I grew up playing a lot of video games in the 90s and 2000s and found that video game developers and designers started to get a lot more creative with the health bar systems when consoles shifted to 3D after years of simple health bars or number of lives.
Nowadays, the humble health bar regularly shows more than just how close you are to death; it reflects a game’s style, tone, and sometimes even its sense of humour. From hardcore horror to funny platformers, developers have often taken the simple concept of a life gauge and transformed it into something distinctive. Here’s a look at some of the most iconic and creatively implemented health systems in gaming history, including some oddball innovations that anyone who has played these games will likely remember.
Immersive Interfaces: Dead Space & Jurassic Park: Trespasser
Dead Space is often praised for its immersive UI, especially the glowing health bar embedded into Isaac Clarke’s spine. But Jurassic Park: Trespasser did it years earlier, albeit far more awkwardly.
In the cult-classic 1998 title Jurassic Park: Trespasser, health wasn’t shown via a HUD. Instead, the protagonist Anne had a heart-shaped tattoo on her chest that faded as she took damage. To see your health, you had to physically look down at your own low-cut top while controlling a janky arm that flopped around like a rubber hose. It was an ambitious attempt at immersion, and while it didn’t work flawlessly, it was undeniably original.
Combined with Dead Space’s sleek version of diegetic design, these titles showcase two ends of the same creative spectrum: both tried to remove traditional HUDs, but only one did it with finesse.
Platformer Personality: Super Mario, Banjo-Kazooie & Conker’s Bad Fur Day
3D Platformers have long been creative with health indicators, often opting for charm and style over realism.
Super Mario Series – Power-Ups Over Points
In classic Super Mario games, health is symbolised by power-ups rather than bars. Small Mario gets hit and dies. Grab a mushroom, and you get bigger and can take an additional hit before shrinking again. Grab a fire flower? You’ve got two hits and can shoot fire, until you return to the regular big Mario and then back to little Mario.
Super Mario 64 introduced a more traditional segmented health meter in the form of a pie chart that also doubled as your breath meter underwater. While not flashy, it was intuitive and was replenished by collecting coins.
Banjo-Kazooie – Honeycombs and Humour
Rare’s Banjo-Kazooie used a charming honeycomb health system. Each hit removed one or more honeycomb cells, and collecting golden honeycombs increased your max health. Visually thematic and entirely in tune with the game’s whimsical world, it stood out by being tactile and light-hearted without sacrificing clarity.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day – Breaking off a Piece of the Fourth Wall
Then there’s Conker’s Bad Fur Day, which took things further into meta-territory. The health system was literally represented by a block of “anti-gravity” chocolate … because why not? Every hit broke some off, and Conker cheekily acknowledged how many “lives” he had left, turning the system into a running gag.
Like much of the game, Conker’s health mechanic was designed to mock traditional gaming tropes, but did so cleverly rather than lazily.
Together, these platformers show how a simple concept like health can be twisted to reflect the tone of a game, whether it’s epic, silly, or somewhere in between.
FPS Foundations: GoldenEye 007 and the TimeSplitters Series
Before regenerating health became the norm in games like Halo and Call of Duty, first-person shooters like GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64 helped define how damage feedback could feel tactile and tense. The game used two simple bars – an orange one on the left for health, one on the right in blue for body armour – styled as part of a minimalist spy-themed HUD. This design wasn’t flashy, but it was precise, legible, and I actually believe it may have been intended to appear as part of Bond’s watch, which he looks down at when you pause the game.
Goldeneye’s body armour always took the brunt of damage first, so grabbing vests before a firefight was just as strategic as landing a headshot. Unlike your actual health bar, the body armour could be replaced, which was as close to healing as you got.
The spirit of GoldenEye lived on in the TimeSplitters series, which was developed by many of the same ex-Rare staff. TimeSplitters, TimeSplitters 2, and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect all retained the dual-bar setup, with health and armour displayed in bold colours for instant readability. But unlike GoldenEye’s grounded tone, TimeSplitters embraced wild, chaotic, arcade-style combat, with characters ranging from futuristic cyborgs to gingerbread men. The UI had to support that pace, and it did so brilliantly: damage registered in chunky visual bites, healing was obvious and satisfying, and players could assess a chaotic firefight at a glance.
What made these systems so memorable wasn’t just their function, but their feel. They made health a visible, ever-present part of moment-to-moment play without getting in the way. In an era before regenerating screens and cinematic overlays, GoldenEye and TimeSplitters proved that a well-designed health bar could be as iconic as the weapons you wielded.
Goldeneye’s other spiritual successor, Perfect Dark’s health bar, was far less memorable to me.
Heart and Soul: Zelda & Hollow Knight
Both The Legend of Zelda and Hollow Knight use heart- or mask-based systems, visually conveying vulnerability while offering room for growth.
In Zelda, gaining heart containers after each major victory reinforces a feeling of progress. Meanwhile, Hollow Knight’s system forces players to balance combat aggression with careful healing via “soul,” creating tension and strategy with every health-related choice.
They may appear simple, but these health systems are among the most emotionally resonant in gaming, subtly telling you, “You’ve earned this life.”
Tension Through Design: Resident Evil & Dark Souls
The Resident Evil series, particularly the earlier titles, used descriptive status like “Fine” or “Caution,” and even heartbeat monitors instead of traditional bars. This minimalist system heightened the horror, forcing players to manage uncertainty and risk.
Dark Souls, on the other hand, makes you watch every lost pixel of your bar with dread. Add in poison, bleed, and curse effects, and you have a system that turns managing health into a form of psychological warfare.
These games prove that losing health can be more terrifying than losing the game itself.
Humour, Style and UI Evolution: Doom & Metal Gear Solid 3
In Doom (1993), your health bar came with a face. Specifically, the Doomguy’s. His increasingly pained expression reflected your condition in real-time, adding a lot of personality to the game. The facial feedback was so expressive that it became part of the game’s identity.
Later, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater redefined survival mechanics. Beyond the standard health bar, you had to hunt, heal broken limbs, and manage stamina. It was part RPG, part military sim, all Kojima. It’s still one of the most intricate systems ever integrated into an action-adventure title.
Minimalism as a Feature: Modern Warfare & NieR: Automata
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare ditched health bars altogether. Instead, players were alerted to damage by a red-tinted screen and pounding heart. It made gameplay more cinematic, and while the system is now common, it was once revolutionary.
NieR: Automata took customisation to another level. Want no HUD? Pull out the health chip. Just don’t remove your OS chip unless you want to die. This playful, risky system blurred the line between UI and narrative, and few games have tried anything like it since.
Conclusion: The Pulse of Game Design
Health bars may seem like an essential technical element, but they’re often a canvas for creativity. Whether tucked into a character’s suit, symbolised by some kind of food, or removed entirely in the name of immersion, these systems help define the tone and tempo of a game.
From Banjo-Kazooie’s sweet honeycombs to Jurassic Park: Trespasser’s weird chest tattoo, health systems reflect how much thought developers put into their worlds. And in an era of increasingly cinematic and minimalist design, the classic health bar remains a core part of what makes video games tick, no matter how it’s dressed up.
