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1999 Mode / Difficulty

During the creation of BioShock Infinite the development team gave as its stated intention a plan to craft the game so that it equals the basic structure and options that have come to be accepted as the standard in the industry - and difficulty levels were simply a given as far as that went, at least with respect to the Easy/Medium/Hard pattern that is well understood by gamers the world over.

The decision to include a difficulty level above Hard that they called 1999 Mode (they could easily have called it Hurt Me Now I Want Pain) fit right into the strategy that they were following, but unlike the harder-than-hard level found in most games, the 1999 Difficulty Level is something very different.

The Dev Team Speaks
In a bid to seek clarity with respect to 1999 the developers made it crystal clear during several interviews and promo videos that the 1999 mode was NOT intended for even serious gamers, but rather is a cut above in difficulty and is therefore really aimed at hard core gamers. It was stated (and not with tongue in cheek) that gamers of a level below hard core are likely to find 1999 both frustrating and ultimately something they will hate.

Gamers who fit into the hard core level of the population will, however, find 1999 pretty challenging!

Unlocking 1999

There are basically two ways that this can be accomplished - either beating the game on Medium or Hard level, which will automagically unlock 1999 and the associated Achievement, or they can enter the Konami Code and instantly unlock it (and the associated Achievement).

The Konami Code Story: First used in the 1986 NES title Gradius, and subsequnetly in following games such as Contra and others, the Konami Code was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto, who was on the dev team that ported the side-scrolling shooter called Gradius from its original arcade cabinet style to home console style, during play-testing various elements in the game were so difficult and painful to play through that he ended up creating the cheat code to give the player-testers the full set of power-ups pretty much on-demand.

Giving the play-testers access to the power-ups helped immensely in getting the game through its test levels, and obtaining final approval, and the hidden cheat was so well-received by the testing teams that when it came time to isolate the code and trim it out of the final release candidate, Hashimoto decided not to do it.

Without that fact being common knowledge, the game was released and, it was not long before the existence of the code spread (largely by word-of-mouth it being the pre-web, pre-blog era), and the Konami Code became something of a legend in the minds (and hearts) of players, who thought it the best thing since sliced bread!

The popularity of the code and the positive reaction that resulted later caused other dev teams to adopt it (or a variation of it) for other titles, and its use quickly expanded beyond Konami to other dev teams at other studios.

The Konami Code itself is executed from the game title screen, as follows:

Xbox 360: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A
PS3: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Circle, X

1999 Mode Core Changes

In addition to the mobs being tougher, harder to kill, and able to dish out far more punishment, there are also other significant differences in the form of severe restrictions on game play, including?

• When the player dies with less than $100 their game ends. Game Over.
  
• The in-game hint system is disabled.
  
• There are far fewer re-spawn points.
  
• Severely reduced “found” ammunition.
  
• Player health is lower, and depletes faster.
  

When playing the game in 1999 mode it is particularly important that the game be played in a highly defensive mode, which is just the opposite of how it is usually played. The player will find that avoiding battle whenever possible, hiding, and dealing damage from as far away from the enemy as possible are all keys to success.

The most critical edge is obtained through a combination of high accuracy with long-range shots, upgrading your weapon damage as soon as you can manage it, managing and conserving money, and upgrading your infusion path with preference given to the order Shields / Salts / Health (which again is pretty much the reverse of how it is usually done in the regular modes of game play).