There are certain things you can trust in video games.

Coins make you richer.

Health packs make you healthier.

A suspiciously convenient save point means something horrible is about to happen.

And a bright red barrel sitting beside a group of enemies?

That thing is absolutely going to explode.

But who invented this glorious piece of video-game nonsense?

Who looked at an ordinary barrel and thought, "You know what this needs? Gunpowder."

The surprising answer is that the exploding barrel is much older than Doom.

In fact, its video-game ancestry may stretch all the way back to the 1970s.

So grab your protective eyewear, stand well away from anything painted red, and let's investigate the fascinating history of the Exploding Barrel™.

It All Started Before Doom

When most gamers think of exploding barrels, they immediately think of Doom.

And that's understandable.

Doom practically turned the exploding barrel into a member of the supporting cast.

There they were, sitting innocently in the corridors of Hell.

Red.

Round.

Suspicious.

Just begging to be shot.

But Doom didn't invent the basic concept.

The idea appears to go back much further, to the ancient technological era known as "before everyone had a sound card."

One of the earliest documented examples is associated with the 1974 PLATO version of Dungeons & Dragons.

Yes.

Dungeons & Dragons.

Before Doom had demons, shotguns and enough brown walls to fill an entire apartment complex, computers were already discovering the magical combination of:

BARREL + EXPLOSION = PROBLEM

The early PLATO games were obviously nothing like modern first-person shooters. These were primitive computer games running on university mainframes, with very limited graphical capabilities.

But the concept was there.

And once humanity discovered that barrels could explode in a video game, there was no going back.

Why a Barrel?

This is perhaps the most important question.

Why barrels?

Why not crates?

Why not boxes?

Why not a suspiciously unstable refrigerator?

The answer is actually pretty simple.

Barrels make sense.

Historically, barrels have been used to store all sorts of things, including flammable and explosive materials.

So putting something dangerous inside a barrel isn't exactly crazy.

The crazy part is putting thirty of them next to each other in a military base and expecting the player not to notice.

Video games eventually established a universal law:

If a barrel is brightly colored, it is probably carrying something that would get the level designer fired in real life.

The 1980s: Barrels Become Dangerous

As video-game technology improved, explosive objects became increasingly visual.

Developers could finally put recognizable objects on screen instead of relying on the player to imagine what was happening.

And barrels were perfect.

They're round.

They're instantly recognizable.

They don't require complicated animation.

And most importantly, you can make them explode.

It's basically the perfect video-game object.

During the 1980s, various games experimented with explosive barrels and similar environmental hazards.

This is where things get complicated.

Video-game history isn't as neatly documented as Hollywood history.

There are plenty of obscure arcade games, home-computer games and experimental titles from this period that have been forgotten, lost, poorly documented or preserved only through the memories of people who played them.

Consequently, identifying the absolute first graphical shootable exploding barrel is surprisingly difficult.

There isn't a giant historical plaque that says:

"Congratulations, You Have Invented the Exploding Barrel — Signed, Everyone."

Instead, we've got a collection of early examples.

And then...

Enter the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

In 1989, Konami released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game.

And suddenly, barrels weren't merely background decoration.

They could be interacted with and used against enemies.

This was becoming an important video-game idea:

The environment itself can kill people.

Which is fantastic.

Because apparently the enemies weren't having enough trouble dealing with four mutant turtles.

Now they also had to worry about workplace safety.

Imagine being a Foot Clan member.

You show up for work.

Your boss gives you a sword.

You fight some turtles.

Everything seems normal.

Then some idiot throws an exploding barrel at you.

You start wondering if the benefits package is worth it.

Then Doom Arrived

And then came Doom in 1993.

This is where everything changed.

Doom didn't invent the exploding barrel, but it took the concept and basically said:

"What if we made this stupidly useful?"

The barrels in Doom became a genuine gameplay mechanic.

Shoot the barrel.

It explodes.

Anything standing nearby gets hurt.

Other barrels can explode.

More enemies die.

The player feels like a genius.

And somewhere, a level designer smiles because their carefully constructed combat encounter has just been reduced to:

BANG

The Doom barrel could be used strategically.

You could lure enemies toward one.

You could shoot it from a distance.

You could trigger chain reactions.

You could accidentally shoot one while standing beside it and immediately reconsider every decision you've made in your life.

That last one was particularly educational.

Doom's Greatest Contribution: Chain Reactions

The real genius of the Doom barrel wasn't simply that it exploded.

It was that barrels could interact with one another.

One explosion could trigger another.

Which could trigger another.

Which could trigger another.

Suddenly, the player wasn't simply shooting enemies.

They were conducting a tiny orchestra of catastrophic petroleum storage.

BOOM.

BOOM.

BOOM.

BOOM.

Congratulations.

You have discovered environmental combat.

And that's why Doom's barrels became so influential.

They weren't just scenery.

They were weapons waiting for the player to notice them.

The Exploding Barrel Becomes a Law of Gaming

After Doom, the exploding barrel became almost impossible to kill.

Developers everywhere embraced the concept.

First-person shooters loved them.

Action games loved them.

Third-person shooters loved them.

Open-world games loved them.

Even games that had absolutely no logical reason to contain explosive barrels started adding them.

Eventually, we reached a point where a video-game military installation could contain:

• ammunition crates
• computers
• security cameras
• concrete barriers
• armored vehicles
• highly trained soldiers

...and approximately 47 barrels containing something that could destroy the entire facility.

Health and safety inspectors simply stopped visiting video games.

Half-Life Took the Barrel Seriously

Then came Half-Life in 1998.

Valve took environmental interaction much further.

The world of Half-Life was packed with objects that could be manipulated, pushed, knocked over and used to solve problems.

Explosive barrels fit beautifully into that philosophy.

Now the barrel wasn't merely:

"Shoot me."

It was:

"Figure out how to use me."

That's an important evolution.

The environment itself was becoming part of the puzzle.

Of course, there was still one extremely important rule:

Don't stand next to the exploding thing.

Players learned this rule approximately three seconds after discovering it.

Far Cry: Now the Barrel Has a Family

As games became more physically interactive, explosive barrels evolved.

They started appearing alongside:

• propane tanks
• fuel cans
• gas cylinders
• explosive crates
• vehicles
• generators
• oil drums
• mysterious red containers of unidentified doom

At some point, the exploding barrel stopped being a specific object and became an entire family of objects whose sole purpose was to make the player feel clever.

You see five enemies standing around a fuel tank.

You shoot it.

BOOM.

Five enemies disappear.

The game might as well display:

"YOU ARE VERY SMART"

You aren't.

You just shot the red thing.

But it feels fantastic.

The Psychology of the Red Barrel

Here's the really interesting thing.

The exploding barrel works because players have been trained to recognize it.

After decades of video games, we understand the visual language.

A red barrel?

Explosive.

A yellow barrel?

Probably hazardous.

A green glowing barrel?

Absolutely do not touch it.

A barrel surrounded by enemies?

Oh, this is going to be fun.

Game developers don't even have to explain it anymore.

They can simply place a red barrel in a room and trust millions of players to understand its purpose.

That's an incredibly successful piece of game design.

The Barrel Has Also Become a Joke

Eventually, the exploding barrel became so common that it turned into a gaming cliché.

Players began making jokes about them.

Developers started parodying them.

And gamers began asking the most important question of all:

Why are there so many explosive barrels everywhere?

Seriously.

Why?

Why does every abandoned warehouse have explosive barrels?

Why does every military base have explosive barrels?

Why does every laboratory have explosive barrels?

Why does every construction site have explosive barrels?

Why does every secret underground facility have explosive barrels?

And why are they always positioned directly beside the enemies?

Maybe video-game villains aren't actually evil.

Maybe they're just incredibly bad at workplace safety.

Imagine the OSHA Report

Location: Evil Military Compound

Inspector: Why are these barrels here?

Villain: Fuel.

Inspector: Why are they next to the ammunition?

Villain: Efficiency.

Inspector: Why are they next to the ammunition AND directly beside the laser turret?

Villain: We have a system.

Inspector: What system?

Villain: We don't talk about the system.

Inspector: And why are all the barrels painted bright red?

Villain: Branding.

Inspector: I'm shutting this place down.

Villain: But the hero hasn't arrived yet!

Inspector: Exactly.

So Who Actually Invented the Exploding Barrel?

And here's where we have to be careful.

There is no universally accepted single inventor of the video-game exploding barrel.

The earliest documented roots appear to reach back to 1974's PLATO Dungeons & Dragons, but establishing the exact first graphical game with a shootable explosive barrel is considerably more difficult.

There were numerous games experimenting with explosive objects throughout the 1980s.

Then games such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles demonstrated the idea graphically.

And finally, Doom turned the concept into one of the most recognizable environmental combat mechanics in gaming.

So rather than giving one person the trophy, it's probably more accurate to think of the exploding barrel as an evolutionary process.

1974

Dungeons & Dragons:
"Barrels can explode."

1980s

Various games:
"Barrels can be things you interact with."

1989

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
"Barrels can explode while you're fighting."

1993

Doom:
"WHAT IF WE MAKE THE BARRELS WEAPONS?"

1998 onward

Everybody else:
"Great idea."

The Exploding Barrel's Greatest Achievement

The exploding barrel may be one of the dumbest objects in video-game history.

But it's also one of the most successful.

It teaches players to pay attention to their surroundings.

It rewards experimentation.

It creates chain reactions.

It adds environmental strategy.

It provides satisfying explosions.

And sometimes it allows you to kill six enemies without actually having to aim at any of them.

That's art.

So the next time you walk into a video-game room and see a suspicious red barrel sitting beside six heavily armed enemies, remember the history.

Remember PLATO.

Remember the 1980s.

Remember the Ninja Turtles.

Remember Doom.

And then remember the most important lesson video games have taught humanity for more than half a century:

SHOOT THE BARREL.

Just don't stand next to it.

Trust me.

I have learned this lesson approximately four thousand times.

💬 What Do YOU Think?

Now it's your turn.

What game do you think deserves credit for popularizing the exploding barrel? Was it Doom? Did you encounter an even earlier example? Or do you have a favorite exploding-barrel moment from another game?

Leave a comment below and tell us about it! We want to hear your theories, memories, and spectacular stories of accidentally blowing yourself up with the very barrel you were trying to use against the enemy.

And remember:

The barrel is never your friend.