADAM, and the consequences of everything you decided about the Little Sisters along the way.

1. Fontaine self-injects and fights across multiple escalating forms; keep every Plasmid and Tonic slot filled and every weapon topped up going in, since ammo stops mattering the moment you run out mid-fight.
2. Electro Bolt or Winter Blast to open a window, then whichever weapon you've upgraded hardest; the fight rewards a full loadout more than any one trick.

Trophy - Defeated Atlas. Clears at the very end of the fight, whatever form it's taken by then.

The credits that follow depend entirely on the Little Sister ledger you built across the whole game: rescue all (or all but a small number) and Rapture, in its way, lets you leave. Harvest more than a couple without rescuing any, and it doesn't.

14. Cleanup - Research, Hacking and Invention Checklists

BioShock's "farming" is less about combat loops than about making sure every systemic ledger actually closes before the credits. There's no chapter-select, so the checklists below are really a pre-flight list for your one collection playthrough (§3), not a post-game cleanup pass.

The systemic trophy recipes

Little Sister policy, stated plainly

Decide before Neptune's Bounty's first encounter: rescue every Little Sister for Little Sister Savior and the better ending, accepting the slower ADAM income (80 immediate plus a periodic Tenenbaum bonus) against harvesting's blunter 160-on-the-spot payout. There is no route that earns both Little Sister Savior and a harvest-heavy ADAM budget on the same save; pick one before you start spending.

15. Difficulty & Survivor

The one hard requirement: Survivor, no Vita-Chamber

A Man Chooses and I Chose the Impossible only accept a Survivor-difficulty clear, the second one additionally demanding you never use a Vita-Chamber. Brass Balls (Hard, no Vita-Chamber) clears automatically on the same run, since Survivor is strictly harder than Hard.

• Start this run as a New Game Plus rather than a cold restart: it carries every Plasmid, Tonic, weapon and upgrade you already earned, which turns a punishing difficulty into a manageable one.
• Disable Vita-Chambers in the Options/Gameplay menu before you start, not after your first close call; using even one ends the no-Vita-Chamber attempt for that save.
• Ammo, health and EVE pickups are noticeably scarcer on Survivor than on Hard. Lean on whichever weapon you fully upgraded first (§14), and don't be shy about retreating to a doorway chokepoint against anything that outguns you in the open.
• Big Daddies are the main risk to a no-death, no-Vita-Chamber run: stun first (Electro Bolt, or an Electric Buck shotgun round), keep moving against a Bouncer's charge, and keep your distance from a Rosie's rivet gun and proximity mines.
• The run doesn't need to be fast, only clean. There's no timer on any BioShock trophy; take every fight at whatever pace keeps you alive.

16. Appendix - The Full Indexes

A. All 122 audio diaries by level

Five of the entries above are cited as permanently missable across sources this guide cross-checked; the specific five could not be independently confirmed this pass. Treat every level in this index as a full sweep rather than relying on a later cleanup, per §4's warning.

B. Power to the People stations (12)

Neptune's Bounty (1) · Arcadia (1) · Farmer's Market (1) · Fort Frolic (2) · Hephaestus (2) · Olympus Heights (2, second requires sparing Cohen) · Apollo Square (1) · Point Prometheus (2)

C. Plasmids (11)

Electro Bolt · Incinerate! · Telekinesis · Enrage · Hypnotize Big Daddy · Target Dummy · Winter Blast · Security Bullseye · Sonic Boom · Cyclone Trap · Insect Swarm

D. Tonics by track (58 total: 20 Physical, 20 Combat, 18 Engineering)

Physical: Bloodlust · Booze Hound · EVE Link / 2 · EVE Saver · Extra Nutrition / 2 / 3 · Hacker's Delight / 2 / 3 · Medical Expert / 2 / 3 · Natural Camouflage · Scrounger · Security Evasion / 2 · SportBoost / 2

Combat: Armored Shell / 2 · Damage Research / 2 · Electric Flesh / 2 · Frozen Field / 2 · Human Inferno / 2 · Machine Buster / 2 · Photographer's Eye / 2 · Static Discharge / 2 · Wrench Jockey / 2 · Wrench Lurker / 2

Engineering: Alarm Expert / 2 · Clever Inventor · Focused Hacker / 2 · Hacking Expert / 2 · Prolific Inventor · Safecracker / 2 · Security Expert / 2 · Shorten Alarms / 2 · Speedy Hacker / 2 · Vending Expert / 2

17. Accuracy & Sources

This walkthrough was written fresh for this document, then cross-checked against the BioShock Wiki (Fandom), PlayStationLifeStyle's Collection trophy-list coverage, and community discussion on the games' trophy structure (all consulted August 2026). The 122-diary total, its 12-location per-level breakdown, and the 12-station Power to the People count were each independently re-derived from a fresh source and matched the first pass exactly. The 66-trophy BioShock list (1 Platinum/3 Gold/3 Silver/59 Bronze) was counted directly from itemized trophy data rather than taken from a single summary figure.

A few things this pass could not pin down to full certainty, printed here rather than guessed at: the Platinum's exact display name beyond the generic "Platinum Trophy" label (some references cite "Would You Kindly...", unconfirmed this session); the specific identities of the five permanently-missable audio diaries among the 122 (the count of five is corroborated, the list of which five is not); and exact numeric thresholds for Research Camera scoring and a couple of Tonic effect percentages, which are described qualitatively above rather than with invented precision. Where this guide is silent on an exact number, that silence is deliberate. Your own trophy list and audio-diary tracker remain the final word on your save.

BioShock © 2K Games / Take-Two Interactive. Developed by Irrational Games; the 2016 remaster in BioShock: The Collection was developed by Blind Squirrel Entertainment. This is an unofficial fan-made guide.