History Main / SubsystemDamage

* ''VideoGame/{{SiN}}'' had different armor points for legs, torso and head.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': The [[KillerRobot Guardians]] work this way. Destroying a Guardian Stalker's legs or a Guardian Skywatcher's propellers will reduce their mobility or even completely immobilize them save for their laser turrets.

* In LARP/DagorhirBattleGames, getting hit on an arm or a leg prevents the player from using that arm or leg (the arm must be tucked behind the back and cannot hold onto anything, and the loss of a leg means they must fall onto their knees/kneel). A death needs two limbs to be lost or a hit on the torso.

** In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII: [[UpdatedRerelease Final Mix+]]'', [[BonusBoss Vexen's]] shield has its own HP bar. You're actually ''[[ShieldedCoreBoss forced]]'' to destroy it first, as [[LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe you can't harm its owner]] before you do. The shield will eventually [[HealingFactor respawn]], though.

* The ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' series has this for its large monsters. Certain parts of these monsters can be broken to grant additional drops; likewise, certain parts grant extra attack options, and destroying or severing these parts impairs these attacks in some way if not disabling them entirely.
** ''Monster Hunter Frontier'' has Zenith monsters. Individuals that have unusually developed limbs such as claws, tails and wings, when you break these parts the monster in question are ''significantly'' weakened and often lose the ability to control their elements and use certain attacks.
** Any derivative of Monster Hunter, like ''VideoGame/GodEater'' and ''VideoGame/{{Dauntless}}'', is expected to have a similar system in place, both to increase what drops you can acquire and/or to impair the giant opponent's ability to fight.

* ''VideoGame/HybridHeaven'', as well.

* The [[MechaMooks Guardians]] in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' work this way. Destroying a Guardian Stalker's legs or a Guardian Skywatcher's propellers will reduce their mobility or even completely immobilize them save for their laser turrets.

** Any derivative of Monster Hunter, like ''VideoGame/GodEater'' and ''VideoGame/Dauntless'', is expected to have a similar system in place, both to increase what drops you can acquire and/or to impair the giant opponent's ability to fight.

* In ''Videogame/DoomEternal'', certain enemies have specific areas that can be damaged to disable them, typically {{Arm Cannon}}s or turrets that can be destroyed to force demons into close range.

* VideoGame/{{Vindictus}}, there is a mild example. Several bosses have "break offs" attached to a part of their body. whenever you hit that part with a smash, they will play a flinch animation (like reeling back and shaking hit head for a helmet or mask). Hit the point a few more times and something will break off, usually dropping an exclusive item and sometimes also weakening the boss in some way.

* In the ''[[{{Videogame/X}} X-Universe]]'' series, ships taking heavy damage to their hull will begin to fail, with their weapons being destroyed, the engine tunings being ruined, and various software suites being wrecked. It's not possible to directly target certain subsystems, but some weapons are designed specifically to strip out weapons and electronics, such as the Ion Disruptor. Mechanically it operates by doing the bare minimum of hull damage, just enough to keep the RNG rolling to see if stuff breaks.

** ''[=BattleTech=]'' is in the unique situation wherein it has both CriticalExistenceFailure and this. A single [[ArmorPiercingAttack penetrating hit]] on the cockpit, or 3 engine hits will instantly take out a mech, and any given shot has a small but non-zero chance of doing this. At the same time, you could have a mech with both arms and both side torsos blown off, no armor left, 2 engine hits, a single gyro hit and both hips damaged and it will [[WhyWontYouDie still be able to move around]] (provided it [[DeathByFallingOver doesn't fail a movement roll and crush the cockpit while falling]] due to damaged leg actuators) and keep firing if it has weapons on the head or center torso.

* Some enemies and bosses in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' have parts that can be targeted and broken to expose a weak spot, cripple their ability to attack or move, and/or get some extra items after they're defeated.

* ''VideoGame/{{Chippy}}'' allows you to destroy and sever individual pixels and guns of bosses. Manny guns are required to be destroyed in order to damage the core.

* In ''[[VideoGame/PacificFleet Atlantic Fleet]]'', your hits can deal damage to various subsystems, depending on where they hit. Some can be repaired (if not destroyed), while others cannot. The obvious targets are main guns (which have their own armor stat independent of side or deck armor). Destroying them results in an explosion animation. Secondary guns on larger ships can be damaged but not destroyed. Damaging propulsion results in ships slowing down, while damaging steering results in them being unable to affect their turn (if they were going straight, they'll keep doing that, if they were turning, they'll keep doing that too). It's also possible to reduce targeting accuracy by damaging/destroying RADAR and spot positions. Carries with destroyed/damaged flight decks can't launch or recover aircraft. Destroyers/corvettes with damaged/destroyed SONAR can't detect submarines, while subs with damaged/destroyed SONAR can't detect any other ship or sub if not surfaced or at periscope depth.

* ''VideoGame/Chippy'' allows you to destroy and sever individual pixels and guns of bosses. Manny guns are required to be destroyed in order to damage the core.

* The killbots in ''VideoGame/{{Receiver}}'' can be disabled (or ''incompletely'' disabled) by shooting out any of several subsystems.

Subtrope of MultipleLifeBars. See also CognizantLimbs, for the {{Boss|Battle}} variety. Can sometimes result in a SharedLifeMeter depending on how the game chooses to display the damage. ShowsDamage is a visual-only variation of this.

* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', every non-humanoid enemy has at least one additional appendage with its own HP separate from the enemy's main HP bar where you can lock-on to and destroy, which can stop an enemy from using certain Arts and can drop a useful item for crafting. Also, certain skills can either increase the damage done to appendages or negate appendage damage for direct damage. But be warned, ''this can also happen to you'' if you are in your own [[HumongousMecha Skell]], taking out your own arts until you can repair it after the battle is over.

* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' has separate health for each body part of an entity. As each is damaged, a corresponding change occurs: As your arms are damaged, you can't aim as well; if one arm's health is completely depleted, you can't use two-handed weapons; and if both arms are completely dead, accuracy is so low as to be useless. As your legs take damage, you run slower; if one leg is completely dead, you can't run at all; and if both legs are dead, you can only crawl. As your head takes damage, your vision becomes murky and accuracy suffers slightly, and your torso (which takes most of the damage) even causes slight performance drops in all areas as it goes from green to yellow to red. Thankfully, you can choose to heal individual body parts with items. The loss of arms and legs is a major inconvenience, but non-life-threatening (and can fairly easily be recovered from, since even 1 HP recovery on a limb makes it "not dead" any more), but if either your torso or head lose all HP, you die. As a last note, the torso and head take twice the damage as the limbs from the same attack, which makes sense since all the vital organs are there.

* ''G-Nome'', a game about HumongousMecha, tracks damage to the various parts of your mecha. These being bipedal or quadrupedal vehicles, losing a leg is as immediately fatal as losing the cockpit.'
* ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'': This can be done to enemies in single player. Hitting an arm can worsen their accuracy, and hitting a leg can impact their running speed. Arm damage can cause them to drop their gun, and the gun itself can even be shot out of their hand. However, Joanna as well as every character in multiplayer have no subsystem damage at all.
* In most of the ''VideoGame/GhostRecon'' and ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'' series, getting hit in the limbs will incur some very serious penalties. Getting hit in the head or center mass usually results in a OneHitKill.

** Occurs with the player's interface in ''VideoGame/HaloReach'''s "Lone Wolf" epilogue.

* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} 3'' has this to some extent, on vehicles equipped with Reactive Armour: Each side has its own plate of Reactive Armour that can be disabled after one hit from an Anti-Tank weapon, need to be repaired separately from other plates of armour and the vehicle's general health and multiple can be maintained even if the vehicle is Disabled or destroyed.

** The first game has some elements of this (mainly with Star Destroyer shield generators).

** ''VideoGame/XWingAlliance'' adds ion weaponry that can disable systems.
** In every game in the series, the player's starfighters feature their own form of subsystem damage, in which weapons, engines, etc., are knocked out for a set period of time before being automatically repaired. This generally only comes into play with the sturdier craft, and even then is often just a prelude to the player's ship being destroyed outright, however under the right circumstances it can make for some tense moments for the player while they sit dead in space or flying in a perfectly predictable straight line while they wait for their engines or flight controls to be repaired.

* In ''VideoGame/NexusTheJupiterIncident'', each ship bigger than a fighter/bomber has subsystems that can be targeted with [[FrickinLaserBeams lasers]] or fighters. As a rule, lasers don't do much damage to DeflectorShields or the hull with a few exceptions. These subsystems include engines (primary and secondary), power plants, FTL drives, shields, and weapons. Alternatively, the hull can be damaged with MagneticWeapons and missiles sufficiently for the ship to be considered lost, starting the evacuation of the crew.

** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', on the other hand, ''does'' track damage to body parts, though there are no adverse effects until they have been entirely crippled. Crippled arms decrease accuracy, crippled legs decrease running speed, [[InterfaceScrew a crippled head causes a concussion halo effect]], and a crippled torso amplifies how much often you flinch from attack (throwing off your aim). They can simply be healed with stimpacks (which your average player tends to stockpile, but your average NPC doesn't) or by [[TraumaInn sleeping in any bed.]] This becomes a life saver when fighting Deathclaws, giant lizards with machete-sized claws, as you can cripple their legs with ease by using the Dart Gun to slow them down to a crawl. Weapon targeting in [=VATS=] is also still a viable strategy, as well as shooting missiles and grenades ''as they are thrown towards you''.

[[folder:Shoot 'Em Up]]

[[folder:Turn Based Strategy]]

* The ''VideoGame/FrontMission'' series gives each mech separate HitPoints for their body, left arm, right arm, and legs. If an arm dies, you can't use any weapons equipped on it and if the legs die movement is limited to one square (visually they appear badly damage rather than completely destroyed). If the body dies though, the entire unit dies, which tends to make shooting the other parts a waste of time. Unfortunately, [[LuckBasedMission you have no control over where your shots hit]], although certain skills can make it more likely.