Regenerating Health

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(Redirected from Walk It Off)
"Medicine became obsolete in the year 2004, when doctors noticed that hiding behind a wall caused human health to regenerate to 100%."
—Games Radar, 101 things we've learned from games

You remember when you'd get a stitch in PE and the teacher would tell you to walk it off, even though that only made it worse? Now imagine him saying that after you've taken five bullets to the chest. Then imagine it working.

That's the technique that a number of First-Person Shooter games since the 2000s use for restoring health; if a player finds himself nearing death, all he has to do is go hide somewhere or dodge attacks until health regeneration kicks in. It's still one of the Acceptable Breaks From Reality, especially in shooters which encourage slower pace, since the character recovering health—even at an unusually fast rate—isn't any less absurd than him instantly healing by simply touching medikits and implausibly healthy beefburgers. It also has the advantage of avoiding Unwinnable situations where the player literally has no chance to get through the level because he's run out of both ammunition and healing items, but tends to invoke It's Easy, So It Sucks in the process. On the other hand Fake Balance could also come up, where in theory you can regenerate from damage but in practice you get mowed down by a wall of lead any time you even dream of taking a shot.

Instead of making the game about conserving the resources of the level (or game) as a whole, the player has to mostly worry about surviving individual encounters. Setpiece shootouts become the order of the day, as does searching for and using cover which is said to lead to a glorified game of whack a mole; pop up and kill a target, pop under cover and regenerate, repeat until you win. Regenerating health is the most common in shooters which fall near the middle of the Fackler Scale of FPS Realism scale.

Many of these games still use healing items to provide instant energy boosts during nasty confrontations, and some will vary the method of regeneration, by only allowing the player to regain health in specific areas, or by crouching or doing some other action. Sometimes the player can only regenerate a small amount of health, with medikits needed to top it off. Alternatively, the player may have a standard energy bar, but with a replenishing energy shield over the top - or have automatically replenishing health, but with a standard bar representing degrading body armour. The basic principle is ultimately the same though.

If this is actually a dramatic ability and not just a gameplay mechanic, then it's a Healing Factor.

See also Gradual Regeneration, Regenerating Shield Static Health.

Examples of Regenerating Health include:
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The developers opted to put this in, instead of the health packs like in Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War. This has led to a bit of an outcry by old-time fans who feel that it is making the game too easy. Interviews have gone out of their way to mention that the regen system is nothing like other casual first-person shooter series. Running around will get you killed very quickly since the regeneration takes over five seconds to kick in, and takes nearly a minute to regenerate to full (especially on harder difficulties). Not to mention that, even on the lower difficulties, a single bullet will take nearly half your starting health.
    • Although to be fair, the Health Regeneration aug in the first two games makes regen in modern shooters look downright slow by comparison, especially at its full levels. In the first game, it effectively turned any Repair Bot into Medical Bots, sans augmentation installation capabilities, and bio cells into health packs. 
  • The Ur Example of the Regenerating Health mechanic was the 1984 Action RPG Hydlide, where health and magic slowly regenerate when standing still.
  • Older Than They Think, the 1987 Atari ST game MIDI-Maze, featured regenerating health long before the formation of Bungie Inc., let alone the realization of Halo. It was ported to Game Boy and Super NES as Faceball 2000.
  • The Ys series which began in 1987 also use a similar Regenerating Health mechanic.
  • Continuing the Older Than They Think examples, Exile (not that one) had it back in the 1980s. You still don't have a whole lot of it and many enemies will deplete it quickly, but at least you just get teleported back to your last teleporter marker (and lose a lot of points) instead of dying.
  • The Golden Eye Wii remake features regenerating health, but in a callback to the original, "007 Classic" difficulty gives you a health meter and armor pickups to stay alive. 
  • Battlefield: Bad Company 2 adds regenerating health to the series, though it occurs much faster in singleplayer. In multiplayer, it happens very slowly, so as to not obsolete the medic class. Hardcore mode removes the regenerating health all together.
  • Battlefield 3
    • Both players and vehicles have it; however, like Deus Ex: Human Revolution, it takes a while to kick in, it's nowhere near fast enough to protect a player from sustained damage, and there are ways for attackers prevent it:
      • If shots are fired close enough to a player (i.e. an almost-headshot from a sniper rifle or a long burst from a machine gun), the player is considered "suppressed"—the screen goes blurry, accuracy goes down, and normal health regeneration does not occur, although an Assault player's medkit (immediate health regeneration for teammates within range of the medkit) will work normally on the suppressed player.
      • A vehicle at half-health is considered "disabled," whereupon they catch on fire and health will actually bleed out unless the vehicle is repaired by an Engineer, or (for aircraft) the Extinguisher is used (this ability immediately restores the aircraft to 53% health, putting it above the disabling threshold; however if a land Vehicle is disabled it needs to be repaired to full health otherwise it is still classed as disabled and will keep bleeding health.
  • Tribes: Vengeance has Gradual Regeneration for anyone equipped with a repair pack, with the rate of regeneration substantially increased and with a limited area-of-effect for a short duration upon activation. Tribes Ascend instead gives everyone regenerating health by default, but with a massive delay of around 30 seconds or so before it kicks in (without perks to reduce the delay), thus it cannot be relied upon in the same sense as most other current FPSs and carrying a flag disables regeneration entirely. Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2, by contrast, do not have regenerating health at all; the closest thing to it is repairing yourself with the repair pack. Otherwise, any carried medkits are all the healing you get in the field, and their use is rather limited.
  • Gears of War has an opaque, bloody red gear encircling a skull appearing in the middle of the screen; once it becomes fully visible, the player is down and begins bleeding out helplessly (in the sequel, a character can crawl to safety, or if they're holding a grenade, detonate it to take their enemy with them if they're close enough). Being curbstomped or having more ammo put into them will cause their death, while an ally helping them up will let them get back into the action. Regeneration occurs when the player is undamaged for a period.
    • When an ally helps a player get up it's generally accompanied by the player being told to Walk It Off or some equivalent. Failing that the downed player will usually boast about how they are too badass to be killed or proclaim that they are now angry.
  • Kane and Lynch uses a similar system in single player, down to the use of cover, though if the player is knocked down too many times in too short of a period, they'll OD on the adrenaline shots administered to revive them.
  • Justified in Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, as the player is a vampire and thus has supernatural healing powers as standard. However, he can drink blood (from packs or people) for a quick boost and special attacks such as fire or electricity take longer to heal. It should also be noted that in this game, regeneration is painfully slow and barely noticeable, and will only fully heal you from near death if you've got over an hour of time to sit around and do nothing. Unless, of course, you happened to pick up the helpful "mummywrap fetish" item in Andrei's mansion, which makes healing a LOT faster. 
    • There's also a Dummied Out power which rapidly converts stored blood into health, which at least one of the major fan supplied patch chains restores.
  • Halo: Combat Evolved used regenerating shields with a limited health bar beneath; Halo 2 and Halo 3 just has the player regenerate both health and shields while not being hit, though no 'health bar' is shown, via automated biofoam injectors. Critical Existence Failure is still in full effect despite it.
    • In 3, the first level is titled 'Walk It Off', in reference to Master Chief walking off falling two kilometres from a crashing spaceship. Still upset about that stitch?
    • Surprisingly, Halo 3: ODST somewhat rolls back to the original health system in this regard. Just replace "Shield" with "Stamina". This roll back is justified, as you're not playing as a Super Soldier in this game.
    • Halo: Reach (which is set before Combat Evolved and the aforementioned biofoam injectors) returns to the health pack system. It still includes some limited health regeneration, but only up to the nearest third of the lifebar. Unless you're playing as an Elite in multiplayer, in which case this trope is played straight with their health, albiet at a much slower pace than most examples. 
  • Monkey, the protagonist of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, has one of these in the form of a deflector shield built into his gauntlets.
  • Red Faction II has a restoring health meter, thanks to your character's nanomachines, in addition to health packs that are expended when the meter completely drains. The regenerating health in Red Faction 2 is noticeably slower than in most modern shooter games, and is more for avoiding a Unwinnable situation where the player is stuck in the middle of a level from not having enough health to progress, rather than quick healing in the middle of a firefight.
  • The Call of Duty series starting from the second game do this, with a red outline on the screen that gradually grows more insistent the more damage the player takes. If you take a lot of damage it can be almost impossible to see anything, which tends to just make you die that much faster.
    • On Veteran difficulty, they can practically insta-kill you before you even see or hear them. This turns enemies into Demonic Spiders in many situations, particularly where they flank, snipe, or grenade you (which sometimes explodes before you can react). Thank God for ample checkpoints.
    • Similar things occur with Soldier Of Fortune: Pay Back.
    • The third-to-last mission, "Rebirth," in Black Ops has a portion where damage doesn't heal, as you're wearing a hazmat suit and the enemy dropped Nova 6 nerve gas all over the combat area. If you take too much cumulative damage, your suit is compromised and the Nova 6 kills you. An achievement/trophy requires the player to successfully clear the entire portion while the gas mask is worn without dying.
      • The Walk It Off aspects become ludicrous in Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops multiplayer, where you can take ten M240/M60 rounds to the stomach over the course of about forty-five seconds and walk away with no real damage, but die instantly when a thrown knife or a small steel hatchet hits your foot.
  • Silent Hill 4 provides regeneration for the player while he is in his apartment - but only in the first part of the game.
  • Star Wars: Star Wars: X-Wing and TIE Fighter have regenerating shields on top of static hull integrity. The shields recharge rather slowly, though the rate can be increased by rerouting power from the engines or cannons.
  • Independence War has a constant auto-repair system on all ships, but it's rather slow relative to the damage that weapons inflict. This is why you want to finish off ships quickly when attacking (firing LDSi missiles if necessary to prevent them running away, taking a time-out for auto-repair to do its thing, and jumping back in), while trying to keep out of range of attack while defending for as long as possible.
  • In Vagrant Story you regenerate health and lose risk (which makes you more vulnerable but also gives you more attack power) continuously when outside of combat.
  • The Getaway allowed characters to regain health by leaning against walls for a breather. This is perhaps the earliest example of regenerating health in the common modern sense.
  • The Fallout and Arcanum RPGs have the player and his NPCs slowly regenerating health (and in the latter case stamina) over a surprisingly realistic amount of time, but it takes so long that a more practical route is to hide off to a safe area and use the "fast forward time" menu to... well, fast forward time. If badly wounded, however, this could take a lot longer than you wanted (to the tune of months), especially considering you're on a Timed Mission...
    • Additionally, the Fallout games had the First Aid and Doctor skills, which let you gain some experience for healing yourself, and heal crippled limbs without paying a doctor. They could be used a limited number of times per day, however, even without the kits.
    • In Fallout's spiritual ancestor Wasteland, the Medic and Doctor skills only worked on seriously wounded characters. Normal hit point damage could only be healed by waiting, and the game would tell you so.
    • In Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, there are several Perks and implants available to more or less slowly regenerate health over time. Both games have the Solar Powered perk, which lets you regenerate health in sunlight, and New Vegas also has the Monocyte Breeder implant, which slowly regenerates health over time (including time spent sleeping and waiting).
  • Mafia II made use of the partial regeneration mechanic, which calls for eating or drinking in order for Vito to fully heal when he takes significant damage, either from sustaining too much gunshots or vehicle-related injuries. While this made the game a tad easier than the original game (in fact, Joe Barbaro jokingly broke the Fourth Wall for indirectly referring to the health system in Chapter 5), it still won't keep the player from getting killed instantly in a gunfight, especially on hard difficulty.
  • Metal Gear Solid 3's Naked Snake can wait out his injuries. The rate of health increase is dependent on how high his Stamina Gauge is. If you can't be bothered waiting for his health to rise like that, you can also knock him out with a sedative mushroom or with chloroform - during his sleep, he recovers faster. You can even save, turn the game off, and come back after a day or so has elapsed on your console's clock.
    • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and the Twin Snakes remake let you recover health if you were bleeding by crouching or lying on the ground. This only recovers enough health until the bleeding stops.
  • In RuneScape, eating heals your health, but without food, all you have to do is just wander around and stay out of trouble until you get better... but once your Constitution levels get higher, that's really slow (1 life point per 6 seconds, when the max life points a player can normally have is 990). Also, running saps your energy, but even at 0% energy you can just keep walking, and you'll recover your energy...without resting.
  • In Summoner, the instant you exit back to the world map, whether from a random encounter or a major dungeon area, your health and action points are restored to full, no matter how hurt you were. The only thing it doesn't cure is death. Somewhat justified in that main character Joseph learns at least the basic healing spell pretty much immediately, action point restoration is just a matter of time, and world map travel is assumed to take much longer than it "actually" takes - in theory, everyone could be healed up and all action points regained in the time it takes to take one step on the world map.
  • In Face Ball 2000, each happy-face character regains one hit point if not attacked for a few seconds.
  • Justified in Far Cry: Instincts, in that Jack Carver is a biochemically altered superhuman who regenerates most wounds very quickly. The rate of healing is proportional to the amount of adrenaline he has, however; if he's overusing his Feral Attack, Feral Run, or Feral Vision abilities, he's stuck with health that slowly creeps back up, while if his adrenaline is full, he can hide behind cover in a firefight and be fully healed in seconds.
  • Due to its Framing Device, Altaïr in Assassin's Creed has "Synchronization" instead of health, which is basically how well you, the player, are matching Altaïr's actions (presumedly, he never got himself killed, so getting injured reduces your Synchronization). Synchronization can be regained by staying hidden, or completing various goals. In Assassin's Creed II and onward, parts of the synch gauge would refill when hit (except when it's black; you use Medicine to recover those), and you have to repair armor every now and again when it gets broken (which turns those parts of the gauge red).
  • One of the main complaints about the game X2 - Wolverine's Revenge was that you had to spend quite a bit of time hiding and waiting for Wolverine's Healing Factor to kick in. Several other X-Men games have similar strategies for playing as Wolverine.
  • Almost all Roguelike games (like Nethack and Angband) are like this. One exception is Incursion, where you only regain health when you rest for the night, and only if your rest isn't interrupted by an ambush; rest in the Trauma Inn is guaranteed to not be interrupted, but after a while the game forces you to rest in the dungeon instead.
  • A recurring ability in Final Fantasy when a certain armor or accessory is equipped, HP or MP is recovered by walking. Also the regen spell which has a regenerating effect when used in battle.
  • Ninja Gaiden:Dragon Sword does this partially. When you're hit, part of the health lost can be recovered at the end of the battle.
  • Slightly justified in Crysis as the nanosuit is what is doing the healing and recharging its energy reserves for the armor. Although where the source of the energy is unaccounted for. 
  • Portal has a hidden regenerating Life Meter. Since nobody else had one (especially the turrets, the only harmful things that don't kill you in one hit), it was more a matter of "either the turret kills you or you get past it". 
    • Interestingly, the game engine tied the regeneration to your portal gun. Hacking the ASHPD into Half-Life 2 will cause your health to regenerate like lightning as long as you have it equipped.
    • Speaking of Half-Life 2, the opening level of that game works this way as well, since you have neither medkits to heal with nor a HUD to tell you how many hit points you have left, but you do have metrocops shooting at you.
  • Unlike the rest of the classes in Team Fortress 2, the Medic regenerates health automatically, at a rate that varies depending on what items you happen to have equipped and how long it's been since you last took damage. Since he's equipped with a backpack-powered gun that heals teammates, it's reasonable that it would be designed to passively heal its wearer as well.
  • Wander in Shadow of the Colossus has no health pickups to restore his lost strength, so he simply has to wait a few minutes for his injuries to heal. Yes, even though said injuries are usually inflicted by falling off enormous colossi several dozen stories tall. Justified because he has a magical sword.
    • From the same makers Ico from Ico doesn't have a health bar but does have regenerating health confirmed in the novel which explains that Yorda "gives" him health when they're holding hands.
  • In the original Max Payne, using a shootdodge efficiently allows Max's pain meter (life meter) to fill up entirely without killing him. He then limps for a bit as the meter slowly empties to a certain point, at which point he's fine. Normally, it's pretty cool. Abused, it allows Max to do things like dive into a grenade blast and walk it off. Then it's really cool.
  • Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay used a partial health regeneration system. Health was divided up into "blocks". Your health would regenerate only up to the current "block". Once a "block" was completely depleted, the only way to restore it was to go to a health station.
    • A similar system was used in Pariah.
    • Medal of Honor: Airborne uses a similar system.
    • Condemned 2: Bloodshot uses a similar system, as well.
    • Far Cry 2 uses a similar system, the difference being that once you get to a single box of health, you have to find a place to hide and perform some quick field surgery. If you don't do this, you bleed out, and die.
  • In F.E.A.R., your health regenerates, but only up to about 25 health (which is only enough to survive 1 bullet, at most). You can use medkits to heal up to full health, and you can also carry up to 10 medkits at a time. In the sequel, this was changed - you could only carry 3 medkits, but they restored full health, and your natural regeneration when not getting shot is up to about 40% of your health.
    • But played straight in the third game, where your health regenerates to 100% and no health meter is displayed at all (but you do get veiny red ambiance on the edges of the screen) outside of the powered armors. It regenerates pretty fast, too, even before you achieve character ranks to heal faster.
  • Justified in Resistance: Fall of Man. The protagonist is infected with the Chimera virus at the beginning of the game but has an inherent immunity to it, granting him the Chimeras' regenerative abilities but not the "horrible alien mutation" part. It should be noted that this isn't a standard regeneration system, but rather, it's an interesting hybrid of the health bar/medkit system and this; you have a health bar, in four equal segments, each representing 25% health. Regeneration is limited to the current segment, and the only way to regenerate a depleted segment is to pick up a medkit-analogue. Furthermore, the regeneration ability is entirely absent in the first mission for plot reasons, resulting in the odd effect of the first mission being one of the toughest.
    • Resistance 2 uses the more common system of having you able to fully regenerate health, justified in-universe by the fact that Hale has been infected for longer and is starting to turn into a Chimera. The third game, on the other hand, completely gets rid of this in favor of a more traditional health bar and medkits.
      • Resistance: Burning Skies uses the same regeneration system as R2, though unlike the second game, no in-universe explanation is given for this.
  • In S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, your health slowly recovers as long as you're not irradiated, bleeding, on fire, etc. The rate of recovery is rather slow, though (it takes several minutes, which is hours in game-time, to recover to full health), so it doesn't really do you any good in firefights.
  • Most if not all MMORPGs let your character slowly regain health and mana as long as they aren't in combat. The rate of this can usually be upped by actions such as eating or just sitting on the ground for awhile.
  • Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway includes a variant of this. In that game, the screen goes more red when you're exposed to fire, with the red reflecting your risk of actually getting shot. If you stay without cover for too long, you die quite quickly if it's dark red (even just peeking briefly out of cover). The thing here is that you more or less die from one shot, not that he can walk off the damage. But the mechanic is slightly similar.
    • It's also possible to suddenly keel over out of apparently nowhere because an enemy got a lucky shot/grenade off. The squadmates generally start yelling about how lucky you are and to get in cover when your screen starts going red.
  • Rainbow Six Vegas uses this system. Previous games had featured a more realistic system (Body armor absorbed damage, with heavier armor defeating more powerful rounds but also weighing more. Rounds that pierced armor either killed or badly injured the player.)
  • In Perfect Dark Zero, Joanna can sustain either "shock damage", which can be walked off, or non-recovering damage. On the Harder Than Hard Dark Agent difficulty, all damage is non-recoverable.
    • Lugaru: The Rabbit's Foot has a similar system where blunt trauma gradually fades away for the most part, but being slashed or stabbed causes permanent damage. All damage is healed between levels.
  • Mass Effect 1 has regeneration for some character classes. The rest can get it as an armor upgrade.
    • Mass Effect 2 gives this standard on all characters, turns it Up to Eleven and combines it with generally reduced health. Particularly at higher difficulty levels, battles mainly consist of popping out of cover for a few shots, almost dying, then ducking back down and waiting a few seconds to completely heal. The in-universe explanation is that your armor has an onboard computer that detects injuries and releases small quantities of medi-gel to compensate.
    • Mass Effect 3 uses sectioned health, where sections regenerate unless depleted, at which point must be recovered with medi-gel.
  • Uncharted Drakes Fortune relies upon this type of healing method. As Nathan Drake takes damage, the graphics slowly begin to lose saturation, and in order to recover his health he must take cover. Word of God says that it isn't actually his health, but his luck-only the last bullet that hits you when your luck depletes actually counts for the kill. In other words, if you die, it is not because you were riddled with lead, but because one single bullet managed to get you when you ran out of luck.
  • Even EndWar has this to a limited extent. Units have two health bars- shield and hp. The shield bar will refill after a few seconds out of combat. However, the hp bar won't. Also, unit performance degrades as it loses HP...
    • The Protoss from StarCraft were quite similar, minus the performance loss.
  • In Warcraft II, the Troll Berserkers can acquire the ability to slowly regenerate health.
    • Warcraft 3' gave this ability to all units, but Trolls could learn to do it faster. In addition, Undead units either barely regenerate (in the case of Heroes and some units) or couldn't regenerate at all unless on Blight, while Night Elves heal faster during the night cycle.
    • In World of Warcraft, all players regenerate health depending on their spirit attribute outside of combat (trolls keep 10% in combat), but it's a really minor factor at later levels - so much so that trolls later got an additional racial ability to offset the weakness of it. 
      • In practice, foods and drinks are this trope, too; they regenerate your food/mana (relatively) slowly, are common, cheap (or free) and requires you to be out of combat.
  • Crackdown let you walk off damage to both yourself and your shield. Justified in that your character is a cyborg with Nanomachines.
  • In The Lord of the Rings Online the health is actually morale, leading to status such as in combat and out of combat regeneration. Although it is always quicker to "heal" using food, potions, of by way of a healer - If you really want to wait for a few minutes you will "heal" just fine on your own. 
  • Super Mario 64 had what was either by design or a good bad bug: Since the air meter was shared with the Life Meter, you could heal completely by simply finding water over Mario's head and Swimming It Off. This was removed in Sunshine and Galaxy.
    • An exception in 64 was one of the ice levels. It had a lake, and because the water was so cold, swimming on the surface was just as dangerous as underwater, and your health did not regenerate.
  • Mega Man X 3 had the healing helmet, which let X refill his energy (and tanks) by finding a place to hide. Hooray for those short, empty halls before bosses, huh?
    • X8 lets whichever character is on the bench regenerate health, but only up to whatever portion of lost health is shown in red. If you don't switch out while part of your health is red, the red marks will deplete over time. If you switch back to a character while they still have red marks on their health, the red marks will immediately disappear. One of X's body upgrades converts all the damage he takes to red, so that he can regenerate it all if you switch him out.
  • The Quantum of Solace video game had the "screen turns grey" variant, with a slight variation in that a translucent version of Bond's signature opening gun barrel creeps in.
  • Interplay's Lord of the Rings allowed characters to heal by eating beans or using plants, then walking around until their health got back to normal.
  • In Dragon Quest I, you can get a special armor that heals you every time you make a step.
  • Baroque has you heal over time as long as your Stamina isn't empty, but your Stamina also decreases over time. Once you run out of Stamina you'll slowly take damage instead of healing, so relying on this too much will kill you.
  • City of Heroes is somewhat unusual for an MMORPG in that all characters and most-to-all enemies slowly regenerate in combat, even if they don't have any explicit Healing Factor. In addition, characters do have an explicit "Rest" power, intended for very fast recuperation between encounters ("panels")... but it's possible if risky to try this in combat, and certain powersets can make it practical to rest while under direct attack from multiple opponents. This fits in with the rest of the game's design, in particular its intention of avoiding the need for any specific "party balance".
    • In fact, running away from a fight going badly just far enough to be able to rest before pursuers catch up is a pretty effective tactic, even if it's slower than not needing to.
  • In Landstalker the pretty useful healing boots do this, allowing a player with enough patience to avoid paying for inns. 
  • In Lost Planet, Wayne has a device called a "Harmonizer" on his right arm. It takes the Thermal Energy he finds throughout the world and converts the energy for use in his body.
  • Frontlines: Fuel of War has this in much the same way as the Call of Duty games, as taking hits made the screen fade red, and even included your soldier breathing heavily with an audible heartbeat at high damage levels. You could simply find cover and be back to normal in a matter of seconds even then.
  • The Conduit, after Mission 3 when you first get the high-tech alien armor shown on the front cover of the game. Before that, all you're equipped with is a standard Secret Service suit and tie, and you're dependent on picking up medikits for health. 
  • In Final Fantasy XII, hit points don't regenerate when you run around, but mana points do, so you can cast cure spells on your whole party, then run around until your mana fully refills, before moving to the next screen.
    • Not to mention when combined with other passive abilities that restore your MP (for example, damaging enemies or taking damage), you can regain MP fairly quickly. Areas heavy with Mist will regenerate your MP faster as you run around.
    • Eternal Darkness also does the same thing with its magic system. Just walk around the room to recover your magic power.
  • In Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, one of the spells allows you to heal gradually, but you have to stand still for it to work. This costs quite a bit of MP, but you recover MP gradually too—more with a higher Intelligence stat.
    • The Time Heal move from Curse of Darkness also allows you to heal some of Hector's health gradually. You do get to run around while using it, though.
  • In the Monster Hunter series, half of the health you lose from hits turns red instead of disappearing. If you can keep from getting hit again, the red portion will regenerate, but no more than that. Of course, potions will be necessary for any consequential amount of healing.
  • The Godfather game combines this with the Healing Potion system. There's the olive green part of Aldo's health bar which represents his fixed health, a light green part which can regenerate and turn olive green, as well as a black part which he can't regenerate past. To be honest, though, it doesn't do much against sustained attack. The sequel made it a full regeneration system, but keeps the health potions for when you really need an instant pickup.
  • Both played straight and inverted in Sudden Strike - units with moderate damage heal roughly 3/4 of their health on their own, but heavily damaged units' health will actually go down to zero unless they're seen to by a repair unit.
  • SEED: Rise of Darkness... although it's painfully slow and usually easier to use a Trauma Inn anyway.
  • Many units in Supreme Commander, including the ACU, support commanders, most of the experimentals and many Tech 3 units, regenerate HP automatically.
  • Very noticeable in Mirror's Edge: you can take an awful lot of machine-gun fire as long as you have somewhere to run after. Hiding behind something works too, of course.
  • This is the primary way your team members can regain health in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, if healing items are scarce or not avaliable. Staying in one spot and holding down the B button to use up your turns also works. The process is slow however, and only heals one hit point a turn or step, though this can be augmented with IQ skills.
  • Tomb Raider Underworld is the first game in the Tomb Raider series where health packs aren't necessary, as Lara regains her health over time.
  • Just Cause 2 has a limited form of regenerating health; it will only regenerate a certain amount of health after Rico stops taking damage. Anything beyond that cannot be healed without a medkit, which instantly raises your health to full. To get an idea of whether or not your health will be fully regenerated, observe how much the green cross indicating the health meter pulsates; the more it does, the closer your limited regeneration is to its limit.
  • Payday: The Heist uses a similar form of limited regenerating health. Your character portrait has a white outline that is easily depleted with a few bullets or one sniper shot, but regenerates quickly, sort of like a really weak Halo shield. There is also a green background to said portrait that represents your actual health and will not regenerate unless a health kit is used or certain objectives are met, and also changes color from yellow to orange to red to reflect your condition.
  • Red Dead Redemption has regenerating health, but in single-player you can buy medicine that, when used, instantly regenerates all of your health.
  • In Arkista's Ring, the eponymous ring, recieved on a New Game+, does this. You're gonna need it in the higher loops.
  • In Lineage2 this is the method to regenerate health while Level Grinding for most classes and even most combination of classes. This pretty much means the game gets paused every couple minutes.
  • In Ys I and II, your HP regenerates when you stand in place outdoors. Once you get the Heal Ring (or the Cape of Holy Spirit in II), you can regenerate health in dungeons as well. Most of the later games also have some type of HP-regenerating item (which sometimes consumes MP).
  • This happens in In Famous if you wait long enough but its easier just to find something electrical and drain it as doing so restores health also.
  • Scratch Damage (inflicted by all enemies when you have Hero Points left, inflicted by the player characters with machine guns) in Resonance of Fate heals automatically, even during combat, especially during Invincible Action (AKA Hero Actions). Direct Damage (inflicted by poison, regular enemy attacks when in Condition Critical, or the players using grenades or pistols), however, is permanent unless you rest or use a Perfect Aid - it also makes Scratch Damage permanent.
  • Optional in Banjo-Tooie—upon returning enough pages to Cheato the spell book, he will eventually give you the "HONEYBACK" cheat, which, when turned on, will let you recover health at a steady rate. Alternatively, the Snooze Pack ability, found in Grunty Industries and available whenever Banjo is solo. He jumps into his pack and sleeps it off.
  • Water Warfare justifies it—your "damage" is based on how wet your clothes are. As you move, they dry off some. 
  • A justified variant in Destroy All Humans!, where Crypto is a One-Hit-Point Wonder with a Force Field; if you go about seven seconds without being hit, the shield will regenerate even if completely destroyed.
  • The Saboteur features this, although with a Modern Warfare-style reddening of the screen. Annoyingly, if you're badly wounded and climb into a vehicle, as long as the vehicle is being hit you will neither recover nor take damage - meaning you have to try and escape the Nazis through the streets of Paris while being completely unable to see where you're going.
  • Metroid: Other M has regenerating health and missiles by using the Concentration technique, which can be interrupted by attacks. You can restore missiles at any time, but to recover energy, your health has to be below a certain threshold (critical status mostly), and that takes longer than regaining missiles. Reserve Tanks allow you to recover more energy and at a higher threshold. This mechanic is vital, since you cannot regain health or ammo unless you use a save station.
    • Metroid Prime 2 has certain safe zones in Dark Ether. Not only would they protect you from the corrosive effects of Dark Ether's atmosphere but they also caused your energy tank to slowly recharge which made them useful, even after getting the Light Suit which was immune to corrosive effects.
  • A mutation mode in Left 4 Dead 2 uses this trope for Healing Gnome. There are no healing items at all and the only way to recover is to hold a gnome that regenerates your health as you hold it.
  • Prototype. However, only the lower fraction of health will be regenerated, after which it doesn't regenerate any more.
  • Dragonstomper, in the Enchanted Countryside, from way back in 1982.
  • In Second Sight, John Vattic can recover his health by using his psychic regenerative powers. This does have the trade-off of leaving him unable to attack psychically for a while, however.
  • Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath had an odd healing mechanic. The Stranger could stand still and shake all the bullets, knives, and arrows out of his body, healing him, so long as he had "stamina." Stamina is used for nothing else and regenerates automatically.
  • Kill.Switch, one of the earliest games to use a cover mechanic, also had a regenerating health bar. Taking heavy damage over a short period of time, however, could cause the bar itself to shrink, reducing your maximum health and making you increasingly vulnerable until you found a medkit to restore it to its original length.
  • Ace Combat: Assault Horizon brings this mechanic to the series for the first time, including the reddening screen. Some fans were... most displeased.
    • Playing on Ace difficulty, however, disables regenerating health.
  • This was one of the more controversial features in Duke Nukem Forever, since regenerated health implies hiding to heal up, and hiding isn't Duke's style.
  • L.A. Noire plays this straight as an arrow, which can be rather jarring for a game trading mostly on gritty realism. Needless to say, if somebody gets shot during a cutscene they're not going to be able to walk it off.
  • Command & Conquer games usually give this ability to any unit that reaches the highest veterancy level. Some units, like the Mammoth Tank, have it by default (though earlier games only allowed it to restore health up to half of the maximum).
  • The inexplicably obscure Medabots game for the GBA, Medabots AX (both versions) had a variant of this: while not regenerating health, standing still for a while triggered an Idle Animation that charged your robot's Medaforce move faster. A whole lot faster.
  • In Minecraft, health works this way as long as your "food meter" is nearly full. When the food meter is completely empty, the exact opposite happens.
    • Playing on Peaceful difficulty grants you regenerating health at all times. Potions of Regeneration and Golden Apples also grant temporary health regeneration.
    • The Enderdragon mob also has this when you fight one. However, this can be stopped by destroying the Ender Crystals, which actually HARMS it.
  • In The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, you can sit on a chair, bench, or even a toilet to rest and regain health.
    • The Oracle games featured the Heart Ring, which game you constant health regeneration while equipped. 
  • Both Red Steel games use an interesting form of this: in normal gameplay, health regenerates if you don't take damage for a few seconds, but damage taken during sword duels does not regenerate until you win said duel.
  • Just like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, the Breath of Fire series has armor and items that grand this property: the Life Armor and the Love Bracelet/Cupid's Lyre heal the wearer 1 HP per step taken.
  • The tricky to find Crimson Armor in Sword of Vermilion heals you 8 HP per step taken, but is otherwise rather weak, so its usefulness is debatable.
  • Star Ruler has subsystems that enable regeneration. Crew quarters provide a small amount of regen. Repair bays give you more regen. Nano armor repairs itself, but does nothing for the rest of the spacecraft's systems.
  • Home Front.
  • Rogue Warrior.
  • The Videogame-movie-tie-in Terminator Salvation has regen health but it won't trigger until you defeat all the enemies in the area. In theory this means that you can't hide behind a rock, you've only got a limited amount of health. However you could just run away from the battle area and recuperate. 
  • Certain shields and class perks in Borderlands can regenerate your health since you can't do it by natural means.
  • In Phantasy Star IV robots (that is, Demi and Wren) regenerate health as they walk around, to compensate for the fact that most healing magic does not work on them.
  • Battlestar Galactica Online has regen, but it only works outside combat. You need to use Damage Control Packs to Heal Thyself in a fight.

References in Other Media

Web Comics

Real Life

  • A certain species of jellyfish, namely Turritopsis dohrnii, is known to be able to regenerate in adverse conditions. Planarian flatworms are just as capable of doing so, too.
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