The following types of death exist in the Doom games and those based on the Doom engine:
- Normal death - used when none of the cases described below occurs.
- Alternate death - when a player in Doom II is reduced to a health of less than -50 a higher pitched scream is heard instead of the usual one.
- Gib death - when a character is reduced to extremely low health (usually the negative of its spawn health), he blows apart, leaving a pile of blood, flesh, and even bones. A terminal fall in Hexen can also cause this to happen.
- Telefrag - when another character teleports to the spot a character is standing on. Will result in a gib death if one is specified for the telefragged character. A telefrag does 10,000 hit points worth of damage, and thus can overcome even an invulnerability artifact or god mode.
- Crushing - when a character is killed by a crushing ceiling or floor. With faster crushing ceilings, no death animation is played, and the character immediately is crushed into a pool of blood.
- Wimpy death (Heretic) - used only if the player dies from a hit that does 10 or fewer points of damage. The normal death animation is used, but a different sound is played to make the player sound weak and pathetic.
- Burning death (Heretic, Hexen) - when a character is killed by lava or a fire-based attack.
- Burning death (Strife) - when a character is killed with a flamethrower.
- Disintegration (Strife) - when a character is killed with a mauler.
- Icy death (Hexen) - when a character is killed with an ice attack such as a Wendigo's iceballs or the Mage's Frost Shards.
The ZDoom and Eternity Engine source ports allow death types from any supported game to be used in any other game.