“ | This provides a temporary but significant boost to your health.
This will wear off after a minute or so. |
” |
—The Quake II Manual |
Megahealth is a power-up found in Quake II that immediately increases the player's health by 100, regardless of the player's usual maximum health. However, this is only a temporary boost - the increased health will gradually decrease again, at a rate of 1 health per second, until it is back to its usual maximum (usually 100, or more if they have collected Adrenaline). In the original game, if the effects of the Megahealth are not over by the end of the level, it will be immediately depleted upon the start of the next level - however, this is no longer the case in the 2023 remaster.
Strategies[]
The Megahealth is usually a hotly-contested item in multiplayer, sometimes players favor this over Body Armor and Quad Damage, especially the FFA mode. When the match starts, try to get control of the area that has the Megahealth before your enemies do. If you can't, try to strike when there's still fighting. If there's no fighting when you get to it, but somebody is occupying it, don't try and take it unless you have a very powerful weapon and some armor. Alternatively, if you cannot reach the area with Megahealth fast enough, go to get Heavy Armor or strong weapon first. If you don't you'll usually get blown away before you can take off half of your target's HP.
The Megahealth is also a great companion with any type of armor, such as Body Armor. If one has Megahealth and a powerful Armor, one'll be able to survive many attacks or being hit by stronger weapons like the Railgun. With weak armor (or just Armor Shards), one should be able to endure a greater number of attacks if it combined with a Megahealth.
This item is good for a CTF since there is always one in each base in some levels so run in, get the flag and leg it back to base before they know what hit them.
In the 2023 remaster, the Megahealth has a significant downside. A player with a health value boosted by Stimpacks would lose this boost when they entered a new level in the original game, but in the 2023 remaster they keep the Stimpack health boost. Collecting a Megahealth, however, will cause their health to deteriorate all the way back down to its usual maximum (i.e. 100 plus however many Adrenalines they have used). Therefore, in the 2023 remaster a player should only consider collecting a Megahealth if their current health has not been substantially boosted by Stimpacks. That said, if the player wishes to achieve 100% kills and secrets, there are certain Megahealth pickups that must be collected to achieve it, even though it could be disadvantageous to their current health value.