History Main / OxygenMeter

* Many ''JamesBond'' first person shooters.

* The ''{{Thief}}'' games have an oxygen meter that looks like a line of bubbles across the bottom of the screen. If you knock someone unconscious and dump him in water, he will die in about the same span of time you would (so don't dump unconscious guards in swimming pools if you're running a no-kill mission).
** Averted in ''Thief: Deadly Shadows'', where Garrett has learnt SuperDrowningSkills.

An occasional alternative to the Oxygen Meter is to allow only for a finite amount of time underwater before the player character automatically floats back to the surface unharmed -- however this also places a restriction on level design, to avoid the player getting stuck should their "swim timer" run out in the middle of, say, an underwater tunnel or cavern with no air on the surface.

* While oxygen seems to be unlimited in the ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' games, if Guybrush Threepwood stand around underwater for a really long time, he will die. This is really more of a gag death, as it's literally the only way to die in the games.
** This is of course in reference to Guybrush's special talent to hold his breath for ten minutes (a fact he'll repeat to anybody willing to listen). You literally have 10 minutes to solve this puzzle/get out of the water, which is intentionally much longer than most people will need.

*** However, it does have another use in ''Banjo-Tooie'': not only does it affect Banjo's ability to hold his breath under water, it also affects his ability to hold his breath in the presence of poisonous gas which Gruntilda uses against him in the final battle.

* ''Franchise/TombRaider'' uses a couple of variations on this; while most of the games use a standard oxygen meter, ''Franchise/TombRaider: Chronicles'' used a special diving suit on one level that had confusing ([[GuideDangIt since they never told you]]) additional mechanics: the suit had near infinite air, but as you bumped into walls and rocks Lara audibly becomes stressed and begins breathing heavily, at which point you begin to lose oxygen quickly, meaning you had to avoid hitting things. ''Franchise/TombRaider 3'' also has an underwater propulsion vehicle that makes you move faster, but it's argubly less useful than just swimming as it decreases your general mobility and must be got off of to use switches and other items. Water in arctic levels also had a hypothermia bar that went down faster than the oxygen bar, but functioned much the same way. In ''Legend'' and ''Anniversary'', oddly, Lara is much slower underwater and has a much shorter air meter. ''Underworld'' changes things up again, with Lara going back to being almost as fast as in the original games, and having such a long oxygen bar it borders on SuperNotDrowningSkills (that is in the rare instances where she swims without scuba gear, where it is that trope).

** Averted in ''Thief: Deadly Shadows'', where Garrett has learnt SuperDrowningSkills

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Doom}} Doom 3]]'' has the oxygen meter only visible outdoors. You can even refill it by getting scattered air canisters. Additionally you are rewarded with a loud breahting sound while moving outdoors.

* ''{{Holdover}}'' gives Marie a meter that can be upgraded by collecting blue hearts around the facility. You'll need it too. She spends a lot of time underwater.

** The oxygen meters in VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine, VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy and VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 can be apparently refilled by collecting coins. More interestingly, the Bee Mario form in the latter can fly longer by collecting coins in mid air to refill the flight meter. How that works is mentioned, but not quite explained.

** Fortunately, Ratchet gains an oxygen mask about halfway through the first game-and unlike [[BagOfSpilling most of his weapons and items]] the mask makes it to every subsequent game, making it a non-issue for the rest of the series.

** It is all rather selective, too - on some levels, Sonic displays exquisite SuperDrowningSkills, dying if he so much as touches the rippling water at the very bottom of the game world (if you're lucky, he may only lose rings, and bounce back onto land). On others, water is a relatively benign substance, merely reducing your running speed and jump height (swimming is out of the question), and in ''some'' cases (where it takes up a significant portion or even all of the level) requiring you to find air to breathe. Worse, there are even some places where the two are mixed; go too deep on, say, the (GameGear, Sonic 1) Jungle zone or the Aquatic boss fight, and you'll instantly pop your clogs. Maybe Hedgehogs are really sensitive to pressure?

* ''VideoGame/TheNewZealandStory'' did this, with the added implication that it may have actually been water in Tiki's lungs--swimming up to the surface would naturally allow your oxygen level to (slowly) replenish itself, but the process could be accelerated by spitting water. Pretty deadly water it was, too, as it could kill most enemies.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Rayman}}'' series plays with this a bit. The first game has SuperDrowningSkills, the second has an Oxygen Meter which can be refilled by collecting blue lums, and the third let's you breathe underwater indefinitely.

* The HiddenObjectGame ''Hidden Expedition: Titanic'' was structured as a series of dives to the wreck of (you guessed it) the Titanic. The timer for each level was a [=SCUBA=] tank, that vented a little extra air with each mis-click. Some of the levels also had a second tank hidden in one scene, finding it gave you some extra oxygen/time.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' have "Breath" meters; if the breath meter empties, the player's health begins to drain rapidly. Can be circumvented using a Water Breathing spell or playing as the [[LizardFolk Argonian]] race. ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' keeps the meter, but makes it invisible--so the only indication that you've been underwater too long is when your health starts draining. ''Skyrim'' also removed the ability to cast spells underwater, so you can't just infinitely cast and re-cast water breathing spells to stay underwater longer. Unless you have a ton of waterbreathing potions or are playing as an Argonian, your oxygen meter ''will'' limit your time underwater. (Just don't think about how you're managing to drink potions underwater.)

* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', your health would also start decreasing when you run out of oxygen and start gulping water. While there are [[InstantExpert skills]], items and {{Upgrade Artifact}}s to increase the amount of time you can hold your breath, the powerful health regeneration Upgrade Artifacts and instant-use [[HealThyself medkits]] allow one to use HitPoints as an extra Oxygen Meter.
* Swimming underwater in ''VideoGame/{{Gothic}}'' adds an oxygen meter in addition to the player's health and mana meters. When the Nameless Hero runs out of oxygen, the health starts draining instead, until he runs out of health and drowns. Notable because surfacing will make the meter invisible again, but will ''not'' instantly refill it--the player must stay on the surface for at least a few seconds, or will find on diving again that the meter isn't completely full.
* In ''MegaManBattleNetwork 5'', there is a water dungeon which you have to guide your current Navi through. While they are underwater they are perfectly fine until they run out of "cyber-air" (really?), at which point their HP starts dropping rapidly until you either hit a cyber-air pocket or exit the water. Oh, [[FakeDifficulty and there's random encounters the whole way, including while you're attempting to fight the currents that push you back and drain your air, and while you're trying to avoid the whirlpools that drain your air.]] There's also three areas of this, each one progressively more frustrating. This is one instance Capcom cut something out of the English release for a good reason--in the Japanese version, there were four areas.

* When traveling on the ocean floor to Tane-Tane Island in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', the way you refuel your characters' collective oxygen bar is... interesting, to say the least. The amount of time you're able to survive without the aide of these machines is fairly realistic compared to most examples, though--around 30 seconds to a minute (with battles excluded).

** And if you run out of oxygen, you don't die--instead you get washed up on the beach at the beginning and have to start the underwater "dungeon" all over again.

* There's an optional underwater dungeon in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' that gives you a timer. The boss is a PuzzleBoss, just to make things more "fun". (It's Gogo the Mimic. How do you win? [[spoiler:Do nothing. He's testing to see if you can be a good mimic - so mimic him mimicking you doing nothing.]] The faster you catch on, the more time you have to get out.)
** Though really you need to get down there with long enough for the battle, and still have enough time to spare to either return to the submarine, or teleprot right back to it. It helps that there is a chest that wasn't in the area the first time you went there [[spoiler: (before it sank back in world 1)]] that resets the timer.
* ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' uses a meter like this, but not for oxygen--the one place where Mario needs oxygen, [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum he can somehow get all he ever needs from a goldfish bowl]]. No, the meter comes into play when shifting into 3D, where it depletes steadily and does damage if it runs out.

* ''{{Minecraft}}'' gives you small air bubbles underwater. Once used up you lose health and have a hard time moving around (or just up). Helmets enchanted with the Respiration ability decreases oxygen consumption, including drowning damage.

* In ''Franchise/DeadSpace'', this becomes visible once you enter a vacuum. As it depletes, Isaac begins to choke and gasp, which is just wonderful for your concentration. Thankfully your time limit can be extended with upgrades to your RIG and restored with air canisters.

* The ''{{Rayman}}'' series plays with this a bit. The first game has SuperDrowningSkills, the second has an Oxygen Meter which can be refilled by collecting blue lums, and the third let's you breathe underwater indefinitely.

*** They can't seem to decide on how long the oxygen meter should be, before the ''burning crusade'' expansion, and shortly into ''wrath'', it was one minute long, halfway through wrath, they increased it to roughly five minutes, and as of ''cataclysm'', it's back down to roughly two minutes.

* The ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' series.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' have "Breath" meters; if the breath meter empties, the player's health begins to drain rapidly. Can be circumvented using a Water Breathing spell or playing as the [[LizardFolk Argonian]] race.

* The more recent 3D ''SuperMarioBros'' games. The original ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' made the odd decision of using the health meter in lieu of a separate oxygen meter, while still allowing you to catch your breath when surfacing, which basically meant that you could refill your health for free by swimming around at the surface of any deep body of water, or continue holding your breath as long as you gathered coins (which healed your life meter). ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' and both ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy Galaxy]]'' [[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 games]] use a separate oxygen meter (though coins still refill it when underwater, and in ''Sunshine'', it basically replaces your health meter while you're underwater.)

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' has an invisible one just for swimming. In the Subspace Emissary, some stickers can increase the length, but there really isn't any need for it.

A third way, of course, is to just prohibit underwater travel entirely -- either by limiting swimming mechanics to the water's surface (such as in ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}''), using SuperDrowningSkills, or by simply not allowing the player to interact with deep water in the first place using InvisibleWalls. (Sure, you can still splash around in puddles and knee-high streams, but to go jump in a ''lake''? Are you crazy?)

A third way, of course, is to just prohibit underwater travel entirely -- either by limiting swimming mechanics to the water's surface (such as in ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}''), using SuperDrowningSkills, or by simply not allowing the player to interact with deep water in the first place. (Sure, you can still splash around in puddles and knee-high streams, but to go jump in a ''lake''? Are you crazy?)

** It's Mario, dude. How a fat Italian plumber with superhuman strength, jumping ability and endurance lives in a kingdom inhabited by mushroom people but ruled by a human princess whom he has to save on a regular basis from a giant spiky turtle has also yet to be explained.

** And then along ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' which vastly expanded the underwater world, reintroduced the oxygen meter, and added scuba-diving and controllable submarines which allows the player to explore for longer.

* Non-underwater example: the ''MrDriller'' series has an Oxygen meter that slowly depletes as you play, with the oxygen loss accelerating once you make it deeper underground. To stay alive, you need to pick up air capsules scattered throughout the mine.
* One type of puzzle in ''The Time Warp of DoctorBrain'' had you controlling a lungfish in an underwater maze. The lungfish would gradually change colors from bright green to purple as your oxygen ran out. [[OxygenatedUnderwaterBubbles Eating bubbles]] or finding an air pocket replenished it.

* Swimming underwater in ''{{Gothic}}'' adds an oxygen meter in addition to the player's health and mana meters. When the Nameless Hero runs out of oxygen, the health starts draining instead, until he runs out of health and drowns. Notable because surfacing will make the meter invisible again, but will ''not'' instantly refill it--the player must stay on the surface for at least a few seconds, or will find on diving again that the meter isn't completely full.

* In the ''{{Half-Life}}'' series, your [[PoweredArmor hazardous environment suit]] provides you oxygen for a limited time. Oddly, the same meter that powers your sprint ability and flashlight is used for this in the second game. When you run out of air, your health starts dropping, but you can refill the health that you lost from drowning by coming up for air.

** The second game's auxiliary power supplying him oxygen can be explained away by his suit using that electricity to electrolyse oxygen from the water as he swims. Once that runs out... it's back to good old lungs.

* ''TombRaider'' uses a couple of variations on this; while most of the games use a standard oxygen meter, ''TombRaider: Chronicles'' used a special diving suit on one level that had confusing ([[GuideDangIt since they never told you]]) additional mechanics: the suit had near infinite air, but as you bumped into walls and rocks Lara audibly becomes stressed and begins breathing heavily, at which point you begin to lose oxygen quickly, meaning you had to avoid hitting things. ''TombRaider 3'' also has an underwater propulsion vehicle that makes you move faster, but it's argubly less useful than just swimming as it decreases your general mobility and must be got off of to use switches and other items. Water in arctic levels also had a hypothermia bar that went down faster than the oxygen bar, but functioned much the same way. In ''Legend'' and ''Anniversary'', oddly, Lara is much slower underwater and has a much shorter air meter. ''Underworld'' changes things up again, with Lara going back to being almost as fast as in the original games, and having such a long oxygen bar it borders on SuperNotDrowningSkills (that is in the rare instances where she swims without scuba gear, where it is that trope).
** Decrease in health also functions differently depending on the game. Prior to ''TombRaider Legend'', health usually decreases at a fixed steady rate. During and after ''Legend'', the decrease in health rate is usually a slash of a quarter of the health bar every two seconds, or an eighth, depending on the difficulty level setting.

* ''{{Terraria}}'' has an air meter that appears and depletes gradually when your character enters water (or lava, but if you're swimming around in that you generally have [[ManOnFire other problems]]). It allows you a decent amount of time, and if you're doing a long stint of underwater mining, you can always dig into a wall to create your own air pockets. Certain pieces of equipment like the Diving Helmet or the Breathing Reed make the meter deplete more slowly (the Breathing Reed also allows breathing if the end is still above the surface). The game also provides the Gills Potion, which makes you start drowning in air instead of water, and Neptune's Shell, which turns you into a FishPerson and allows you to swim and breathe.

* ''AlphaPrime'' uses an OxygenMeter on the asteroid's surface, refillable through the use of oxygen dispensers, or simply by walking back into an airlock.

* ''{{Holdover}}'' gives Marie a meter that can be upgraded by collecting blue hearts around the facility. You'll need it too. She spends a lot of time underwater.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' have "Breath" meters; if the breath meter empties, the player's health begins to drain rapidly. Can be circumvented using a Water Breathing spell or playing as the [[LizardFolk Argonian]] race.
** ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', which use the same engine, inherit this effect from Oblivion as well. It drains worryingly quickly, followed by massive health loss. Although a character in New Vegas can gain SuperNotDrowningSkills with [[spoiler:the unique rebreather]], again based on the very same effect as Water Breathing in Oblivion.
** An interesting variation on this is that the meter is more and more forgiving as you increase your Endurance attribute.
* The more recent 3D ''SuperMarioBros'' games. The original ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' made the odd decision of using the health meter in lieu of a separate oxygen meter, while still allowing you to catch your breath when surfacing, which basically meant that you could refill your health for free by swimming around at the surface of any deep body of water, or continue holding your breath as long as you gathered coins (which healed your life meter). ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' and both ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy Galaxy]]'' [[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 games]] use a separate oxygen meter (though coins still refill it when underwater, and in ''Sunshine'', it basically replaces your health meter while you're underwater.)
** The ''TyTheTasmanianTiger'' games use the Mario 64 variant, with exactly the same consequences.
** The oxygen meters in VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine, VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy and VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 can be apparently refilled by collecting coins. More interestingly, the Bee Mario form in the latter can fly longer by collecting coins in mid air to refill the flight meter. How that works is mentioned, but not quite explained.

* Many ''JamesBond'' first person shooters.

* In the ''{{Half-Life}}'' series, your [[PoweredArmor hazardous environment suit]] provides you oxygen for a limited time. Oddly, the same meter that powers your sprint ability and flashlight is used for this in the second game. When you run out of air, your health starts dropping, but you can refill the health that you lost from drowning by coming up for air.
** Health lost to drowning being replenished by coming up and a line from the first game's tutorial sequence suggests that when you go underwater in the first game or the suit's auxiliary power runs out in the second, Gordon is merely holding his breath; when health starts dropping, it's a sign that he used up the air in his lungs and [[FridgeBrilliance what we see as his health actually represents his blood oxygen levels in this case]]. Just like in real life, staying underwater kills him because he holds his breath for so long he passes out from lack of oxygen - [[CaptainObvious which is indirectly fatal when it happens underwater]], especially if no one's around to pull a comatose scientist and his who-knows-how-heavy PoweredArmor out of the dip. Still doesn't explain how he [[SuperDrowningSkills runs out of air so quick]]; maybe the suit's weight makes him have to exert more force to move underwater, using up air faster than normal. On the other hand, he IS a [[SquishyWizard mere scientist, not a soldier or hobby swimmer]].
** The second game's auxiliary power supplying him oxygen can be explained away by his suit using that electricity to electrolyse oxygen from the water as he swims. Once that runs out... it's back to good old lungs.
* In the first ''FarCry'' your SprintMeter doubled as a Oxygen meter.
** That makes sense, because if you sprint for an extended period of time, ''what'' are you going to have to catch?

* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem Time To Kill'' deviated from the [[VideoGame/DukeNukem3D first-person variant]] by actually providing the player with a LCD heads-up oxygen meter. There was the added caveat, however, of no scuba gear to be found.
* The first ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank'' game.
** Fortunately, Ratchet gains an oxygen mask about halfway through the first game-and unlike [[BagOfSpilling most of his weapons and items]] the mask makes it to every subsequent game, making it a non-issue for the rest of the series.
* Two-dimensional ''SonicTheHedgehog'' games give the character an invisible oxygen meter, with a countdown from 5 to 1 followed by automatic death when it runs out.
** Complete with [[NightmareFuel/VideoGames the dreaded countdown music]].
*** To be fair though, it did take 2-3 real world seconds for each tick of the countdown, and most underwater sections had those mysteriously convenient sources of Sonic-sized (presumably so you could also get your torso inside and equalize pressure) breathable-air bubbles about every 30 seconds of distance... just far enough for a skilled player to collect all the rings and powerups and catch a breath from them.
** This is the same case for the first ''Sonic Adventure'' game, but in its sequel, two-thirds of the cast dies upon falling into water (save the small patch in the Chao Gardens). This eventually became the case for everyone over the course of the 3D series while the 2D games retained the classic countdown.
*** The underwater Knuckles level "Aquatic Mine", which can be quite dangerous until you find the infinite oxygen item.
** It is all rather selective, too - on some levels, Sonic displays exquisite SuperDrowningSkills, dying if he so much as touches the rippling water at the very bottom of the game world (if you're lucky, he may only lose rings, and bounce back onto land). On others, water is a relatively benign substance, merely reducing your running speed and jump height (swimming is out of the question), and in ''some'' cases (where it takes up a significant portion or even all of the level) requiring you to find air to breathe. Worse, there are even some places where the two are mixed; go too deep on, say, the (GameGear, Sonic 1) Jungle zone or the Aquatic boss fight, and you'll instantly pop your clogs. Maybe Hedgehogs are really sensitive to pressure?

* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', your health would also start decreasing when you run out of oxygen and start gulping water. While there are [[InstantExpert skills]], items and {{Upgrade Artifact}}s to increase the amount of time you can hold your breath, the powerful health regeneration Upgrade Artifacts and instant-use [[HealThyself medkits]] allow one to use HitPoints as an extra Oxygen Meter.
* Bungie's ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' series feature an especially heinous, literal Oxygen Meter: Your armored suit's {{HUD}} doesn't indicate how much oxygen remains in your lungs and blood, but in ITS compressed oxygen tanks! Since your suit lacks any way of refilling it with ambient oxygen, you must locate compressed oxygen dispenser panels or tanks of compressed oxygen to refill it. Worse yet, the player character apparently refuses to hold his breath, as if his suit's tank is empty he will [[CriticalExistenceFailure instantly faint from even momentary immersion]].
** It's rare to have trouble with Oxygen underwater (or sewage, or lava), but the back-to-back vacuum levels (three in a row, if you visit a secret level) in ''Marathon Infinity'' have a nasty reputation. The one vacuum level in ''Marathon'' was also infamous.
** Compare this with the ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' series' Master Chief/playable Elites, who can apparently stand around forever without anything to breathe.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has two of these. A traditional oxygen bar for underwater, and a fatigue bar to prevent you from swimming out too far.
** The first one can be bypassed by potions or spells. The second one on depleting completely begins draining your health, and can be circumvented by healing yourself to easily swim to the end of the map. The undead Forsaken can also stay underwater for much longer. This used to be significantly more useful until they extended the oxygen bar for all players, so that now everyone usually has plenty of time to fulfill their task.
*** They can't seem to decide on how long the oxygen meter should be, before the ''burning crusade'' expansion, and shortly into ''wrath'', it was one minute long, halfway through wrath, they increased it to roughly five minutes, and as of ''cataclysm'', it's back down to roughly two minutes.
* ''VideoGame/DungeonsAndDragonsOnline'' has a breath meter whenever a PC goes underwater. When the bar empties, the character starts taking damage. Unfortunately, surfacing does not heal any damage taken due to drowning.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' has an invisible one just for swimming. In the Subspace Emissary, some stickers can increase the length, but there really isn't any need for it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Turok}}'' has a fairly unremarkable one, although you'd kind of expect a muscled-up warrior like him to be able to hold his breath a bit longer.
* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'' has an oxygen meter which appears when the protagonist is underwater, although one might wonder why, since he's a robot. Players trying for the [[MultipleEndings secret ending]] will eventually discover while saving Curly that surface robots are programmed to shut down if their systems get flooded with water, but this leads one to ask how carrying an oxygen tank enables one to survive underwater indefinitely.
** Well, it is a bubble around the player, so the systems don't get flooded with water.
* Swimming underwater in ''{{Gothic}}'' adds an oxygen meter in addition to the player's health and mana meters. When the Nameless Hero runs out of oxygen, the health starts draining instead, until he runs out of health and drowns. Notable because surfacing will make the meter invisible again, but will ''not'' instantly refill it--the player must stay on the surface for at least a few seconds, or will find on diving again that the meter isn't completely full.
* ''VideoGame/TheNewZealandStory'' did this, with the added implication that it may have actually been water in Tiki's lungs--swimming up to the surface would naturally allow your oxygen level to (slowly) replenish itself, but the process could be accelerated by spitting water. Pretty deadly water it was, too, as it could kill most enemies.

* ''Radical Rex'' plays this entirely straight. Not only do you get a bar, but you have to either surface to refill it, or (ugh) lock lips with a big fat fish that is somehow able to maintain neutral buoyancy despite apparently being full of air. Oh, and if you touch the un-inflated fish (which this type will become upon giving up its payload), you'll lose a big chunk of air. There are also "bubble" powerups good for about half a deep breath. And if you get caught in the anemone's tentacles, the meter drains almost immediately to zero (though whether it's this or some kind of poison in them that kills you is debatable).
* The ''{{Thief}}'' games have an oxygen meter that looks like a line of bubbles across the bottom of the screen. If you knock someone unconscious and dump him in water, he will die in about the same span of time you would (so don't dump unconscious guards in swimming pools if you're running a no-kill mission).
** Averted in ''Thief: Deadly Shadows'', where Garrett has learnt SuperDrowningSkills
* In ''MegaManBattleNetwork 5'', there is a water dungeon which you have to guide your current Navi through. While they are underwater they are perfectly fine until they run out of "cyber-air" (really?), at which point their HP starts dropping rapidly until you either hit a cyber-air pocket or exit the water. Oh, [[FakeDifficulty and there's random encounters the whole way, including while you're attempting to fight the currents that push you back and drain your air, and while you're trying to avoid the whirlpools that drain your air.]] There's also three areas of this, each one progressively more frustrating. This is one instance Capcom cut something out of the English release for a good reason--in the Japanese version, there were four areas.
** By the DS version, it was back up to four, which made for a rather annoying playthrough using a FAQ from GameFAQs, since one of the only really good ones was done by an editor [[AuthorFilibuster ranting and raving throughout said FAQ about how they 'treated American gamers like babies' and went on and on about the Japanese version of the GBA release]], instead of say, actual useful information about the game... Especially since, y'know, someone reading his walkthrough was likely to be playing the US version, or a version close enough that it didn't much matter.
* When travelling on the ocean floor to Tane-Tane Island in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', the way you refuel your characters' collective oxygen bar is... interesting, to say the least. The amount of time you're able to survive without the aide of these machines is fairly realistic compared to most examples, though--around 30 seconds to a minute (with battles excluded).
** You get them [[HoYay kissed by big-lipped mermen]].
** And if you run out of oxygen, you don't die--instead you get washed up on the beach at the beginning and have to start the underwater "dungeon" all over again.
* Non-underwater example: the ''MrDriller'' series has an Oxygen meter that slowly depletes as you play, with the oxygen loss accelerating once you make it deeper underground. To stay alive, you need to pick up air capsules scattered throughout the mine.
* ''[[VideoGame/JungleHunt Jungle King / Jungle Hunt]]'' uses this during the swimming levels.
* ''AlphaPrime'' uses an OxygenMeter on the asteroid's surface, refillable through the use of oxygen dispensers, or simply by walking back into an airlock.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', the party has twenty minutes to defeat [[BonusBoss Emerald]] [[UnderwaterBossBattle WEAPON]], unless a party member is carrying the "Underwater" Materia, which replaces the timer with SuperNotDrowningSkills.
* In ''Franchise/DeadSpace'', this becomes visible once you enter a vacuum. As it depletes, Isaac begins to choke and gasp, which is just wonderful for your concentration. Thankfully your time limit can be extended with upgrades to your RIG and restored with air canisters.
* There's an optional underwater dungeon in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' that gives you a timer. The boss is a PuzzleBoss, just to make things more "fun". (It's Gogo the Mimic. How do you win? [[spoiler:Do nothing. He's testing to see if you can be a good mimic - so mimic him mimicking you doing nothing.]] The faster you catch on, the more time you have to get out.)
** Though really you need to get down there with long enough for the battle, and still have enough time to spare to either return to the submarine, or teleprot right back to it. It helps that there is a chest that wasn't in the area the first time you went there [[spoiler: (before it sank back in world 1)]] that resets the timer.
* ''SteelBattalion: Line of Contact'' adds one in the form of your view whitening up when the cockpit hatch is closed and your VT is shut down (either manually by toggle switches, the Rapier's Stun Rod, or the Earthshaker's Gauss emitter). Go without oxygen for too long and the pilot asphyxiates, taking you out of the match even if you have enough sortie points for another VT and deleting your pilot data.

* ''VideoGame/WillRock'' has the traditional meter for the underwater sequences. If it runs out, you can always replenish your health with healing packs and bandages if they're at hand.
* A Variation, from ''Metro2033'': Your wristwatch tells you how much time you have left on your gas mask before you need to switch filter canisters. Spend too long in areas with toxic atmosphere and you die. And you need to take off your gas mask as soon as it's safe to breathe, or it might get damaged the next time you get attacked in melee.
** And since there's no HUD, you have to check your wristwatch constantly to see how much time you have before you have to change filters. And just because you're required to wear the gas mask doesn't mean it can't be damaged either, making any surface expedition a tense journey to avoid any serious conflict.
* All three ''DisneysMagicalQuest'' games have them, but the meter is only visible in the third.
* In ''Videogame/JablessAdventure'', your oxygen counts down from 100. It happens so quickly that you really can't accomplish ''anything'' underwater prior to receiving the SCUBA gear (which allows you to stay underwater indefinitely).
* While you don't get a visible oxygen meter in VideoGame/TeamFortress2, stay underwater long enough and your character will make drowning-type noises and take damage, eventually drowning. As with the ''Half-Life'' series above, health lost from drowning is restored by coming up for air.
** Oddly enough, Medics and Dispensers can heal players faster than drowning can kill them, so they're sort of like oxygen masks or tubes.
** Amusingly, some creatures in New Vegas will follow you underwater, despite having their own oxygen meter.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Doom}} Doom 3]]'' has the oxygen meter only visible outdoors. You can even refill it by getting scattered air canisters. Additionally you are rewarded with a loud breahting sound while moving outdoors.
* ''{{Minecraft}}'' gives you small air bubbles underwater. Once used up you lose health and have a hard time moving around (or just up). Helmets enchanted with the Respiration ability decreases oxygen consumption, including drowning damage.
* ''VideoGame/KirbyMassAttack'' is one of the few games in the ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'' series which has that meter. This meter is shared by all the kirbies and the more kirbies the player has, the bigger the meter is.
* The ''{{Rayman}}'' series plays with this a bit. The first game has SuperDrowningSkills, the second has an Oxygen Meter which can be refilled by collecting blue lums, and the third let's you breathe underwater indefinitely.
* ''{{Fisher-Diver}}'' has an oxygen meter. In addition to time, it also goes down when attacking the fish. This is one of the things to encourage using the harpoon sparingly.
* ''VideoGame/SpacePanic'' may have been the first game to have an oxygen meter, though it was really no more than a [[TimedMission level timer]] labeled "oxygen."
* ''VideoGame/MagicalDoropie'' gave Doropie an oxygen meter in the underwater base levels. When it got low, it would beep until refilled by jumping into a convenient air pocket.
* ''{{Terraria}}'' has an air meter that appears and depletes gradually when your character enters water (or lava, but if you're swimming around in that you generally have [[ManOnFire other problems]]). It allows you a decent amount of time, and if you're doing a long stint of underwater mining, you can always dig into a wall to create your own air pockets. Certain pieces of equipment like the Diving Helmet or the Breathing Reed make the meter deplete more slowly (the Breathing Reed also allows breathing if the end is still above the surface). The game also provides the Gills Potion, which makes you start drowning in air instead of water, and Neptune's Shell, which turns you into a FishPerson and allows you to swim and breathe.
** Amusingly, if you attempt to equip a Fish Bowl as a helmet, you start drowning as if you were underwater. Which you kind of are, as far as breathing is concerned.

* ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' uses a meter like this, but not for oxygen--the one place where Mario needs oxygen, [[ItRunsOnNonsensoleum he can somehow get all he ever needs from a goldfish bowl]]. No, the meter comes into play when shifting into 3D, where it depletes steadily and does damage if it runs out.
* One type of puzzle in ''The Time Warp of DoctorBrain'' had you controlling a lungfish in an underwater maze. The lungfish would gradually change colors from bright green to purple as your oxygen ran out. [[OxygenatedUnderwaterBubbles Eating bubbles]] or finding an air pocket replenished it.

* The ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' gives you a two-hour air supply on your spacesuit, though checking it requires you to open up the spacesuit's info screen. Two hours is usually plenty of time for you to do whatever you need to, although it's possible to run out if you're trying to patch up a capital ship's hull with the suit's [[HealingShiv repair laser]]. Somewhat bizarrely, when your oxygen runs out, you explode.

* In addition to being a certified death incarnate, Rico Rodriguez in ''[[VideoGame/JustCause Just Cause 2]]'' can swim underwater for a ridiculously long amount of time. His oxygen is counted by a small circle that counts down from 99 by two every 2 seconds. This means that Rico can stay underwater for approximately one minute and 50 seconds. [[SuperNotDrowningSkills Yowza]].