Catalogue for 1912

During your travels in the floating metropolis, you’ll find many useful items to help navigate its perils. Items can be found everywhere—on the bodies of defeated enemies, in barrels and boxes, and often, just lying around in the open! You should constantly search every nook and cranny for items to keep the Salts and Health Meters topped off, to fill Booker’s pockets with Silver Eagles for purchases, and to provide new upgrades.

Additionally, it is a good idea to search every corpse you find. You should do this to keep ammo stocks at capacity and maintain a healthy condition with any food that is scrounged up. Occasionally after defeating an enemy, you might find a lock box on the ground. Check these special drops for items, as well!

Silver Eagles

Silver Eagles are the currency of Columbia and they can be found just about everywhere. Silver Eagles are a very useful commodity, since you can use them to restore health and Salts, to buy ammo, and to purchase new upgrades to make your weapons and Vigors stronger.

However, there is a finite amount of Silver Eagles in the world, and even if you collect them all, you won’t be able to afford everything you want. Shop smart and only buy health, Salts, and ammo if you absolutely need them, so you can save the balance of currency to buy precious Vigor and weapon upgrades as they become available.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

You’ll find a wide array of consumables around Columbia, each with their own benefits. These fit into one of four categories:

Alcohol (Whiskey, Beer, etc.): These items restore a lot of health but also decrease Salts a significant amount. These beverages should only be used in an emergency because the trade-off of health for Salts usually isn’t worth it. These beverages can also make Booker drunk, which is required to unlock the Lost Weekend achievement.

Drinks (Soda, etc.): Non-alcoholic beverages restore the Salts Meter a small amount. When it comes to Salts, every little bit helps, so pick up these supplies whenever they are avaliable.

Cigarettes: Smoking restores Salts, but at the cost of a large portion of health. These are almost never worth using because Salts are fairly plentiful. You probably want to leave these alone, unless you are in a situation where you really need the Salts.

Food (Hot Dogs, Cotton Candy, etc.): These items restore the Health Meter a small amount. You’ll find plenty of them all around, but it might take a few of these items to fully restore Booker’s health if he is really hurting.

Weapons and Ammo

You can collect weapons either from defeated enemies or from random locations around Columbia. Watch especially for weapons that are simply placed in the world, as these can provide a hint about what’s coming up soon—if you see a Sniper Rifle on the ground, beware of enemy snipers!

You can find ammo for weapons separately. There are boxes of ammunition hidden all over the game world. These generally restock a large portion of your ammo supplies. It can also be scrounged from the corpses of your enemies, though this typically only replenishes your ammo a few shots at a time.

Medical Kits and Salts Phials

Food isn’t the only way you can restore your health and Salts, since you can also find Medical Kits and Salts Phials of various sizes located throughout Columbia. Small Medical Kits restore 25% of a meter, medium sizes restore 50%, and large sizes can fully restore a single meter. Salt Phials can range anywhere from 10-100%, but will generally restore more than finding drinks.

There are also many Vigor bottles in various places that can be picked up and used. If you haven’t received a particular Vigor before, it will grant a new power for you to use permanently! If you have already found it, it will completely restore the Salts Meter, so you should pick up any Vigor bottle that you see in Columbia—you never know, it might power Booker up permanently!

Gear

Booker can equip up to four pieces of ability-enhancing Gear to boost his powers and give him access to an array of new combat options and tactics.

Each piece of Gear attaches to one of four specific slots—Hats, Shirts, Boots, and Pants. Only one piece of Gear can be affixed to a slot at a time, so even if you have two different Hats, you can only equip one. Of course, you can just store any extra Gear in your inventory and swap it out when the need arises.

Whenever Gear is collected, the piece that is actually received is completely random—each time you play through the game, you may find a completely different set of Gear! Most Gear is carefully hidden, so you should always keep an eye out for more pieces. Also, you receive a piece every time you kill a Handyman, so pay close attention whenever you take one of these hearty foes down!

Infusions

These rare items give you the ability to permanently boost one of your meters, allowing you to increase your Health, Salts, or Shield Meter each time you pick one up. Each Infusion bottle only allows you to boost one stat, so keep this in mind before you decide on the choice of upgrade.

Infusions are very well-hidden and incredibly rare. They also fully restore whatever meter you’re upgrading. Consult the walkthrough of this guide to make sure that you find them all!

Lockpicks

Elizabeth has the unique ability to pick various locks located in the world. Many of these she can unlock with just her trusty hairpin, but often the most valuable items are hidden behind doors and safes that require lockpicks to open. These lockpicks are one-use only.

You typically find lockpicks one at a time but, occasionally, you’ll find bags containing three. Keep an eye out for lockpicks at all times to open the locked doors of Columbia and collect hidden items!

Keys and Ciphers

Occasionally, you might run into a chest that even Elizabeth can’t open with a lockpick. These chests require special keys that you’ll find elsewhere. If you see one of these boxes, you should search the area close to these chests and look for a key. These keys are also detailed throughout the walkthrough chapters of this guide.

There are also encrypted messages that Elizabeth can figure out as long as you have the code book for the message. If you see one of these messages, look around for a clue: it will point you to where the key to the puzzle is located. When you have both, you’ll be handsomely rewarded!

Buying a Better You

If you’re looking for a place to spend those hard-earned Silver Eagles, simply locate one of Columbia’s many vending machines! There are three types of vending machines found in Columbia, each with its own set of items:

Dollar Bill: This store replenishes your consumable items and meters, since it sells healing items, Salts, and ammo for any weapon you’ve run into.

Minuteman’s Armory: The armory sells upgrades for your weapons, allowing you to deal more damage, carry more ammo, and more! These upgrades are extremely important, and you’ll definitely need them the further you get in the game.

Veni! Vidi! Vigor!: This fanciful vending machine sells permanent upgrades to your Vigors, giving them enhanced efficiency and (at times) completely new functionality!

In general, you will want to avoid replenishing your supplies using the Dollar Bill if at all possible: there is only so much money you can find, but you can scrounge up plenty of ammo everywhere. Instead, you should save your money for new upgrades for your favorite Vigors and weapons.

Whenever you reach a new area, check out any new Veni! Vidi! Vigor and Minuteman’s Armory machines you find because they receive new stock all the time!