BFG (weapon)

BFG
The BFG 9000 as depicted in the Doom (top), Doom 3 (middle) and in Doom (2016) (bottom)
First game	Doom (1993)
Created by	Tom Hall
Designed by	Adrian Carmack,Kevin Cloud

The BFG is a fictional weapon found in many video game titles, mostly in first-person shooter series such as Doom and Quake.

The abbreviation BFG stands for "Big Fragging Gun" as described in Tom Hall's original Doom design document and in the user manual of Doom II: Hell on Earth. The Quake II manual says it stands for "Big, Uh, Freakin' Gun". These euphemistic labels imply the more profane name of the BFG, "Big Fucking Gun". Another expurgated version of the name used in the Doom motion picture is "Bio Force Gun". The versions found in the Doom games are called "BFG 9000" and those in Quake "BFG 10K". In mods, various other versions made by fans can be found.

The first appearance of the weapon is the press beta release of Doom. In that version, the BFG 9000 released a cloud of 80 small plasma balls (randomly green or red) per shot.

In the first commercial Doom game, the BFG 9000 is a large energy weapon that fires giant balls of green plasma. The most powerful weapon in the game, it causes major damage to most types of enemies and can clear an entire room of foes in one use. A direct hit from it is often an instant kill. The player is unaffected by the splash damage, which makes it possible to use the BFG 9000 safely in close quarters, unlike some of the other powerful weapons. In the first Doom, the weapon can only be picked up in the third and fourth episodes. The BFG 9000 also appears virtually unchanged in Doom II: Hell on Earth, Final Doom, Doom 64, and Doom RPG.

The BFG's internal game mechanics are two-fold: the actual projectile deals a huge amount of damage, but after that, a large dose of damage is dealt in a cone facing away from the player who fired the shot; this increases the weapon's devastating area-of-effect. One peculiar quirk about the internal workings of the game code is that it remembers the direction the player fired the shot in, but not the position, meaning that the player is allowed to move far away even into an entirely different room, and still deal damage to whoever is in that room depending on the timing of the projectile's impact.