Supercharge

The very first supercharge found in the Doom universe, in a secret area on E1M2: Nuclear Plant.

The supercharge powerup (called soul sphere in the manuals) is an item that appears as a floating blue sphere with a glassy appearance and a pulsing humanoid face inside. Picking one up increases the player's health by 100 percent, up to a maximum of 200 percent (or 199 in early versions of Doom), and the player receives the message "supercharge!".

At one point in Doom's development, it was intended for the player to have a limited number of lives. The Doom Bible notes that "the soul sphere contains the life energy of a human soul" (hence the appearance and naming) and that collecting it would award an extra life. That behavior would have made it resemble the 1-up (extra life) powerup from Wolfenstein 3D, which is somewhat similar in appearance.

This item is included in the items percentage displayed at the end of each level.

Supercharge data
Thing type	2013 (decimal), 7DD (hex)
Appears in	Shareware Doom Registered Doom Ultimate Doom Doom II/Final Doom
Radius	20
Sprite	SOUL
Class	Artifact Pickup

Appearance statistics

The IWADs contain the following numbers of supercharges:

Game	1-2	3	4-5
The Ultimate Doom	37	37	38
Doom II: Hell on Earth	37	39	39
TNT: Evilution	34	28	29
The Plutonia Experiment	28	28	29

Trivia

• In a beta of Doom, soul spheres originally gave 100 health and 100 points of armor. It is assumed this armor is green armor due to the amount.
• In the Doom RPG, the soul sphere gives the player maximum health and maximum armor, similar to the megasphere in Doom II.
• The face inside the supercharge bears a close resemblance to the ouch face.

Doom 3

Soul spheres are generated by the apparatus in D3DM3.

The soul sphere (now called megahealth, in the vein of Quake games) makes an appearance in Doom 3, although in multiplayer only. It sets the player health points to 200. The megahealth looks extremely similar to the classic supercharge, with the prominent baby face not unlike that of a cherub.