Gibs



Gibs are the little bits of internal remains (organs, flesh and bone) from a victim, usually caused when the victim's body ends up exploding or being torn to pieces. Gib death can refer to the victim dying upon this final state, while the term, "gibbing" can apply to making the victim undergo gib death.

Gib death occurs when the victim has suffered from an overkill attack that instantly drains their hitpoints to less than the negative amount of their initial health. For instance, a Zombieman having an initial health of 20 hitpoints, would require their final health to be less than -20 HP to gib them.

Only certain characters have a distinct animation sequence to denote a gib death. In Doom, a special death sound, DSSLOP (a squishing sound), is also played. While the BFG and telefragging can be used on most monsters to meet the above damage threshold, the normal death animation will still be used for any monster that does not have a gibbing animation.

During gameplay, there are various methods of gibbing enemies. The rocket launcher and the BFG9000 are the most efficient ways, although setting off explosive barrels at nearby targets or punching with a berserk fist can also work well. Zombieman and shotgun guy will sometimes get gibbed by a few shots from the plasma gun. Getting telefragged also results in gib death, as it deals 10,000 damage.

A different form of gibbing occurs when corpses are crushed either by a crusher or a closing door, resulting in a pool of blood.

An arch-vile can resurrect a gibbed corpse as though it were not gibbed, although the animation is again different.

Game variations


In the PlayStation port, the status bar face explodes when the player experiences a gibbing death and the DSSLOP sound is also played when a door or a crusher create a pool of blood. In the 3DO port, the player's face always explodes whether or not he actually gibs.

In the Game Boy Advance ports, gibs are notably missing and only the normal death animations are featured.

Gibbing in Doom 3 is readily seen by attacking zombies with the shotgun at close range, or hitting corpses with the flashlight. In the Doom, any normal non-boss enemy can be gibbed by weapons that are powerful enough, including (amongst others) the rocket launcher, Gauss cannon, BFG-9000, and attacks from the player's berserk-powered fists.

In Heretic and Hexen, the threshold to suffer a gib death is lower, set at half the health rather than full health. For example a player is gibbed at -51 health and lower, instead of -101 health. If Corvus or Baratus is gibbed, his skull will fly into the air, and the camera detaches from the player's body to follow the skull, allowing him to see his own remains.