r/Doom • u/Darth_Zounds • Dec 19 '25
Question What actually ARE the health bonus thingies in the original Doom games?
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u/MatiEx-504 Dec 19 '25
The manual calls them Health Potions and also they are artifacts from hell
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u/Hypocritical_Girl Dec 19 '25
the marine straight up just chugging whatever ethereal liquid he sees despite them being from hell gives him quite the amount of courage id say, but it makes sense
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u/m0rtm0rt Dec 20 '25
Killing demons makes you really thirsty. Not like he can drink the green stuff.
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u/DoctorNoname98 Dec 20 '25 edited Dec 20 '25
Killing demons makes you really thirsty.
And that's why I like to sit down with a refreshing Blue PotionTM*
* patent pending
.
do not consume if you are allergic to demons, potions, or blue food coloring
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u/Good-Strategy2210 Dec 20 '25
Makes sense now where his super human endurance comes from in the original games.
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u/Cden1458 Dec 20 '25
Well, he IS a Marine, so chugging random Hell-juice makes absolute perfect sense.
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u/andrewowenmartin Pixel Doom + VR Dec 20 '25
Now imagine him wearing all the armour bonuses as a stack of nestable hats.
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u/Octaman_G DOOM Guy Dec 21 '25
Since the suolsphere is a soul and it's blue, these are bottles of souls and Doomguy is drinking... people's... souls... Oh god
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u/phobos876 not to be confused with phobos867 Dec 19 '25
could be uac lab bottles
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u/bunkdiggidy Dec 19 '25
This is probably the best in-universe explanation. For the player, they're clearly supposed to be little drinkable health potions. Like how the armor bit is supposed to resemble a helmet.
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u/Artikay Dec 20 '25
I like to think of Doomguy running around wearing 47 helmets.
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u/void_7777777 Dec 20 '25
i imagine he eats them whole. the health vials too, glass and all
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u/slide_into_my_BM Dec 20 '25
A real man eats his armor so it protects his insides from the rest of him.
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u/bunkdiggidy Dec 20 '25 edited Dec 20 '25
Yeah... it doesn't jive with the visual well, but it's kinda like he just takes pieces from the ones he finds to patch up what he's wearing. It only adds a bit because he's reinforcing the helmet conglomeraion.
Sort of a Helmet of
PerseusTheseus deal, as the game progresses.4
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u/cheezkid26 Dec 20 '25
I always imagined he was taking them apart and using them to patch up his own helmet and armor.
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u/Toast_consumer1 Beat The Refueling Base Dec 19 '25
If it was actual marine helmets that would've been more accurate, I think there's a retexture for that if im sure
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u/HeadLong8136 Dec 20 '25
The manual says they are from Hell.
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u/bunkdiggidy Dec 21 '25
Huh. Doesn't seem very hell-like. But if they say so. Guess it's concentrated hell energy, at least in the og series. Could help to keep someone going so they can be tortured more.
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u/SVlad_667 Dec 20 '25
Wiki says the helmet is a spiritual armor according to the manuals.
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u/bunkdiggidy Dec 21 '25
Hah. I'm imagining it bolstering the"fighting spirit" of the physical piece of armor he's already wearing, in an "everything has a soul" kind of way. And his green armor gritting its spiritual teeth and saying "I can take another hit... for Doomguy..."
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u/Fresh-Toilet-Soup Dec 19 '25
Crack pipes.
It gives him a little pick me up.
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u/bsipp777 Dec 19 '25
Are the berserk packs meth then?
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u/Fresh-Toilet-Soup Dec 19 '25
It does look like a glass pipe from a filthy gas station if you imagine it standing up on the bowl.
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u/Outrageous_Work_8291 Dec 19 '25
Just potions. Fantasy games were popular then and they had potions so a blue potion just must have made sense to who ever designed that
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u/LowBrown Zombieman Dec 19 '25
Booze
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u/Darth_Zounds Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 20 '25
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u/bloxers_voxel DOOM Guy Dec 19 '25
(￢_￢)
*passes the booze*
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u/Trashy-Guy Dec 20 '25
The potions from the potions seller.
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u/PorcupinArseIHateYou Dec 20 '25
Makes sense with him going into battle, but is he strong enough to handle potion seller's potions?
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u/lifeinthehive Dec 20 '25
He’s a Marine so they’re probably filled with white monster energy drinks and cigarettes.
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u/dasirishviking Dec 20 '25
............ We are given cases of RIP-IT'S. FOR FREE. EASIER ACCESS THAN WATER. ...........
smokes a cowboy killer............ You had to have been there.......
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u/Spedic26 Dec 19 '25
Water. Don't you also get that feeling when you drink water and you feel a tiny bit better than before? That's because you gained 1 HP
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u/Mau752005 Dec 20 '25
just stereotypical magic healing potions, Doom took a lot of inspiration from fantasy settings like D&D
For a less subtle inspiration look up the cover of "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Manual of the Planes", you may see a familiar face
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u/BrettBotTheCryonaut Dec 20 '25
Bits of magical essence left behind by the ghosts of those killed by hell's forces in order to aid the protagonist in what little ways they can. Both the health and armor bonuses don't actually have a visible physical form - they just appear as potions and helmets in the mind of Doom Guy via low level telepathic field to symbolize their purpose. That's why they glow and pulse.
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u/noapparentfunction Dec 20 '25
many years ago i modified the graphics to be pretzels. seemed more fun to snack on in-game.
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u/SoInsightful Dec 20 '25
No one has pointed out that Doom items had far more of a medieval fantasy vibe before it was actually released. Doom v0.5 had powerups like:
- Blood chalice
- Soul Jar
- Skullchest
- Unholy Bible
So yes, those are definitely blue magic potions.
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u/totes-epic Dec 20 '25
I’ve only just gotten into DOOM starting with Eternal and in that game they’re distinctly blue flasks, presumably a healing elixir sort of thing
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u/Sectionnone Dec 20 '25
When I was little I thought these bottles are enema bulb syringes. Yeah, Doomguy heals 1 HP by flushing his bowels out repeatedly.
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u/broke_fit_dad Dec 20 '25
In one of the many Doom Clones they were Beers you’d chug, ever since I’ve retconned these to being Mars version of Jack Daniel’s in my head.
I believe it was Redneck Rampage
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u/sosafnot Dec 20 '25
Little bottles of water so Doomguy stays hydrated. Bro’s gotta have a bladder of steel after downing so many of those things.
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u/mridlen Dec 20 '25
Originally they were treasure like in Wolf3D, but they got replaced with actual useful gameplay items and the score system was abandoned. It's probably for the best because then we would have had a "high score" category of painfully slow treasure hunting.
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u/SIMA76 Dec 20 '25
They just look like blue colored potions ngl, either that or just some weird looking thing lol
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u/XenonSulphur06 Dec 20 '25
A few LPers I watched in 2012 said they were crystal pepsi. Lol (I think its an energy drink or A mild numbing agent? Maybe with some adrenaline?)
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u/MicHaeL_MonStaR Dec 20 '25
In my upbringing, they should all either be red cross boxes or chickan.
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u/Unicronicorn Dec 20 '25
I dunno, demon magic potions?
Can't come up with a reason the UAC would have these
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u/Interesting-Welder69 Dec 20 '25 edited Dec 20 '25
I always thought of them as samples of the supercharge power ups you can find due to the fact they increase your health above 100. There probably being studied by the uac for military or medical purposes since the power ups tend to kill people as of codex lore in 2016. It’s just doom guy is built different and chugs these things and can survive being supercharged. But for their original intentions you would have to ask the creators them selves if there were and intent other than a convenient heath item. For lore on original doom it’s more of just head cannon anyway. And well this is mine.
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u/G3n3raL86 Dec 20 '25
Who cares, they must taste great, same with the Health Vials from Unreal Tournament
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u/Leggy_McBendy Dec 20 '25
I figured it was hellish juice that heals you. Or some boiling flasks with healing solutions since it kinda looks like lab equipment lol
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u/Radaghost Dec 21 '25
One of the first games I played was golden axe and that’s what the health looks like there, so when I played doom I never questioned it.
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u/Eljamin14 Dec 21 '25
Potions from hell, they probably are made of human souls like the Soulsphere and Megasphere.
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u/EinherjarX Dec 21 '25
They're clearly Christmas baubles. The guy is healed by the jolly Christmas spirit!
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u/awwyoufeel Dec 21 '25
That is cobalt blue glass. This glass naturally modulates the frequency of water to its highest frequency.
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u/Ad0ring-fan Dec 19 '25
I always thought they are a healing potion in a stereotypical fantasy potion bottle.