Especially as a
Mook,
Action Bombs are incredibly common in video games.
- 9 Monkeys of Shaolin have enemy pirates who comes at you holding sticks of dynamites, and they'll either blow themselves up and damage you or drop their explosives if you hit them in time, at which point they'll draw swords instead.
- In Ace Online, the Bomber B-Gears can become this when they access their Elite Skills (formerly Finish Move Skills). Their move, aptly named Big Boom, blowing itself up, in which the attack power is Cast from Hit Points. Since they can just respawn from the nearest map gate, dying itself is not usually a problem (notwithstanding the tiny SPI penalty for dying or rarely, the EXP penalty should the pilot is cash-strapped). The real problem is its (relatively) long cooldown of 30 minutes, when and where it should be used (because of the cooldown, it is only wisely used for anti-gatecamp measures or as last ditch anti-rush defense), and the possibility of being hit by an M-Gear's Power Nullifier skill (since being hit not only cancels the skill, but the bomber retains the cooldown).
- Advance Wars: Dual Strike introduced Black Bombs, high-altitude units that explode and indiscriminately damage all units (that is, enemy and ally alike, and ignoring defense or bonuses) within a radius for 5HP. They're expensive as hell but devastating, as they hard-counter pretty much every Cool, but Inefficient overpriced powerhouse unit like Megatanks and all naval units.
- In The Adventures of Lomax, there are walking barrel enemies who stop dead and explode after a brief moment if you get close.
- Age of Empires II: The Conquerors adds the Petard, a unit which does massive damage to buildings, but dies in the attempt. In the first Age of Empires, there are Demolition Ships and the Saboteurs that are only available in the last Genghis Khan campaign mission or via a Cheat Code.
- In Age of Wonders the main weapon of Goblin Bomber
unit is a large Cartoon Bomb carried as a backpack. In the second game it has no other attacks and cannot even answer melee strike — only walks to the target and triggers wall-crushing explosion. One of items (looking like a Cartoon Bomb) gives a Hero or Wizard the same Self Destruct ability... and Resurgence. - Ancient Domains of Mystery has the elemental vortex. Its sole attack is to stand next to you and explode into a fire/ice/lightning/acid ball. Engage at range or not at all! They can't explode in the dark.
- Angry Birds:
- Franchise-wide, the black bird (Bomb) explodes a short while after landing or when the player taps the screen, heavily damaging stone objects and violently scattering nearby items. According to Professor Pig in the IDW comics, Bomb's abilities actually stem from the food he eats which can be channeled into an explosive-like force around him, which explains why he doesn't actually die from exploding.
- In Angry Birds 2, the Red Pepper spell causes one pig to "ignite" and explode much like Bomb's power.
- Certain cards in Animation Throwdown: the Quest for Cards have the "bomb" ability, which causes them to explode upon attacking an enemy card. This doesn't harm the user, but the explosion will also damage cards right next to the targeted card.
- ANNO: Mutationem: The Exploding Grub is a Blob Monster that makes it way towards its target and will detonate itself to deliver an Acid Attack.
- Arknights: Episode 11 introduces the Seeds of Withering, made from the Nachzehrer King's Originium Arts for the purpose of creating more deaths to feed his army. They have a pittance of HP and no defenses, and their attack consists of suicide charging any operator within range and deal massive damage to them.
- Armored Core for Answer has a unique version called Assault Armor. In the game, each NEXT is equipped with a Deflector Shield called Primal Armor, powered by Kojima Particles. In for Answer, these deflector shields can be weaponized and exploded outwards, hence the trope. While these will outright take out lesser enemies (such as your common tank, helis, MTs, and some weaker Normals), these won't do much to another NEXT, barring depleting their Primal Armor. The side effect of using this is that your own Primal Armor takes more time to recharge back and recharges slowly, while the opponent's can recharge back almost immediately. While it does take a chunk of Armor Points, and there are shoulder weapons that explicitly amplify Assault Armor usage (one of the opponent NEXTs you encounter uses exclusively Assault Armor), newer rebalanced Regulation has reduced its usefulness to somewhere between Awesome, but Impractical to Cool, but Inefficient. This might seem like a raw deal, but in exclusively Player Versus Player match, Assault Armors are still used for anti-rushers, since besides all that, a less-advertised effect includes "blinding" your opponents, preventing them to lock on to you for a specific amount of time.
- Banjo-Kazooie:
- The first game has Shrapnels and Boom Boxes, which are Animate Inanimate Object anthromorphic land mines and dynamite crates that chase the duo whenever they see them.
- Banjo-Tooie: Among the various other explosives enemies, such as actual living dynamite, Banjo can transform into a detonator that can blow up at the cost of one health while the mechanical Clockwork Kazooies can be controlled and be made to explode by the player.
- Batman Doom: The Penguin's robotic Penguin Bombs are this. In the last boss fight with the Penguin, they keep spawning and coming at you from all sides while you're trying to deal with the boss.
- Battleborn have a number of enemy types that fill this role:
- Swarmers are bug-like creatures native to the planet of Ekkunar and the moon of Bliss. Those without shells lounge at their targets and explode. With shells however, they simply bite at their targets instead which is otherwise negligible except when they come in large numbers. Swollen Swarmers are capable of exploding as well but only when they've sustained enough damage.
- Primal Thrall Bombers are Thralls equipped with bombs on their backs and are basically suicide bombers. Unless the bombs they're carrying are directly hit, the bombs simply fall off when the Thralls are killed.
- M1.Boom Bots are armless stoplight looking minions that act as waddling bombs that charge at enemies. When they come near an enemy, they plant themselves; turn their green lights to red; and make a distinctive sound before detonating.
- Battletoads has the gray, electricity shooting robots inhabiting the Terra Tubes level. They will explode if you run into them, though you can still headbutt or punch them offscreen safely.
- Bionic Commando (1987) has kamikaze soldiers with explosive backpacks.
- BioShock: Nitro Splicers can self-destruct at low health, taking their loot with them. In BioShock Infinite, the Firemen will also set themselves up for a suicidal-explosion when low on health as well.
- Black Mesa: The Xen levels have the "fireball" Houndeyes, which glow bright orange and explode when they get too close to you. Like all Houndeyes, they're fast and can leap out at you with little warning.
- Bloodhound sees you fighting assorted demon mooks, with a lesser, commonly-encountered demon enemy having orange, glowing tumor-like growths all over their bodies. This enemy type explodes after a short while, with quite a large radius, and will repeatedly try clawing you up close to inflict damage at you.
- In A Blurred Line, Talan can absorb a Black Aura spell called Life for Strength late in the game. It essentially allows him to commit suicide for the sake of a highly damaging attack, but the game is so easy by this point that there's no need to bother.
- Bonfire has both a general example and a specific one:
- The "booby trap" effect can turn anyone into this, making them explode on death. It's possible for any enemy to start with this effect. Interestingly, you can turn your heroes into action bombs too with Zhu's Booby Trap ability — and so can her Failure.
- Bloatscorch enemies are direct references to the Bomb enemies from Final Fantasy. They can self-apply the explosive effect at low health, and will do so continuously to prevent you from waiting it out. The only way to avoid detonating them is to kill them in one powerful strike from high health.
- Borderlands:
- In The Breach, a mutant spider subtype has a massively fat arse, which explodes when it touches you.
- Breath of Fire III has "Tankbots" that use sacrifice which hits all allies with a chance of inflicting all but one HP of damage.
- Broforce: Multiple enemies, from terrorists to aliens to demons, use this tactic.
- Suicidal Mooks, enemies with dynamite vests that run at the player, are the first encountered instance of this trope.
- Two aliens, Screechers and Banelings, are a more dangerous reskin of the Suicidal Mook. They attack the player by dive-bombing them or rolling at them at high speeds, respectively.
- There are multiple demons that fit this role. The first, Engorged Mooks, behave similarly to Suicidal Mooks but can throw themselves in the air. Lost Souls are similar to Screechers, but can track the player mid-fight and accelerate very quickly. Soul Catchers are large zombies that explode upon nearing the player, but the catch is that they explode into five Lost Souls. Yeah.
- Macbrover will, if ordered to throw dynamite (his standard attack) when within knifing range of an enemy, stick it on the enemy instead, and the mook will proceed to run around until he blows up. He will also automatically stick dynamite to any mook that he throws.
- Brood Star:
- Kamikaze Drones will fly up to the nearest enemy unit and detonate themselves to inflict heavy damage.
- Ticks will latch onto the player's spacecraft and begin to swell up, exploding if the player doesn't dislodge them with a dodge first.
- Bug Fables:
- On low health, Abomihoneys can turn into bombs that, if not defeated, will violently explode, dealing MASSIVE damage to all entitites present (or healing another Abomihoneys present).
- Wardens, disembodied Roach statue heads, are also capable of detonating on low health. Unlike Abomihoneys, their explosions are not as harmful, but still harm the entire party and can freeze if they are imbued with ice, or burn if they are imbued with fire.
- Bungie loves this trope. Almost every single one of their games has one of these:
- Destiny has Cursed Thralls and Exploder Shanks. Destiny 2 adds Fanatics and Screebs.
- The Game Mod Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge had the exploding Forraje clones, which were basically palette swaps of the original Simulacrums.
- Halo has the Flood Carrier Forms. And the Suicide Grunts. Really, anything stuck by a plasma grenade instantly becomes this (including other Spartans in multiplayer). The Suicide Grunts are just volunteering.
- Marathon has the Simulacrum BOBs. Extra bonus for looking like friendlies. Also, the Lookers.
- Pathways into Darkness: Nightmares explode with a small blast radius when killed.
- Calculords: Units with Self-Destruct, when destroyed, deal between two and four damage to everything, potentially including your own units and base, in a wide area. Except for the Plasma Saboteurs, they all have high Attack power but just 1 HP, meaning they die as soon as they're damaged. Cpl. Krak loves the Section Eighter card in particular and deploys them almost exclusively in her middle lane.
- Call of Duty:
- Later games feature multiplayer modes featuring the "Martyrdom" perk. When the player dies frequently enough, they get to drop a live hand grenade. Woe unto the melee attacker who sticks around after making that kill. Also some Spec Ops survival modes feature Bomb Dogs, which are dogs wearing suicide bomb vests.
- 'Modern Warfare: Mortally wounded enemies will sometimes pull a grenade as a last ditch move. Ditto for the later Medal of Honor games.
- Canterlot Siege has Queen Chrysalis's super power, which rains explosive Changelings over a target area.
- Chicken Warrior occasionally sent out "Hot Chickens" at you that would blow themselves up if they got to you, and would die in one hit otherwise.
- The Sufferer enemy from The Citadel, is a cloaked and hooded cyborg who lobs grenades at the player and will self-destruct if they get too close to her. If a player manages to decapitate a Sufferer with a headshot, the player can use their corpse as kickable bombs against other enemies.
- City of Heroes:
- The Embalmed of the Vahzilok, walking corpses made by a Mad Scientist and equipped with explosive backpacks.
- Also, some of the Circle of Thorns Mages will try to blow themselves up when critically low on Hit Points.
- In City of Villains, one power the Mastermind player characters can pick up in the Traps powerset lets them do this to their own minions.
- With the addition of the Cyborg purchasable add-on pack, players can now self destruct to cause a lot of damage. It is actually preferable to simply allowing the enemies to kill you, as Self Destruct circumvents the game's death penalty.
- Even though you don't die using it, one can consider any of the "nova" powers that Blasters, Corruptors, and Warshades get as they involve running into a mob and releasing all your power at once.
- In Colobot, when spiders spot the player's units, they will charge at them and explode on contact.
- Command & Conquer features many of these.
- In Command & Conquer: Red Alert: The Aftermath there are Demolition Trucks that detonate in nuclear explosions. They are stated by be driven by computers in the manuals but ordering them around makes them reply like other human-piloted units (arguably the manuals had that thrown in for censorship). The Soviets have the MAD Tanks that self-destruct in large shock waves damaging vehicles and structures in a large area.
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun has Hunter-Seeker robots that latch onto opponents and explode. They're also as dumb as a box of rocks, picking their targets entirely at random. Sometimes they'll One-Hit Kill something really expensive or important... other times they'll go after a random soldier off in the corner of the map.
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 sees the return of the Demolition Truck for the Soviets (for Libya at least), now driven by a human, and the Terrorist for Cuba who is a suicide bomber. Crazy Ivans can plant bombs on friendly units to make the suicide bombers. It is a popular tactic online to use these on Attack Dogs.
- In Command & Conquer: Generals the GLA also have a Terrorist and the Bomb Truck. The GLA also build Demo Traps that self-destruct when enemies go near, or can be set to detonate when ordered.
- In Generals: Zero Hour the GLA Fake Buildings can explode to damage nearby enemies. The demolition GLA subfaction can also purchase the "Demolition Upgrade" allowing all units and base defenses to self-destruct. This same subfaction also replaced the Demo Trap with the more lethal Advanced Demo Trap and has even more powerful Terrorist, and their Combat Cycles come mounted with suicide bombers.
- In Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars Nod has the Fanatics, who are groups of suicide bombers.
- In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 the Empire of the Rising Sun has the Yari Minisub can kamikaze into other ships and Burst Drones that attach to enemy vehicles and explode. The Empire has the Honorable Discharge Top Secret Protocol which makes units explode when destroyed. The Empire also has the Final Squadron (X\Omega) Protocols that call in planes to kamikaze targets. The Soviets have the Corrosion Protocol that sacrifices a unit to spread toxins and the Terror Drone Surprise Upgrade Protocol that causes Terror Drones to emerge from destroyed vehicles.
- In Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight Viseroids self-destruct for their attack. Viseroids can only be obtained by capturing a tech building.
- Various units tend to explode when killed, as well: grenadiers, flamethrower infantry, anything with raw Tiberium, shot-down bombers and airships...
- Contra: In the second mission of Shattered Soldier, you encounter rocket-riding mooks.
- In Copy Kitty, there are several types of enemies that can be classified as these. They are:
- Exploder Exchikke, which is a flying enemy that will blow up in your proximity. The stronger variant will actively chase you and leaves poison clouds after it explodes.
- Gertar, which is a small seedling enemy that can latch onto you and explode if you don't quickly remove it.
- Desouck. Whenever you destroy it, it releases electric balls that bounce around. The strongest variant adds in a huge electric surge.
- The strongest version of Flier Inensi. They fly and drop bombs, and if they die, they will fall and explode.
- In Crying Suns, Boomer-class Drones will explode when they're destroyed, damaging all adjacent units.
- Darkest Dungeon: Drowned Thralls will explode on their second action. Do not let them take their second action.
- Dead Space pits you against an enemy with a large, fragile bulb in place of one arm. If it reaches you, it slams this against the floor, detonating it in a suicide attack. But if you cut it off in time, you can throw the bomb into a group of enemies.
- Deep Rock Galactic has the aptly named Glyphid Exploders, that will charge you, grumble, and then go off like a frag grenade, making a crater in the land and causing heavy damage. And then there's their King Mook version in the Glyphid Bulk Detonator, which is bloody massive and sets off similarly huge explosions that don't harm it just by striking the ground. And after a massive grueling battle, as it finally dies, it goes off one last time. With the terrifying force of a bunker-buster, in fact (with additional cluster munitions, since the individual tumors also explode), making a crater big enough you'll take fall damage if you somehow survive, then fall in from the rim. Not even Satchel Charges alter the terrain as much as a Bulk Detonator dying.
- Defend Your Castle:
- Eventually, you face enemies wearing explosives so they can blow themselves up when they reach your castle.
- You can send converted units as kamikazes so they can kill bunches of enemies by exploding.
- Demon Hunter: The Return of the Wings: Totu are dynamite-wearing dwarfs who explode shortly after getting close to Gun. There are similar suicidal enemies with an entire barrel of explosives.
- Descent: Omega Defense Spawn in Descent 2 attack by explosive ramming. A few other enemies, as well as bosses, also deal explosive damage when killed.
- Desert Moon: The Bursters are similar to Runners, but they're faster and explode if they reach your engineers or if they are killed, killing any nearby engineers. The ship log describes them as "Faster, more aggressive... and suicidal."
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution : The Typhoon augment lets the player become one of these.
- Devil May Cry:
- Devil May Cry 2: The Spicere are spherical demons that explode after being attacked or approached in close proximity.
- Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening: Hell Wraths carry organic bombs, which they detonate after receiving sufficient damage. The explosion deals heavy damage to everyone in vicinity, including the Wrath itself, which inevitably dies. They're best handled with guns.
- Devil May Cry 5: Hellbats are larger cousins of Pyrobats, demonic bats that can detonate themselves when near-death.
- Disgaea (and most games where Prinnies appear): Prinnies dood! They explode when thrown, and can also do it of their own accord with their "Prinny Forever" attack in Disgaea 3, though it just leaves them with critical health in that case. Thursday's "Arigato Roboto" functions in a similar fashion. And then there's Goodbye Tink, where Tink sacrifices himself but nobody cares.
- In Dodge, the enemies that look like hollow squares explode into an expanding and contracting square that can destroy the circle you play as.
- Donkey Kong Country:
- Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: Some normal enemies behave this way, like Puftup and Kaboom in their appearing levels. The latter purposedly runs onto the characters to kamikaze onto them.
- Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!: Klasps are Kremlings that hide in TNT Barrels, and behave similarly to Kabooms from the previous DKC game; however, some move in a specific pattern while others are static until Dixe and/or Kiddy approach them.
- Donkey Kong 64: Puftoss will release speedy Puftups that will chase Lanky until hitting him, or until exploding due to time running out. 64 also inverts the trope in one sidequest where a rabbit is tied to a crate of explosives, and several living flames will walk onto him to make him explode; the objective is to prevent this during a time limit.
- Donkey Kong Country Returns: Stu can release a wood-shielded living mine that will slowly follow Donkey and Diddy.
- The literal Demonic Spiders of Doom³ have an explosive variant.
- Dota 2:
- Techies Demolitions used to have an ability "Suicide Squad, Attack!", which killed Techies regardless of HP and dealt lots of damage to nearby enemies. The more relevant effects of its use were reduction in respawn time and preventing enemy players from getting money and experience for the kill. "Suicide Squad, Attack!" could be activated instantly, which made hunting down Techies frustrating and unrewarding. It has been since reworked into "Blast Off", which has an actual wind-up time and cannot kill Techies, instead leaving them with at least 1 point of health.
- Arc Warden's "Spark Wraith" is a ghost that watches over an area where it's been placed and hunts down the first enemy that enters the radius, dealing moderate magical damage and briefly slowing. Very potent in numbers and doubly so with the Aghanim's Scepter upgrade, which allows each wraith to reappear once.
- Hawks summoned by Beastmaster used to sacrifice themselves when ordered to use "Dive Bomb", in the process damaging and stunning their target.
- .hack//G.U.: There's a type of monster with shell hats. Nearly all the monsters in this group have an attack where they go cover themselves with their shell and then explode.
- Dragon Quest:
- The spell Kamikazee, which has the added bonus of instant-killing all non-boss enemies with no damage to allies. Either Imps or Minidemons always attempt to use it, but due to their woefully inadequate MP, they fail every time. The Rockbomb enemies also tend to self-destruct, hence the name.
- There's even an item in some games called a Kamikazee bracer that blows the user up when they die and kills all opposing enemies.
- Dragon Quest II's version of the spell (called Sacrifice in the original version) is somewhat infamous, since it always works except against bosses. This, naturally, extends to when the spell is cast against your party, causing you to be instantly obliterated. It's less useful in your hands, since the party member that learns it is the only one with revival magic, though that's changed in the remake so it's... slightly less useless.
- Dragon Quest III introduces the self-destructing Bombcrags.
- Dragon's Dogma has Stout Undead, fat zombies that swell up and explode when lit on fire, potentially eliminating some of your enemies, or doing damage to your party in close quarters.
- Dungeon Defenders had Kobolds, monsters with dynamite strapped to their backs that charge at you when you approach or attack them, dealing damage to any group of defenses (or defenders) caught in their wake.
- In Dungeon Fighter Online, Mechanics can set up robots to walk into enemies and explode, and the Witch's high level skills have her set up large contraptions which explode at the end of the attack.
- In Dust: An Elysian Tail, Blombs, floating creatures whose sole purpose is apparently to explode when anything that isn't another Blomb gets too close. They can only be harmed when taking a deep breath — otherwise, they're effectively invulnerable to just about any attack. (It's easier to just approach them and dash back out of range as they explode.) There are also explosive mutant zombies in the Sorrowing Meadows, which take the irritation a step further by refusing to blow up until after an unpredictable amount of fighting.
- Dynamite Dux has two bomb enemies in one stage that act as Smart Bombs when attacked.
- Dynasty Warriors: Phantom soldiers in Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires have a nasty habit of exploding when you attack them. In previous Empires games, your weapons would pass right through them.
- EarthBound Series: There are a number of these throughout the series, usually in the "explodes up on defeat" variant.
- They're especially nasty in EarthBound Beginnings, which lacks the rolling HP counter of future titles, meaning that you'll unavoidably take a large amount of damage if you decide to pick a fight with then. It also introduces the power robots and trees, who appear in every future game.
- EarthBound (1994) has two particularly annoying variants in the spheres and its take on the power robots. The former bombards you with powerful PSI attacks, while the latter can max out the HP of an ally each turn, which would normally make them top priority targets, if not for the usually fatal amount of damage they inflict to multiple characters upon death. Due to the aforementioned rolling HP counter, the damage can be reduced to a measly amount if they're defeated last.
- Mother 3 adds some voluntary exploders in the Squawking Boomstick and the Bomb Hugger; the former randomly deciding to explode whenever it wants to, and the latter exploding on a single character after a three turn countdown.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Shambles in The Shivering Isles DLC trigger a area of effect frost spell upon dying. Yes, a frostplosion.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has several examples of this as well:
- Atronachs explode into a burst of their element when killed.
- Some higher level Dwarven Spiders emit a burst of shock when disabled.
- The summonable Flaming Familiar runs up to the nearest hostile entity and explodes.
- The Dragonborn DLC introduces the Albino Spider, the eggs of which can be combined with gemstones at a special machine to create special variants which, when thrown, will home in on the nearest lifeform and explode in various elemental alignments.
- Also introduced in Dragonborn is Ahzidal's Ring of Necromancy, which when worn makes all the wearer's reanimated undead explode for 50 points of frost damage immediately upon being struck.
- Eternal Darkness: Ulyaoth has a dependence for this trope, if his singing zombies are of any proof.
- Every Extend: You're the Action Bomb, sacrificing a life with every attack. The challenge is to gain points rapidly enough to replace the lost lives.
- The spider-like creatures in Evil Genome with bulging, pulsating abdomens. They're weak enemies on their own, but if they're killed (or left idle for too long) they'll explode into a cloud of pus that hurts you. Even if you dodge their explosion, the green gas they left behind can continue causing damage.
- In Evolva, Flame Parasites catch fire, and explode after a few seconds, when they're killed.
- Some of the hobbes in Fable II have kegs of black powder strapped to their back, and will light them and run screaming towards you if they see you. Fortunately you can take them out from a distance with a spell or a ranged attack.
- Fallout:
- You can make NPCs into these by planting explosives in their pockets.
- Fallout 3: The Nuclear Anomaly perk from the Broken Steel Expansion Pack allows you to channel your radiation poisoning level into a devastating shockwave when your health drops to 20 or less. You explode once every 10 seconds untill you get to over 20 HP. the Glowing One enemy can do this at will.
- Fallout: New Vegas: Spore Carriers can do this, as do Robo-Scorpions from Old World Blues when killed, even after already being exploded or disintegrated. In one of the Boomers' quests, you have to clear the Nellis generator facility of exploding giant ants. If one goes off next to a piece of ordnance, it can cause the entire stockpile to detonate, blowing you and your companions to kingdom come. The Meltdown perk causes enemies to explode when killed with energy weapons, and can also cause chain reactions.
- Fallout 4 introduced the Super Mutant Suicider. His only weapon? A mini-nuke. His only method of attack? Taking you with him to hell!
- Mole Rats laden with frag mines are an occasional random encounter.
- Shooting a Powered Armor's Fusion Core will cause a mini-nuke-sized explosion that instantly kills the wearer and anyone nearby.
- Assaultrons and Sentry Bots will self-detonate when critically damaged, and the Legendary variants always explode after defeat.
- Any Robot in the game will explode, after trying to close the distance with you, if you destroy its weaponry.
- Fate/Grand Order has Yu Mei-Ren, also known as Consort Yu. Her Noble Phantasm, Eternal Lament, has her blow her body up, showering all enemies with her cursed blood. Because she is an almost completely immortal True Ancestor, this is only a minor inconvienence for her, as she reforms her body within seconds, including her outfit.
- Final Fantasy: Self-Destruct is a common attack:
- Bombs of all games where they appear have this as their signature ability, and Blue Mages can learn it directly from them in multiple games.
- Final Fantasy VIII has the ability Kamikaze, which is one of three attacks that can break the game's 9999 damage cap, the others being the GF Eden and Quistis' Shockwave Pulsar. However, unlike Self-Destruct, Kamikaze removes the using character from the battle entirely and you can't just use a Phoenix Down to get him/her back.
- Final Fantasy IV: Cit detonates a handheld bomb to collapse a mountain on top of the enemy airship pursuing the party. He got better.
- Final Fantasy XI, The two-hour ability of the Ninja job, Mijin Gakure, does this. Given that the player's death in this situation does not cause any experience loss (whereas almost any other cause of death will), it is most often used as a quick method of travel back to one's home point.
- Future Tactics: The Uprising has Hubriks, the weakest Mooks in the game, who attack by strapping dynamite to their backs and detonating themselves near your allies. They do stupid amounts of damage per hit, easily being able to drain over half an ally's health, but they are of little threat as they die in one hit from anything and will damage other units with their Splash Damage when they explode.
- F-Zero 99:
- Red Bumpers are AI-controlled red-hued cars that spawn in front of the pack. They are passive until struck, upon which they will explode and deal massive damage to the player who hit them while sending them flying. This puts racers in the lead at much greater risk of getting wiped out early unless they have the skills to weave through the crowd.
- A KO'd player may be given the opportunity to drive a Lucky Bumper before their points are tallied. Lucky Bumpers score a bonus point for every car they collide with; additionally, Lucky Bumpers will detonate after a set time or manually by pressing the + button, destroying themselves in an explosion that damages nearby cars.
- Gaia Online: zOMG! spends the first two areas setting up the Fluff-type enemies as mildly annoying at worst and no real threat. Then you enter Zen Gardens and are greeted by Cherry Blossom Fluffs, which explode when aggravated for improbable amounts of damage. And they mob. Newcomers learn quickly not to harass the fluffs.
- Gauntlet Legends had some enemies with an ominous red barrel and a fuse strapped to their back. The general warning was a suicidal scream before they charged you.
- Gears of War:
- The first game has Lambent Wretches who don't actively explode, but go ka-boom after they're killed, as well Nemacyst, who are more of Action Missile.
- The second game introduces Tickers, animals (roughly dog-sized) with bombs strapped to their backs who do exactly what's expected.
- Gears 3 takes it up a notch with Lambent versions of almost every preexisting enemy, as well as completely new, lambent-only foes, including the morphing Drudges and the mighty Lambent Berserker.
- Every game in the series allows you to melee with a grenade equipped to stick it to your enemies, turning them into Action Bombs against their will. Just make sure they don't take you down with them. The third game introduced a safer option: If you have an enemy taken as a meatshield, you can perform a "bag n' tag" by tagging the grenade to your meatshield and kicking them away from you, preferably towards several of their buddies.
- In Genshin Impact, Amber's "Explosive Puppet" Elemental Skill summons her Baron Bunny, a doll resembling her wearing bunny pajamas that dances and draws enemy attacks before exploding, dealing Pyro damage to anything nearby. Ordinarily, the doll explodes after a few seconds or after taking enough damage, but investing enough points in her Constellation tree allows players to detonate it manually.
- Get Off My Lawn (2009) has Glowflares. After a while, these enemies explode, causing heavy damage to the yard and possibly stunning the player in the process if he/she is in the blast radius.
- A particularly chilling enemy type faced in later levels of Ghostrunner are the skeletal monstrosities produced by Mara's experiments, which can climb on walls and chase after Jack while breathing heavily and explode when they get near enough.
- Grapple Force Rena has ball-shaped enemies that, when struck, retract their limbs, close their visors, then start flashing and explode.
- Half-Life 2: Episode One introduces the "Zombine", Combine soldiers taken over by headcrabs. They can use grenades but not throw them, meaning that they will essentially commit suicide when using them by rushing at the player with one in their hand. Their grip is weak enough to allow the Gravity Gun to pull it from their hands, either to quickly dispose of it somewhere far away or, even better, into a group of other enemies.
- Hard Reset: The Savage is an explosive, beach ball-sized robot with two stubby legs that either runs up to you and explodes, or rolls itself towards you like a super-fast bowling ball... and explodes if it hits you. They explode if you kill them too, which can potentially start chain reactions.
- Heavy Weapon has the ICBM, Cruise Missile and Blimp enemies. ICBMs will rise up from the background and drop on certain parts of the screen, while the cruise missile will come in horizontally and turn downwards as soon as it goes over your tank. Thankfully, both of them do not explode with a huge blast radius. Blimps will detonate into multiple indestructible shots that rain on you when you defeat them.
- Heroes of the Storm:
- Tyrael's trait Archangel's Wrath causes him to explode a few seconds after he dies, reducing the damage of any enemy Hero hit and also reducing his death timer.
- In addition to keeping his Total Mayhem trait from Overwatch, Junkrat also has a second Heroic ability named Rocket Ride, which involves him riding a rocket into the enemy and then quickly respawn after blowing himself up.
- Hollow Knight:
- The Ooma jellyfish in Fog Canyon have an explosive core that homes in on the Knight after they are struck, and deals double damage, as with most explosions.
- The Belflies' sole attack is to divebomb the Knight and explode on impact.
- Most of the tougher enemy types that appear after the Forgotten Crossroads becomes Infected explode shortly after being killed.
- Hunter's Moon: The Astral Rage is a ghostly and highly volatile enemy who explodes in contact with the player or energy weapon fire (ballistic weapon fire goes straight through it). It is usually innocuous and dormant, but goes into a frenzy as soon as it hears the player's guns being fired, running extremely quickly towards their victim.
- inFAMOUS has kamikaze Mooks who run up to you and explode. Which you can hear coming from a mile away because they scream at the top of their lungs.
- Inkulinati: Exploders are so named because they blow up on command or when they die, damaging beasts in adjacent spaces; the Cook Exploder can feed other Beasts to make them bloated, giving them the same ability. If they're eaten by Sir Snail, he will burp out their explosion as a three-space breath weapon.
- Into the Breach:
- One mech weapon is a Self-Destruct Mechanism, destroying the mech, but also instantly killing any adjacent enemies.
- The Blast Psion buffs enemy Vek other than itself by making them explode on death. This is especially tricky to deal with when the player has to protect nearby buildings from being destroyed.
- Some of the mission objectives include avoiding killing a Volatile Vek, claiming that its death will devastate the environment even if the in-game explosion doesn't damage anything valuable.
- Iron Gaia: Rover’s Tier 1 Rage Move is Self-Destruct, which is one of the most powerful attacks in the game. It still leaves him with 1 HP point instead of destroying him, however. In the "Escape" ending, Rover self-destructs for real at the station's core, causing it to crash instead of landing safely.
- Kao The Kangaroo: Round 2 has an enemy who's a dynamite stick on legs and which chases after Kao until it hits something.
- Kid Icarus: Uprising: The Bumpety Bomb enemy, one of the monsters of the Forces of Nature, is a one-eyed stone bomb that chases Pit on wheels. Viridi thinks they're adorable, and not just because of how they can kill Pit.
- Killer7: Almost every single one of the Heaven Smiles does this, to the point that they have no other means of self-defense than blowing themselves up when they get close enough to the player. The only ones who don't have this as a primary means of attack are the Laser Smiles, Galactic Tomahawk Smile, and some of the bosses, though the latter two will explode if you get too close.
- Kingdom Hearts:
- Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories have the Barrel Spider, a spider-legged Heartless that uses a gunpowder barrel as a shell. Their only attack is to charge at Sora and explode on impact. They also explode when hit by fire magic, which stuns nearby enemies.
- Kingdom Hearts II has the Minute Bomb, a small Heartless with a shell that resembles a stereotypical bomb. True to form, their main method of attack is to blow themselves up. Casting Fire magic on one will cause it to detonate immediately. 358/2 Days also features them along with a few stronger variants, including the icy Skater Bomb and the Storm Bomb, whose explosion creates a whirlwind.
- Kirby:
- The Scarfy. Attempting to inhale him often causes the Scarfy to mutate, chase after you and explode. In earlier games, they explode when defeated even if not in their mutated state, and damage Kirby if he touches the explosion.
- Bomber are almost always perched dangerously close to the edge of a platform and fall off promptly after Kirby comes on-screen, blowing up on impact with the ground and (sometimes conveniently) taking all other enemies on screen with him. Having Kirby Inhale one will grant you the Crash Ability, which nukes the screen when used, annihilating anything that isn't a Boss (even most sub-bosses will kick the bucket when this ability is invoked, but if the boss doesn't die it will be close to death anyway).
- Kirby's Dream Land 2: The Propeller Bombs are normally virtually harmless, being completely immobile and easily destroyed like any other enemy. If one of Kirby's animal friends approaches them, however, they'll put on a wicked expression and start pursuing them, dealing a One-Hit Kill if they manage to make contact with them. They also take a lot more effort to destroy in this state, requiring multiple hits from any ability other then Ice before they explode, and can't be inhaled, either. They reappear in some future games, but are a lot more basic, simply pursuing Kirby the moment they appear onscreen, but lacking the other dangerous qualities.
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards: The Ice + Bomb ability turns Kirby into a walking snowman with a lit Cartoon Bomb for a hat.
- Klonoa: The later levels of the first game (and its Wiimake) introduce bomb enemies that explode after being thrown. Several puzzles in these levels involve throwing them at just the right time.
- League of Legends has Kog'Maw, whose unique passive ability is to not die when his health reaches zero, but instead become one of these, with a few seconds to run up to an enemy champion and do some damage (or even take them with him) as he self-destructs.
- Elise's Volatile Spiderling ability summons a spider that explodes in a blast of venom when it reaches a target.
- Left 4 Dead: The Boomer zombies attack by walking over to you and exploding. Interestingly, the blast doesn't hurt anything, but it causes knockback and covers anyone nearby in bile that immediately attracts a horde of regular zombies. And blurs vision. Originally, Boomers were literal walking bombs where its explosion could cause major damage to the survivors. Seeing how play testers kept accidentally shooting the Boomer in close quarters and lost a chunk of their health, Valve decided to make the Boomer's death explosion cover survivors in "non harmful" bile instead. The purpose of the Boomer is not to be an Action Bomb, however. It's there to barf on you to attract the horde of normals... the Action Bomb mechanic is there to discourage killing them up close.
- Notably, unlike other Special Infected, AI-controlled Boomers take fall damage, meaning that the computer can make Boomers spawn in high places and jump down onto survivors to explode and shower them in bile upon hitting the ground. This does not apply to player-controlled Boomers in Versus, although jumping onto survivors is still a good way to ambush survivors, and if someone shoots you reflexively... well, mission accomplished.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- In The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Link can use the "blast mask" to create an explosion right in front of his face. This can hurt, but the damage can be blocked by putting the shield in front of his face. There are also rat-like enemies who have bombs strapped to the ends of their tails, and explode upon touching Link. In-universe, this inspired an invention called a "bombchu", (also found in Ocarina of Time) which is a sort of bomb modeled after these rats, which hovers over the ground like a heat-seeking missile.
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: While all Chuchus burst apart after defeat, the elemental ones create an area-of-effect blast of their element upon dying, which deal damage and inflict status effects.
- Lemmings: Ordering a Lemming to use a Bomber skill starts a countdown after which they sacrifice themselves and explode, destroying terrain.
- Lie of Caelum: The Zwervers summoned by Gigarths in his second battle will explode if left alive long enough. However, if they are killed quickly enough, they'll explode on their own side instead.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers has many of them, though they are relegated to One Hitpoint Wonder status and their explosion doesn't kill the protagonist, even as it takes out most orcs around them.
- March of War has two such units:
- The African Warlords have the Demo Truck. Pieced together from old tanks and cars, and filled to the brim with dynamite.
- The Shogun Empire has a Kamikaze Attack as an army consumable, guess what it does.
- The Mark have suicide bombers who charges at you while wearing an explosive vest, though you can cripple them by shooting the legs and letting them explode a distance away.
- Mass Effect:
- Mass Effect: Rachni workers attack by bursting and spraying toxic fluid everywhere. Justified, as they're eusocial pseudo-insects, and eusocial organisms generally don't place a high value on the life of an individual — real-life eusocial insects have combat strategies that vary from "just as suicidal" to "slightly less suicidal".
- Mass Effect 2 has Abominations, modified husks who charge the player and then explode.
- MechWarrior 4: You can become one in multiplayer. Simply equip the High Explosive Pack into any suitably large missile slot and charge headlong at the enemy. When you're good and ready, press the shiny red button to detonate yourself in an atomic fireball and send everyone in a 25-meter radius to Valhalla on an express ticket.
- Mega Man (Classic):
- Metal Arms: Glitch in the System: The rover-like Scouts, although they're smarter than usual by setting off an alarm and summoning reinforcements before suiciding.
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater:
- Every one of the Cobras has a microbomb which detonates when they die, to prevent the enemy from searching and identifying their corpse. With the exception of The Boss and possibly The Sorrow.
- This is played straight concerning The Boss in the Secret Theater film The Joy when she jumps off the bridge, detonates her microbomb, and screams, "The Joy!" after exploding in mid-air.
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has this as one property of Metal Gear Sahelanthropus: its armor is composed of depleted uranium, which is extremely durable. When the armor is exposed to a special type of metallic archaea, however, the uranium becomes enriched. When subsequently self-destructed, Sahelanthropus would explode with the force of a nuclear weapon, making this model of Metal Gear, in and of itself, a walking nuke.
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption features two Action Bombs made by the Space Pirates. Crawlmines crawl around everywhere and explode when Samus shoots or touches them; Aeromines are floating robots that have energy shields and weak lasers, which explode if an enemy gets too close.
- Minecraft has the Creeper, whose explosions are generally strong enough to instantly kill a player at full health and, besides being a fairly standard take on the trope, has one feature that makes them particularly dreadful: they're utterly silent until that burning fuse noise that translates to "you have about one second to live." The most annoying part isn't even dying: they do heavy damage to the landscape, which can include whatever structure you were working on. You might recover most of your tools and maybe your armor, but now there's a twenty-foot hole where your beautiful house used to be. If a thunderbolt manages to strike a Creeper, it supercharges them, making their explosion attack even more deadly and the craters they leave behind a lot bigger. Creepers are by far one of the deadliest mobs in the game, capable of inflicting a One-Hit Kill on players without armor on hard difficulty from a long distance, and even capable of one hitting players on easy difficulty at point blank range. To the player's benefit, raising your shield in time completely negates the explosion damage of even a Charged Creeper, and thanks to how knockback works in the gamenote one hit of melee with any item or weapon without the Knockback enchantment will push a Creeper back just enough for you to be at the edge of its detonation radius, where Splash Damage is lowest, it's easy to use Creepers to devastate large numbers of hostile mobs.
- Monster Hunter: Rise: Bombadgys are raccoon-like creatures whose bodies are filled with volatile gas. Hitting one will cause it to be launched away like a rocket, causing small explosions from the gas it expels, and can be weaponized by player by swatting them into other monsters and damaging them in the resulting explosions.
- Monty Mole: The Amiga/C64 version of Impossamole has suicide bombers with dynamite strapped to their backs.
- Mortal Kombat: In Mortal Kombat 3, one of Cyrax's fatalities was blowing himself up to take out his opponent. Then through some twist of logic, he is back to fight his next opponent. Even more baffling is Smoke, who blows up the whole planet. Cyrax has a similar Earth-Shattering Kaboom fatality in Mortal Kombat Gold on the Dreamcast.
- NetHack has gas spores, which can only be dealt with in melee if you're at least level 3 or so, and even then it's very dangerous. Other enemies, such as Yellow Lights, blow up and give you Status Effects, and the spheres - frozen, flaming and shocking - deal elemental damage upon detonation.
- Nexus Clash: Pariahs have this as their defining trait. The fact that they know they'll just wake up twelve hours later fully healed with their equipment banged up makes it a bit less of a sacrifice, though, so they really just tend to do it for laughs. Exaggerated in the latest version of the game, in which Pariahs now have a chance to explode any time they die, sacrifice or no.
- Ori and the Will of the Wisps has a plethora of explosive enemies, such as Sneeze/Spittle Slugs, which go off a couple seconds after death; kamikaze variants of Snappers and Skeetos; Dropper Slimes (previously seen in Ori and the Blind Forest); Bomb Slugs, which immediately explode when approached or killed; the Floaters in the Silent Woods; and the Bouncing Betty-like pods in the Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
- Outpost 2 gives both factions Starflares and Plymouth Supernovas. They both sound far more impressive than they actually are.
- Overwatch: Junkrat is the "detonating death" variety; his "Total Mayhem" passive ability causes him to drop a bunch of grenades when he dies, damaging any opponents standing too close to him. His ultimate ability "Riptire" involves sending a remote-controlled, explosives-laden tire at his enemies.
- Painkiller had a zombie in the theatre level that carries a big barrel of gunpowder and runs toward you. Shooting the barrel makes him blow up his buddies.
- Paranautical Activity has the Baahmba and Blow Fish enemies.
- Patch Quest: Bombat is a flying bat monster which explodes itself as an attack - though it is immune to its own explosion.
- Path of Exile:
- A number of enemies will run up to you and explode, notably the witch Alira's bandit minions.
- Some enemies explode when killed, either because of their creature type or because they possess the "volatile" or " frost/fire/storm bearer" mods. The first once caused them to explode immediately for colossal damage, but because this disadvantaged melee builds was eventually changed into them spawning a bomb that chases the player. The second causes each enemy in a pack to drop a bomb on the ground that covers a much larger area.
- One or two enemies explode when reduced to "low life", and the player can grant this ability to all of their minions with the Minion Instability skill node. For a long time this was difficult to utilize consistently (as it required minions to be severely damaged but not killed outright), but eventually a unique item was introduced which caused the player's skeletons to rapidly burn to death, as well as the Dark Pact spell, which damaged skeletons to hurt nearby enemies.
- One of many enemies in The Persistence is an invisible variant of the standard mook who will burst into flames upon seeing you and explode the first chance it gets. While it does do a lot of damage to you, it also does damage to every enemy around it and you can easily block the explosion with a fully-charged shield.
- Persona:
- Pikmin 2 has the Volatile Dweevil, which depending on your interpretation is either an exploding spider, a bomb with spider legs, or, seeing as Dweevils have a habit of carrying random objects on their backs, just a Dweevil carrying around a bomb rock.
- Plants vs. Zombies:
- For the plants' side, we have Cherry Bombs (hits a 3x3 radius), Potato Mines (kills the first zombie that steps on it), Doom Shrooms (a nuke) and Jalapenos (hits a line of zombies). The zombies have the Jack-In-The-Box zombie, who plays "Pop Goes the Weasel" on his box until it randomly blows himself up with any plants in a 3x3 radius.
- The second game adds Primal Potato Mine (hits a 3x3 radius), Ghost Pepper (haunts zombies, then explodes) Lava Guava (3x3 area, and leaves damaging lava behind) Grapeshot (3x3, and releases a Spread Shot of eight grapes) Escape Root (switches places with other plants, and explodes on contact with a zombie), Explode-o-nut (acts as a defensive wall, and explodes on defeat), Bombegranate (3x3 area, and leaves behind explosive seeds) and Hot Date (attracts zombies to him, and then explodes).
- Pokémon: Some 'mons can learn Selfdestruct and Explosion. These moves, while extremely powerful, cause the Pokemon using them to faint on the spot. Some Pokémon can also possess the Aftermath ability, which damages the foe when knocked out by an attack that makes contact. As for wild Pokémon using such moves, it is said that Electrode (one of the most notorious self-destructers) finds blowing itself up to be hilarious (probably helps that the explosion isn't lethal).
- Prismata has multiple units that sacrifice themselves to deal additional damage.
- Psychonauts: The rats, which not only damage you by exploding, but also release a cloud of confusion gas that temporarily screws with the game controls. There are also Personal Demons, tiny humanoids with huge heads that just explode.
- Rainbow Six Siege features kamikaze terrorists with audible breathing and a beeping sound travelling across a Terrorist Hunt session, when attacking a map. When they see a player, their light turns from white to orange, and their sound signal beeps faster, chasing down the damned player. They need more bullets to be downed than other terrorists, and if they reach the player, they trigger their bomb, killing themselves and the player.
- Resident Evil series:
- Rimworld: Boomrats and Boomalopes. Someone had the brilliant idea of genetically engineering organisms that could naturally synthetize volatile Chemfuel in their bodies, to ease production, and the species spread with all the others in the planet-seeding efforts. Naturally, something so full of potent fuels is going to go off like a napalm bomb upon death, which probably allowed its survival as a species once predators realized it wasn't worth it.
- In Robopon 2, Riggs Construction members make their exits in...memorably explosive ways.
- RWBY: Grimm Eclipse introduces a type of Grimm not featured in the source material. These being Creeps that blow themselves up when they get near a player. They're easily identified by the Sickly Green Glow on their spines, as opposed to the normal white of regular Creeps. Better get running when you see these coming for you because their explosions hurt.
- The Serious Sam series have two: the Beheaded Kamikaze and the Marsh Hopper.
- The Beheaded Kamikaze enemy class that, depending on the game, a headless zombie with bombs for hands (its most common form) or a headless zombie with a cartoon bomb for a head attached to its neck with a spring (Serious Sam II). Both types beeline towards you screaming at the top of their lungs (despite it, well, being beheaded; it's All There in the Manual). The running joke is that Mental could have taken over the universe by now if he had just left them silent. Word of God says the screaming is for psychological warfare.
- There's also the MK-II Kamikaze from Serious Sam: Next Encounter. These guys aren't headless; they're reprogrammed mental patients who wear blankets as hoods with creepy smiles painted on them, and they lug huge sticks of dynamite on their backs.
- The marsh-hoppers, from Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, are leaping, suicidal frogs who explode on contact with their target. They're quick and easy to take down, but the game makes a point of how annoying these creatures may be by hordes of them being the "boss" battle of certain portions.
- Serious Sam II introduces Marcel the Clown, a beefier version of the Beheaded Kamikaze (in spite of it being one of the few returning enemies). Like its name implies, it's a clown on a unicycle who charges towards Sam while Laughing Mad, and explodes upon contact with him.
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: One of the enemies found in the Abandoned Factory is a robot with a very bombastic death animation, in that it will go out in an explosion of massive, highly-damaging fireballs that travel a considerable distance.
- Shenmue: An obscure ability performed by Shenhua in an old promotional trailer has her blow away two attackers with an orange explosion. She hasn't performed that in the main games thus far until it was expanded in SEGA Heroes as an energy she channels in times of danger.
- Shining Force 2 has a battle where there are concealed rock bombs, that act like enemies, and when they are killed they destruct.
- Shinobi: One of the Ninjitsu in older titles is the "Jitsu of Mijin", a self destruction attack that destroys all onscreen enemies in exchange for a life from your stock. Musashi reforms himself right where he had been standing, unless the player is stupid enough to use it when no lives are left, in which case it's game over.
- Slime Rancher: Boom Slimes have been known to suddenly explode. Not that this does any damage to themselves or any of the other slimes. This makes them rather hard to keep, as more than a few of them can cause chain reactions to launch themselves out of their pen or knock you out.
- Smashroom: The Player Character has the ability to charge up and cause fungal explosions that don't kill him. He can use it to destroy obstacles, fight enemies, and act as a Double Jump.
- Smash TV features Mr. Shrapnel. He'll wander around an arena's perimeter, stand still for a while, and he'll detonate himself into a few examples of his namesake if his presence is ignored. One of the better examples on the page, since while he's wandering he's a relatively minor threat; you have other enemies and obstacles to worry about. And then it stops, and suddenly you realise that you've been ignoring several of the most dangerous enemies in the game and they take a helluvalot of damage to kill safely before they explode all up your face. Fortunately, killing Mr. Shrapnel before he self-detonates means no harmful projectiles cluttering up the arena.
- Something
- Something has an entire level dedicated to exploding enemies called Happy Explosions.
- In addition to the Bob-ombs, Something Else has the pink Bullet Birds, the red Bomb Boos and the dull red Yoshi Koopas explode.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Hedgehog's Star Light Zone has bomb-shaped robots that lumber around for a few seconds before exploding, releasing four fireballs in the process. They get a size upgrade in Sonic CD.
- Sonic 3 & Knuckles has enemies in Lava Reef Zone who disguise themselves as rocks. When you get close, they lose their disguise, blink for a second, and explode.
- Sonic Mania: The boss of Metallic Madness Act 2 has Dr. Eggman piloting a machine that deploys different robots out of the glass pipes on the sides. Befitting the origin of the level, the pipe on the player's left deploys Amy Rose robots that grab onto the player or their AI partner and explode.
- Sonic Erazor, a Game Mod for Sonic the Hedgehog, has gray Bombs that can explode several times.
- SpellForce: Conquest of Eo: Some enemies, like plague beetles, will explode when they die, delivering damage or nasty status ailments to any nearby enemies.
- Spelunky:
- It's possible to make "Damsel Bombs" by attaching a sticky bomb onto a damsel and letting her run into hard to reach or just plain dangerous areas so she blows up whatever threat or obstacle was in your way. Of course, it's also possible to stick a bomb onto a damsel by accident by holding her and pressing the quick-throw button, so now you're left holding a ticking time bomb that, incidentally, CAN follow you. Slightly risky in confined spaces.
- As far as enemies go, the Jungle area has Fire Frogs, which are of the "detonates violently upon death" variation. When they take any damage, they'll explode after a few seconds' delay. In the HD version, Mantraps can eat them, but that doesn't stop the frog from exploding anyway. Submerging Fire Frogs in water turns them into regular, non-explosive frogs (and somehow heals Fire Frogs which already are on the way to exploding). Ice Caves feature UFOs which fly and, after being destroyed, detonate on impact. The sequel features Mummy Cats which run at the Spelunker and either on contact or upon defeat release a gust of cursed dust which caps health to 1 (and kills if already on 1 HP).
- Spiral Knights has bombies, armless little zombies with bombs for their heads. No points for guessing their plan of attack. In a small twist on the trope, they actually have a fair amount of health, so the easiest way to kill them is actually to trigger the explosion and then to either run away or push them away before they detonate.
- 'Splosion Man: The titular character can detonate himself up to three times in a row before needing to recharge.
- Spore Galactic Adventures can have creatures do this. This is actually the only way for creatures to attack a captain that is using stealth.
- Star Control: Shofixti ships have a very weak main projectile weapon — and a very powerful self-destructive "Glory Device" as a secondary weapon. And in Star Control 2 the Shofixti are nearly extinct because they made their own sun go nova in order to destroy an invading Ur-Quan fleet. All that's left are one warrior who was out of the system at the time, and accidentally broke his Glory Device, and some cryogenically frozen females in a VUX admiral's collection.
- StarCraft has Zerg Infested Terrans (a rare sight as creating them requires bringing a Zerg Queen into a Terran base to take over an enemy Command Center after significantly damaging it) and air-to-air Zerg Scourges. Terran Spider Mines and Protoss Scarabs are autonomous units that the player cannot give orders to directly and are deployed by other, more conventional units — a Vulture can lay 3 Spider Mines if they're researched and Reavers construct Scarabs to use as ammo, making it the only unit type in the entire game which doesn't simply attack for free. As Mines and Scarabs are land-bound actual units, they inherit some problems with pathfinding the game is infamous for. Starcraft II drops Scourges, but introduces Banelings, which are mutated from Zerglings. The Heart of the Swarm expansion lets you evolve Banelings during the campaign, either to split into two mini-banelings after exploding or to have the ability to scale cliffs and jump to their targets as a gapcloser. Protoss have gained the Disruptor in Legacy of the Void, which uses the Purification Nova ability to generate a short lived projection of energy that can be commanded around to place it in the best spot you can before it explodes.
- Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds features building-shredding Explosive Droids in one of the Rebel campaign missions.
- In Subnautica, we get the Crash Fish, which apparently eat sulfuric compounds secreted by the symbiotic plant species in which they live. When the player approaches those plants, the crash fish attacks while howling and ignites their ingested sulfur to explode.
- Super Mario Bros. has Bob-Ombs and Bullet Bills, Cartoon Bomb and missile-shaped enemies that head towards Mario and explode.
- According to first-wind-up-key accounts, Bob-Ombs enjoy blowing themselves up quite a bit, and think it akin to punching someone in the face. Ironically, their king seems to be the only one who can't do it through sheer force of will. The Paper Mario games are the first games where they're shown to be capable of repeatedly blowing themselves up with no ill effects save for occasionally being launched a couple dozen feet in the air (taken to an extreme by a squad of them who operate a cannon by cramming themselves into it and exploding simultaneously). This only applies to the friendly Bob-ombs, however, as once a hostile one explodes in battle, it's down for the count. In Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, their king Took a Level in Badass and can explode after a five minute timer. Yes, this is a real five minute timer in a turn-based game; it is almost impossible to survive his explosion, making his battle a Timed Mission.
- Paper Mario: The Origami King: Played for Drama. A standard black Bob-Omb (nicknamed Bobby) joins Mario and Olivia, missing a fuse in his design. He later explains that his kind usually have short lives, so they try to make the most with the time they're given, with their greatest wish being to make an impact and change something for the better. This is right before, with a fuse of his dearly departed friend newly attached, he detonates himself to save Olivia, who's trapped under a boulder.
- Super Robot Wars: Some titles have the "Self-Destruct" SP command that destroys a mech to deal damage to all surrounding units. It most often appears on Joke Character Boss Borot or Heero Yui, who's infamous for self-destructing mechs. Any time missiles appear as separate units, their sole attack is an enormous unavoidable explosion with range 1 that also destroys the missile. They'll use it as a counterattack, or against a unit sitting at the edge of their movement range.
- Super Smash Bros.:
- While the series has the Bob-ombs as items, there is also the Subspace Emissary enemy "Bombed". Their heads are bombs, and to attack they rip off their heads, throw them at the player, and run away. The head regrows after some time, which is when they attack again. If one attacks them while they have a head, it will fall off and explode. Every game in the series has also featured the aforementioned Electrode using Self-Destruct, as either a stage hazard in the Saffron City stage, or summonable via Poké Ball.
- Ultimate introduces the Bomber as an item. Additionally, one of Galeem's attacks has him create a copy of a playable character made of pure light that chase and attack the player to explode after a few seconds. Dharkon uses a version of this attack, only his copies are made of darkness.
- Hero brings with him an assortment of magic spells from his game series, one of which happens to be Kamikazee. Casting it ensures you'll immediately lose a stock, but with an explosion wide enough and powerful enough to hopefully take your opponents with you.
- Supreme Commander: The airborne Aeon Mercy guided missile from the vanilla game and land-only Cybran Fire Beetle from Forged Alliance expansion (which, underwhelmingly, doesn't deal damage if it doesn't activate the bomb on its own). The Seraphim Assault Bot Ythotha, when destroyed, leaves behind a quantum lighting orb that persists for around 30 seconds near the location where it fell (it moves around a little bit, but seems to be leashed to prevent it from wandering off too far) and during this time fries nearby units, without paying any attention to allegiance. The Ythotha's orb was originally intended as a feature for the Aeon Galactic Colossus, but got Dummied Out until Forged Alliance came along. ACUs explode upon destruction, but unless the game mode is not Assassination, it's not of much use.
- Survival Crisis Z has Dead Weight fat zombies, who explode like a grenade when killed. Best to keep your distance.
- The Swindle: Several enemies explode under certain circumstances. The penny-farthing robots and square mechs will explode on death or if you get too close, while the mini-zeppelins will pursue the sound you make and explode on contact with a surface — which can do anything from cause you serious trouble to make getting in the front door a little bit easier.
- The Talos Principle: One test obstacle is a black, floating mine that will charge at specific targets when they get within a certain radius, detonating on impact. They react not only to the player, but also wall-mounted turrets.
- Target Terror has dynamite-chested suicide bombers.
- Take No Prisoners has the "Psycho" prisoners, enemies wearing straitjackets lined with dynamites who explodes themselves on purpose to take you down.
- Team Fortress 2:
- Ullapool Caber allows the Demoman to become a self-destructing character. It's a stick grenade used as a melee weapon. Whacking an enemy with it does a large amount of damage to them and anyone else nearby while taking out about half your health and sending you flying straight up in the air high enough that you'll usually take even more damage coming down. Combine it with the Chargin' Targe for a guaranteed melee Critical Hit, and you gain the ability to charge at high speeds, followed by an explosion that will probably wipe out anyone nearby, be they Scout or Heavy Weapons Guy. Alternatively, using Sticky Bombs to jump can turn you into a guided missile.
- A Soldier equipped with the Equalizer/Escape Plan can use a Taunt Attack that makes him rip a grenade from his bandolier and pull the pin. Everything that is close enough will receive 500 damage. He won't survive without the effects of an Ubercharge, though.
- Mann vs. Machine also introduced Sentry Busters, a large naval mine with a Demoman robot's lower torso. The game even describes them as "basically a bomb with legs".
- Teleroboxer has the fourth opponent, Bomkun. Compared to the rest of the cast, it's a really silly-looking robot. However, unlike all the other enemies, it displays a 50-second bomb on its chest, which is less than one round. If you fail to KO it in that time, it blows up, causing a One-Hit KO.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters: Chrome Dome has a super move where he self-destructs in a huge explosion. Fortunately, his pieces immediately come back together; his opponent isn't so lucky.
- TekWar has android enemies that look just like normal civilians, except they explode when they touch you. Luckily you have a weapon that kills androids really quickly... at point-blank range.
- In Thief: The Dark Project the later stages contain Frogbeasts, who attack by leaping in your face and exploding for hefty damage. In the sequel you can use them to your own benefit, though they're not very effective against the mechanical foes you'll mostly be facing by that point. Their exploding counts as damage from a neutral source though, which can allow you to bypass the no-human-killing rule on higher difficulty settings.
- In Tiny Heist, sleeping bombs that explode if you wake them up make up most of the later floors.
- In SNK's T.N.K. III, blue soldiers drop One-Hit Kill landmines when killed, which includes being run over by your tank.
- Titanfall:
- A titan can be turned into one by equipping the Nuclear Ejection kit, which will cause the titan to self-destruct in a nuclear explosion when the pilot ejects.
- Titanfall 2 introduces Ticks, walking bombs that when deployed will automatically seek out the nearest enemy and explode.
- Total Annihilation:
- All units can self-destruct, damaging nearby units. The Roach and Invader are tiny little bots that are specifically designed to self-destruct and produce explosions much bigger than their size would suggest. For bonus fun you can load a bunch of them into a sea transport ship and detonate that, or fly them into the enemy base with dropships.
- The Commander explodes with the force of a nuke upon defeat and can also be used this way as a measure of last resort, provided the match settings allow you to continue playing after your Commander dies or you're hoping for a draw.
- The spin-off Total Annihilation: Kingdoms lacked the standardised self-destruct as the units were organic (it being a fantasy setting) but later added the Giant Rat unit for Taros, a giant rat with a barrel of magical explosive strapped to its back and the ability to turn invisible.
- Total War: Warhammer II: The Bloated Corpse, from the Vampire Coast roster, is a giant zombie swollen with the volatile gases of its own decomposition. When attacking, it throws itself into the middle of an enemy squad and violently explodes, destroying itself but dealing severe damage to anything caught in its explosion radius. While it's not very useful against single-entity units such as Lords, Heroes or large monsters, it's very well-suited to quickly getting rid of large amounts of infantry. In The Twisted and The Twilight DLC, the final tier of genetic instability caused by going too far with mutations causes the afflicted squad/monster to violently detonate after even the slightest injury.
- In Turok 2, the Endtrails have self-destruct mechanisms that they activate when critically injured.
- Twisted Metal Black's Brimstone launches suicide bombers at opponents as a Special attack.
- UFO Aftermath: The laser-proof Balloon Fish, best known wherever hardened UFO Aftermath players gather to cry into their beer about the entire squad being wiped out by a One-Hit-Point Wonder who happened to be behind a door and they neglected to send off one "volunteer" to open said door.
- In Vanquish, if a Gorgie is critically damaged but not destroyed, the torso will zoom towards Sam like a missile and explode, potentially killing him in one hit. Starting with Mission 1-6, there are the Jellyfish robots, which are basically walking mines, coming in small and large versions.
- War of the Human Tanks: Pochi-class Human Tanks have zero attack range, but can destroy any units surrounding them (including friendlies).
- Warcraft has Goblin Sappers and Dwarven Demolition Teamsnote their identical counterparts in Warcraft II, who deal great damage to units and incredible damage to structures. Wisps, the Night Elf Worker Units, can also blow themselves up, but this can only damage summoned units (though it also dispels buffs that don't help you). In the Frozen Throne expansion, the Horde get Troll Batriders, which can suicide-bomb enemy air units for massive damage.
- Wario Land: Flying Bombs are enemies that attach to Wario's head, are difficult to remove and explode on a short timer.
- Wild 9: One of your allies has the special ability to explode on contact with anything, repeatedly, with no ill effects. Naturally, you have to toss him into things to solve puzzles.
- World of Warcraft:
- Warlocks had the spell Hellfire, which was a slow-motion version of this; an AoE fire blast that damaged the warlock in addition to nearby enemies.
- A couple of quests give you control over a giant zombie that runs around, aggros things, then explodes to kill them.
- The game also has things that amount to the same as Mario's Bob-Ombs, a cartoon bomb with feet that runs and explodes. You can have a (non-exploding) one as a pet.
- In the Hoptallus encounter and the gauntlet before it in Mists of Pandaria's Stormstout Brewery, you can encounter virmen (rabbit-like beings) called Hoppers that carry explosives and can blow themselves up. The optimal way of dealing with them is killing the Boppers, picking up their hammers, and using the extra action button to kill them and the Hoplings.
- In the Commander Vo'jak encounter in the Siege of Niuzao Temple, two of the waves include Sik'thik Demolishers, who carry explosives and try to climb the ramp to reach you. A single hit detonates them.
- In the Siege of Orgrimmar raid's Iron Juggernaut encounter, the boss will periodically deploy Crawler Mines that must be stomped on by the DPS to prevent raid-wide damage. They reappear in the Siegecrafter Blackfuse encounter targeting random players and explode for massive single-target damage if they reach their target, but must also be disposed of quickly before their break-in period ends and they become immune to crowd control effects.
- Worms: The Kamikaze (most of the games), Suicide Bomber (a cheat in Worms 2, an actual - but nerfed - weapon in Worms Armageddon and Worms World Party) and Airburst (Worms 4 Mayhem) weapons.
- X-COM: Apocalypse: The Poppers, small, blue, two-legged aliens whose one attack is to run up to your agents and explode with a huge blast radius. Very deadly in the early game. Oh, and they also explode if you kill them with explosive/incendiary weapons. Their explosion is slightly more powerful than the dedicated Heavy Explosive produced by Marsec. Said Heavy Explosive is essentially a Time Bomb used for demolition work, meaning it is also an Incredibly Obvious Bomb. Yep.
- Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim: The penultimate dungeon has Cartoon Bomb-shaped enemies that ignite their fuse when they see you and inflate before exploding.
