BFG (weapon)

The weapon first appeared in 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, which could bounce off floors and ceilings. However, it was scrapped as developer John Romero stated that it "looked like Christmas" and severely slowed the game down due to the large number of on-screen sprites.

Computer Gaming World described the BFG 9000 in the first commercial Doom game as "the Ultimate Weapon".[2] It is a large energy weapon that fires giant balls of green plasma as well as 40 invisible rays in a cone shape. 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 shot, or deal huge damage to singular enemies. 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.

In Doom 3, the BFG 9000 is a charged weapon: holding down the trigger causes the weapon to accumulate energy before release, resulting in a more powerful shot. Overcharging the BFG too much will cause it to overheat and explode, killing the player instantly.

Quake II and Quake III Arena pay homage to the BFG 9000 with a pair of weapons both called the BFG10K. The Quake II version fires a slow plasma glob that fires rays at any enemies in range and line-of-sight. The Quake III Arena version of the BFG fire a series of fast plasma orbs, and acts quite like the Rocket Launcher (rocket jumping can also be done with the BFG10K). The BFG10K from Quake III also appears in OpenArena (different look, but same behaviour) and Quake Live (with slightly modified characteristics). Rage also pays homage to the BFG 9000 with a weapon known as the "Authority Pulse Cannon", which fires "BFG Rounds".

In the Doom movie, the "bio force gun" fires a bright blue projectile that appears to burst on impact and spray a caustic substance over its target and the surrounding area.

The BFG makes a return in the 2016 reboot, but unlike in its first two appearances, it follows the mechanics of its Quake II rendition, firing a projectile that shoots beams at enemies. The game itself doesn't resolve the acronym "BFG" either in-game or in its codex entries, although one challenge in the game's final campaign level involving the BFG is called "Big [REDACTED] Gun" as a nod to the original vulgar name.[3] In that game's pinball adaptation, it is called the "Big Fancy Gun", and is the most powerful weapon that the Doom Slayer can obtain;[4] collecting it will grant the player an extra ball. It also makes a return in 2020's Doom Eternal, where it's functionally identical to the 2016 version; it is introduced as the main component of the BFG 10000, which appears as a massive interplanetary cannon mounted on Mars' moon, Phobos, used by the Doom Slayer to shoot a hole into the surface of Mars.[5]

The BFG's internal game mechanics are two-fold. When the trigger is pulled, there is a pause of 30 game tics (≈0.857 seconds) before a large, relatively slow moving green and white plasma projectile is ejected. The actual projectile deals a significant amount of damage (between 100 and 800 hit points of damage, in multiples of 100), but the majority of the damage is dealt 16 game tics (≈0.457 seconds) after the direct hit in a 45-degree (90 degree wide) cone originating from the player who fired the shot, via 40 invisible tracers, causing each tracer to deal random damage of between 15 and 120 hit points of damage (but is limited to between 49 and 87 hit points of damage due to the pseudo-random number generator that Doom, Doom II: Hell on Earth and Final Doom uses) on a solid object within 1,024 map units.

Standing closer to the target causes them to absorb more tracers. The direction of the cone corresponds to the original shot, but it radiates from the player's current location at the time of the main projectile's impact. The player can move, even into a different room, and deal damage there, given enough time before the projectile's impact.[6]

"BFR" was the codename for SpaceX's privately funded launch vehicle announced by Elon Musk in September 2017.[10][11][12][13][14] SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has stated that BFR stands for "Big Falcon Rocket".[15] However, Elon Musk has explained that although BFR was the code name, he drew inspiration from the BFG weapon in the Doom video games.[16] The BFR had been referred to informally by the media and internally at SpaceX as "Big Fucking Rocket".[17][18][19][20] The upper stage was called Big Falcon Ship (unofficially "Big Fucking Ship").[21][22][23][24][25] The BFR was eventually officially renamed to "Starship".[26]

The BFG has turned into a design philosophy of sorts for a gun which fills the role of a large, overpowered weapon which deals a large amount of damage and/or kills a large amount of enemies in a single shot, and is usually only balanced out by the game not giving you many opportunities to use it. These techniques for limiting your use include giving the weapon a cripplingly low total ammo count, placing ammo pickups very sparsely throughout the game, giving the player the weapon very late in the game, hiding the weapon behind a side quest or secret area, and making it otherwise awkward or cumbersome to use or implement in normal combat. Perhaps the most iconic example of this is Fallout 4's "M42 "Fat Man" Launcher", a weapon that catapults miniature nuclear bombs, which is infamous for its comedically massive kill radius (which is often large enough to kill the player). While weapons like the Fat Man immediately come to mind, this same philosophy has been applied to everything from heavy sniper rifles to miniguns to rocket launchers to sci-fi weaponry, in every type of shooter.

The BCG from Super Animal Royale is a reference to DOOM's BFG. It is a catapult weapon that launches eggs and is appropriately named the 'Big Clucking Gun', keeping with the animal theme of the battle royale. They also made a more direct reference known as the 'Retro BCG', which is a skin that is akin to the original BFG from Doom Classic. Firing distance is based on how long the player holds the trigger, akin to charging up the BFG for a stronger shot.