BioShock Remastered

BioShock Remastered

65 Achievements

20-25h

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Brass Balls

Brass Balls

Complete the game on Hard difficulty without using a Vita-Chamber.

1.2%

How to unlock the Brass Balls achievement in BioShock Remastered - Definitive Guide

This achievement essentially means Play The Game on Hard WITHOUT dying. Vita-Chambers are only used to re-spawn after death so not using them means don't die. This means you need to continually save your progress. If you die you must load up an earlier save.

There is a simple method for ensuring that you never use the Vita-Chambers. Before Starting a New Game, go to Gameplay Options, Scroll Down to Disable Vita-Chambers and make sure it says On. This ensures ALL Vita- Chambers are disabled in the game, this is really important and means every time you die you load a previous save. I highly recommend doing this.
Also this achievement is for HARD difficulty only; there is a higher difficulty called Survivor but this unlocks on HARD only.

Two Methods to Obtain this. A legitimate and an Exploit.

THE EXPLOIT
Start a new game on easy. Again either disable the Vita-Chambers or ensure that you never die. Reach the final boss. As you are taking out the final needle of Adam press pause, and change the difficulty to Hard. Then complete the rest of the scene as normal and the achievement will unlock.

Legitimate Method
With Vita chambers disabled your new best friend will be the Save option. Make sure that you save every few minutes, particularly at the start of the game when you lack plasmids and your health is low. etc. Later in the game you will be much stronger but still save often, its quicker to save than replaying sections of the game.

Check all crates, trash cans, dead splicers, etc for extra first-aid and eve items. Turn on item Glimmer in the options, you will be able to spot loot much easier. Also increase the brightness a touch this will allow you to survey your surroundings.

Most guides advise you to stick solely to mission objectives, however I believe I benefited from scouring the environment. My ammo was always full and I always had reserve health/eve packs.
Buy Health/Eve Upgrades and Tonic Slots ASAP
Upgrade your weapons wisely. Leave the pistol until last
Purchase/ collect as many Tonics as possible.. Unlock all Tonic Slots as soon as you can. Engineering tonics are a massive help for hacking and getting reduced prices. Physical/Combat tonics can make this playthrough a doddle. Make sure you equip the scrounger perk

Buy Target Dummy ASAP. Ignore all other Plasmids and Plasmid Upgrades until later in the game. (Dont waste ADAM on Plasmid Upgrades etc, Plasmids like Insect Swarm/Cyclone Trap are pretty useless anyway. As long as you have Incinerate, Electro Bolt, Telekinesis + Target Dummy you will be fine.) You will notice that as you progress in the game the upgrades that were once costing a fortune are now majorly discounted. Eg Electro Bolt 2 was 120 Adam in Neptunes Bounty by the time I reached Fort Frolic is was 20.

Make sure you photograph each enemy and gain the max research bonus, this unlocks unique tonics but also gives great damage bonuses. The auto turret hack is a great help and the Big Daddy damage bonuses turn a 5 minute battle into a 2minute battle.

Rescue every Little Sister in the Game, not only will you get the ADAM but after every 3 you rescue you get a bonus of 200 Adam and after every 6 you recieve a unique Tonic.
Save Electric Buck and Grenades for Big Daddy battles. Upgrading your shotgun and Grenade launcher are a massive help

On a sidenote people have reported the achievement not unlocking, this was an issue on the 360version and occurs because all of the game completion achievements are unlocking, all you need to do if this happens is load up the final boss fight again and defeat it, with all of the other achievements already unlocked their is nothing to obstruct this achievement.
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26 Oct 2016 16:34

31 Comments
I couldn't get the glitch to work for this so I did a legit run on New Game Plus and was able to knock this out really quick.
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By My Ringtones on 30 Aug 2021 03:53
bro wtf this achievement dive, i literally play on the survivor (without knowing about i would need to play on hard to unlock this one) i though playin in survivor would unlock this damn achievment. lucky i save my game a little before the fight with the Atlas, but still.. bruuhhh...
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By RangerTXS on 03 Mar 2023 03:15
April 2019, still works.
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By torrens7760 on 22 Apr 2019 17:22
Actually... you CAN die you just have to manually save the game and just load your last save every time
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By fighterx93chipp on 03 Dec 2016 17:44
i didnt die a single time and the achievement didnt come. I only got the wone for hardest dificulty, defeating atlas and saving all little sisters. what am i missing here??
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By N3m3si5 on 09 Apr 2017 20:59
Reload the boss fight and try again i also has an issue with an achievement not unlocking after the fight
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By cooper101183 on 10 Apr 2017 10:25
reloaded it twice so far...
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By N3m3si5 on 10 Apr 2017 12:47
I wanted to say that you should put spoilers. You even say right at the bottom the final boss is Atlas. Some people still haven't played this game and it would spoil it..
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By Strategy One on 19 May 2017 00:08
Just in case anyone was curious, still works as of July 12th, 2017, though I doubt they'll patch it if they didn't when this released.

And it has to be set to HARD, not SURVIVALIST.
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By Leo Ascendent on 13 Jul 2017 15:23
Still works as of January, 14th, 2018. If you are having issues please make sure you are set to "Hard" difficulty and not all the way up to "Survivor".
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By cbko4 on 14 Jan 2018 19:13
Like a cbko4 said, still working, January, 27th, 2018. Just make sure to select ''Hard'' and not ''Survivor''dance
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By Izaidro97 on 28 Jan 2018 05:31
works on new game plus, and only on HARD not on survivor.
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By TheAnonymity on 06 Mar 2018 00:17
Still works as of March 2018! Thanks!
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By Super Juray on 08 Mar 2018 14:05
As of 24/10/18 this still works
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By Crippy D on 25 Oct 2018 08:08
It didn’t work for me. Is there a dlc I need to download?
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By brarney86 on 11 Nov 2019 04:02
read the last paragraph it may help
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By cooper101183 on 11 Nov 2019 12:51
June 2020, still works!
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By TB4CO on 23 Jun 2020 01:12
Can confirm exploit method still works - 30th July 2020
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By michal srh on 30 Jul 2020 19:40
Still works October 8th 2020
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By BIPOLAR NEMESIS on 08 Oct 2020 05:32
The exploit doesn't work on the remaster ppl who made this solutions didn't chack
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By SoA Slayer 8 on 05 Apr 2021 20:19
Ignore the person above me, still working no problem.
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By Gamerjnb925 on 12 Apr 2021 00:45
Thanks, was about to start the game today. I did replay it twice back on the PS3. Thanks again.
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By EricGarcia4 on 12 Apr 2021 14:49
Can you achieve this on new game plus?
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By Autumn Mod on 24 Apr 2021 21:02
I switched it last second to survivor and got all achievements except this one. Reloaded save, beat the boss, and switched it to hard and it popped mid cut scene. Thank you!
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By AceBlueJuice on 17 Jun 2021 06:34
The exploit worked for me. I switched the difficulty to Hard when I had two rounds with the needle left with Atlas. It popped no problem, and it wasn't too hard to beat him using grenades.
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By Broon43 on 21 Sep 2021 23:59
It's weird.. Just got this, and considering this was 100G it seems like they actually want you to not die ever (tho that would be pretty hard). It basically just becomes like any other game where you have to manually save, so it's not really a hard achievement when you remember to do so.
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By The Appletard on 05 Oct 2021 23:21
I can confirm that the exploit works as of June 10th 2022. Played the whole game on easy, the on the final fight, before taking the last needle out, I switched the difficulty to hard. Pulled out the last needle and the achievement popped during the cut scene.
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By KatHasSnacks on 11 Jun 2022 00:12
Killed fontaine 15 times on hard difficulty with vita chambers disabled and didn't die throughout whole game no brass balls achievement and reset cache and played on new game plus nothing has worked
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By BobaOnMyFett on 01 Oct 2022 21:56
Can also confirm the exploit still today works on June the 20th 2023 as I got both hard and survivor difficulty achievements done in 1 go... so good luck fellers
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By Dviking89 on 20 Jun 2023 14:08
Does the message “adjusting difficulty affects achievements” always pop up when you all did it?
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By Supercheezman on 29 Aug 2020 09:27
Oh wow, how have they not gotten around to patching that exploit, I've avoided another 20 or so hours of playtime on Survival because of it.
I feel bad for skipping but at the same time I don't think I can find the energy to replay the whole game again XD
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By SaberRusty on 15 Oct 2020 11:27
View all 31 comments Show less comments
play on easy too you stick the last needle in fontaine and change too hard remember too disable vita chambers before u start a new game, but i did it on easy up too i stuck fontaine with the last needle so it works
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17 Comments
"Who downvotes this? What else do you need to know? ^^"

- Well, you need to set the game to HARD and not SURVIVAL, which many do.
- You must also disable vita chambers BEFORE you start on the title menu.
- Many people appreciate decent grammar and sentence structure, as it makes solutions clearer.
- Some might be upset there's a spoiler.

Honestly, I gave a - due to the first three.

For those asking, all you need to do, while on the title screen (Load Game, New Game, Options, Additional Content, etc), go to Options, and disable vita-chambers. Start a new game, just to be safe, start on HARD. When the game lets you move around, pause and go to Game Settings (or something like that), change to EASY.

Play as normal, and when you get to the final boss, you'll know it, before stabbing him the last time, pause and switch to HARD (NOT SURVIVAL), finish boss.

If it doesn't unlock, reload and try again. Unlocked first try for me, but some say it doesn't, most likely due to them setting it to SURVIVAL.
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By Leo Ascendent on 13 Jul 2017 16:07
Can anyone confirm if this actually works? Since this is a rather laconic solution.
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By CPCrookedMan on 17 Sep 2016 03:26
^ its been confirmed in the forums by multiple people. It works.

DISABLE VITACHAMBERS before you start the game (Disable Vitachambers - ON), play on Easy, save frequently, and when you get to the last boss, just pause the game and switch to Hard once you do the fourth and final injection of Adam into him.
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By The SCHWARTZ 00 on 17 Sep 2016 05:20
Really surprised this still works.

Video proof? ^_^
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By odiedodie on 17 Sep 2016 12:00
can u load up a save and do it like that or no
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By Mazdei on 17 Sep 2016 17:44
can u load up a save and do it like that or no
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By Mazdei on 17 Sep 2016 17:50
Yep still works
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By AR15 FUZZ on 19 Sep 2016 02:22
I have recieved brass balls even though i started the game without turning vita chambers off. i did turn them off (whilst on easy) before i had died at all during the game, then when i was up against fontaine i changed to survivor (got that achievement) then went back, did the boss fight again (as brass balls didnt pop on survivor) but changed it to hard which got me the brass balls achievement.
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By speedkilla ben on 19 Sep 2016 06:09
Works fine. :) As soon as I started the game for the first time, I choosed "Disable vita-chambers: ON", started the game on easy, never died (more or less impossible to die on easy) and finally changed to Hard just before the last needle in Atlas.
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By FireRaiser1985 on 21 Sep 2016 16:35
Who downvotes this? What else do you need to know? ^^
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By o0ArA0o on 01 Oct 2016 15:50
Who downvotes this? What else do you need to know? ^^
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By o0ArA0o on 01 Oct 2016 18:36
I can't believe they didn't patch this lol
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By xTCx on 03 Oct 2016 03:34
Confirmed! Play the game on easy, with vita chambers durned off. Then the second you hit 'A' to stab him one last time, change the difficulty to hard to unlock the achievement. Then repeat but the set it to 'Survival' for the other achievement.
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By ghostlymostly on 06 Oct 2016 13:14
I accidentally set the difficulty to Extreme instead of Hard and it didn't unlock. Just loaded the last save and killed him again, it popped tight away.
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By N3croscop3 on 12 Oct 2016 19:36
Can I start the game on any difficulty and change it as long as I don't use Vita chambers and as long as I switch it back to hard right as I stab him?
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By Trujew on 21 Nov 2016 20:23
Can confirm it still works. :)

Started on Easy and turned the vita chambers off. Sped through the game without dying and switched difficulty at the final adam injection.

However this did take me 3 attempts. I tried it before I put the needle in and it didn't work. I tried it the second I hit the button to inject and that didn't pop either. On my final attempt I waited as long as I could before it went to the final cutscene to pause and swap difficulty, then it popped as it went to the cinematic. Thanks, this got me this last achievement! :D
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By AaronWi60 on 20 Jul 2017 22:03
REALLY weird!!!! I beat Atlas the 1st time, switched it to Survival.....unlocked Seriously Good at This, Little Sister Savior, and Defeated Atlas........Brass Balls didn't pop, tried it again 2 more times, same thing.....Brass Balls didn't pop both times, then I saw what N3croscop3 posted above, switched to to HARD instead of survival, and it finally popped.......
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By Warboy925 on 25 Jun 2017 06:39
View all 17 comments Show less comments
Just an addition to the previous solution. The game has to be completed (or glitched) necessarily on hard, can't be on Survivor. toast
Also, even with patch the glitch still works (june 23,2018)
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1 Comment
Thank you for clarifying this
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By Nick J at Nite on 16 Mar 2021 20:20
it's been almost 7 years, yet here I am to share something I couldn't see anyone else mention.

You can obtain this achievement in your New Game +.
So basically if you where like me and completed the game but missed some achievements such as this one, you can start a new game plus and get this achievement even faster.
As already mentioned, start the game on hard, change it to easy, and then just put it on hard at the end of the game, and remember to disable the Vita Chambers from the beginning to avoid ruining this achievement.

Also as a side note if you happen to not get the achievements for investigations / weapons this is your chance to do it from the beginning and with your camera and weapons upgraded from where you left them...
Ggs, and I know it's late lol.
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19 Apr 2023 21:34

For this achievement to unlock you have to disable Vita-Chambers in the main menu settings before starting a new game on the hard difficulty setting and then come complete the game.
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03 Jan 2017 00:00

This Achievement can also be done in NG+ so what I did was 100% it on Survivor than replay it on NG+, it is very easy this way and you can get through it very quickly.
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08 Jan 2024 18:31