History NightmareFuel / BatmanArkhamCity

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[[caption-width-right:349:''Hugo Strange wants to know what's in your head...'']]

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** This gem: "I hope you're breathing through fractured ribs and punctured lungs! And if you're not, then you'd better summon up all your energy and run, because after I finish with the Bat, ''you're all next!''" Sure, slight paraphrasing, but take a [[JustForPun chill pill]], Penguin.

*** A [=YouTube=] comment summarizes a whole other level of horror behind Grundy being in Arkham City. His presence is built up well in advance of actually fighting him, but you might miss it on the first playthrough even as a couple of Penguin's goons talk about a poster depicting Grundy and quote his famous rhyme, "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday." Then, after you've cleared the rest of the museum and probably Shoryuken'd Penguin, to boot, he sets off a bunch of explosives which send you falling into Grundy's lair beneath the Iceberg Lounge--which, going ''even further'', means that this hulking undead abomination was there under Penguin's very public nightclub the whole time, including back when it was open long before the events of the game--and says Penguin says that he just happened to find Grundy there when he bought the museum. So...

** Grundy, in general! The guy is three times the height of Batman, and the longer the fight goes on, the more ravaged his body becomes. By the end of it, [[BodyHorror Grundy's body has been put through all kinds of abuse]]: [[ManOnFire Set aflame from]] [[LightningCanDoAnything all the electricity jump-starting him]], [[TorsoWithAView his rib cage has been shattered, and his organs are pounded into mush]].

* The NonStandardGameOver in Catwoman's penultimate mission. If the player choses to leave Arkham City with the loot rather that save Batman, the credits roll, and the player hears a distress call from Oracle. In a fuzzy transmission, she pleads for help, stating that Wayne Manor has been compromised and everyone is dead. Thankfully this is immediately reverted. But even as a throw away gag, it's enough to genuinely scare you.

* In Catwoman's mission, she can choose to walk off with the loot or save Batman. Walk off with the loot and the game ends, with the credits rolling and horrifying radio messages of how everyone in Arkham and Gotham had been killed because Catwoman didn't save Batman. After a while, the scene rewinds back so she can make the right choice.
** At the end of the rewinding part, there's a barely-detectable garbled voice. Rewind the rewind (that is, make it go "forward") and slow it down: It's Joker saying "'''Thank you for the entertainment, Bats'''", literally [[WhatTheHellPlayer thanking Catwoman/the player for letting him run rampant through Gotham and maybe the whole world]].

''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' turned everything about the first game up to eleven, and the SequelEscalation includes anything you can think of. ''Asylum'' was dark, ''City'' is {{darker|AndEdgier}}. ''Asylum'' was scary, ''City'' is worse. Read and weep.

* Hugo Strange and Catwoman, in order to give the above-seen page image context. If you get seen during Catwoman's StealthBasedMission, Strange appears in the [[GameOverMan game over screen]]. One of them has him holding a scalpel with a SlasherSmile on his face and smugly saying "I will ''enjoy'' dissecting your brain, Miss Kyle!" in his Creator/ChristopherLee-[[Creator/CoreyBurton esque]] voice. [[AndIMustScream The way he says it makes it sound like he's eager to slice Catwoman's head open while she's still alive]].

*** It gets worse. Penguin first tried feeding him to a pack of rats. For days. But of course, given who he was, the rats just climbed around him harmlessly. So then Penguin fed him to [[EverythingsWorseWithSharks Tiny]] instead.

** One of the displays is one that used to contain Mr. Zsasz and it's very clear that he broke out with a vengeance. After all, the Penguin is the reason he lost all his money.

[[quoteright:349:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/batmanugodeth_2952.png]]
[[caption-width-right:349:''Hugo Strange wants to know what's in your head...'']]
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'''Riddler:''' And the winner is... ME!

** "Now, I wonder what would happen if I take this hammer and..." ''[[[{{Fingore}} WHACK!]]]'' "Well, what do you know? His whole bloody hand explodes!"
** Penguin has "modified" the exhibits in the museum. Many of them show off his stolen military gear, or how he plans to kill the other crime lords in the city. And they're almost all decorated with corpses or skeletons. Even when Penguin is just inflating his ego, ''people have to die''.

-->'''Penguin:''' Meet Tiny. Who'da thought such a big fish could be so useful? Not me, that's for sure. He's like a mobile garbage truck. Whatever I drop in that tank, just... [[ThreateningShark vanishes.]] Poof. (laughs) Problem gone.

* The NonStandardGameOver in Catwoman's penultimate mission. If the player choses to leave Arkham City with the loot rather that save Batman, the credits roll, and the player hears a distress call from Oracle. In a fuzzy transmission, she pleads for help, stating that Wayne Manner has been compromised and everyone is dead. Thankfully this is immediately reverted. But even as a throw away gag, it's enough to genuinely scare you.

-->'''Penguin:''' Meet Tiny. Who'da thought a big fish would come in handy? Not me, that's for sure. He's like a mobile garbage truck. Whatever I drop in that tank, just... [[ThreateningShark vanishes.]] Poof. (laughs) Problem gone.

''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' turned everything about the first game UpToEleven, and the SequelEscalation includes anything you can think of. ''Asylum'' was dark, ''City'' is {{darker|AndEdgier}}. ''Asylum'' was scary, ''City'' is worse. Read and weep.

* So how do you make DLC that's DarkerAndEdgier when the main game had already done that UpToEleven? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOpTLRsBIMI The trailer]] demonstrates how it's done.

* When going to save Mr. Freeze’s wife Nora from Joker’s men, you can overhear their dialogue: three are doing a rock, paper, scissors game over which one gets to “keep her” after they’re doing breaking her out of the ice. One even says “You got one last time.” Needless to say, it’s a good thing Batman got there to stop them.

* When you come across Nora Fries, Freeze's cryogenically-frozen wife, some of the goons guard her may be debating thawing her out with the implication that they were going to abuse her. Imagine that the last thing you remember is being frozen by your loving husband and the next conscious moment of your life is being [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil sexually assaulted]] by by a group of psychos and murderers. That is the stuff of nightmares.

** Actually it's ''worse'' than Croc the first time you play it because, at least in the sewers of ''Asylum'', you know he's there. [[JumpScare Tiny, on the other hand]]...