History NightmareFuel / GearsOfWar

* It doubles as a TearJerker, but imagine being in Dom's place for a second. His ''entire'' family is dead, and the only part of it that could still be alive is his wife, the only woman in his life he's ''ever'' loved up to that point. She is [[DistressedDamsel missing]], possibly [[NeverFoundTheBody dead]], and he's been on a crusade to find her, or at least her fate, for years. And then in ''2,'' he finds out that the Locust have [[POWCamp taken prisoners]], which they [[LeaveNoSurvivors never do]], and via [[DrivenToSuicide Tai]], he finds out ''[[ColdBloodedTorture why.]]'' None of this points to a happy ending, but he keeps up [[HopeSpot hope]] despite that. And then he finds her. His [[DownerEnding wife]] has been lobotomized, malnourished, and tortured into insanity, and she's been like this for ''years.'' The damage is clearly irreparable, and Dom has to MercyKill her. Dom is ''broken'' after this. DespairEventHorizon doesn't even begin to describe what happens to him.

** And how do they kill it? [[{{Gorn}} By cutting out its three beating hearts within,]] [[UpToEleven narrowly avoiding drowning a horrible death in a river of the creature's blood.]]

* [[DemonicSpiders The Kryll]]. [[DarknessEqualsDeath Don't leave the light]].

-->'''Baird''': I told you, they're breaking people! I could hear 'em screaming from the docks!

* One word: ''Char''.
** An entire city completely razed by the Hammer of Dawn, with the ashen remains of thousands of slaughtered civilians frozen in the moments when the beams flashfried their bodies, many still running, crying or huddling in fear with their loved ones? An especially haunting reminder of how truly vicious the war is, and that it was not the Locust but the ''Coalition'' that condemned them to their fates in a horrific ShootTheDog moment.
** Worse? Some of said victims are clearly ''children''.

* It doubles as a TearJerker, but imagine being in Dom's place for a second. His life is made of AdultFear. His ''entire'' family is dead, and the only part of it that could still be alive is his wife, the only woman in his life he's ''ever'' loved up to that point. She is [[DistressedDamsel missing]], possibly [[NeverFoundTheBody dead]], and he's been on a crusade to find her, or at least her fate, for years. And then in ''2,'' he finds out that the Locust have [[POWCamp taken prisoners]], which they [[LeaveNoSurvivors never do]], and via [[DrivenToSuicide Tai]], he finds out ''[[ColdBloodedTorture why.]]'' None of this points to a happy ending, but he keeps up [[HopeSpot hope]] despite that. And then he finds her. His [[DownerEnding wife]] has been lobotomized, malnourished, and tortured into insanity, and she's been like this for ''years.'' The damage is clearly irreparable, and Dom has to MercyKill her. Dom is ''broken'' after this. DespairEventHorizon doesn't even begin to describe what happens to him.

* The Flock, an aerial swarm of leech-like creatures that are the new Kryll. Except not only can they reside in any location regardless of the time of day, but they're incredibly hardy as a group and eat people alive by viscerally tearing them limb from limb much more violently than the razor-blade esque Kryll. Even worse, they can possess technology- which turns Baird's [=DeeBees=] into robotic, zombie-like "Rejects" wherever the Flock appears, some of which killed more people than the Swarm personally managed.

** When we see what happens to people captured by the Locust in the long run later on in the same game, it's somewhere between this and a Tearjerker; Dom finally finds his wife Maria, who has been held captive by the Horde for several ''years'' rather than just a few hours. She's emaciated to the point of looking like a living skeleton and her entire body is covered with scars]]. That she can't recognize anyone she knew during her life on the surface or even really react to the world around her is partly due to a sort of lobotomy that she received during final processing in the Nexus, but it seems like it might have been an inadvertent act of mercy by that point. Recognizing that there's no real chance of recovery, Dom performs a MercyKill to end what's left of her life.

** What Baird says immediately afterwards ''really'' doesn't help. Additional [[FridgeHorror Fridge Horror]] when you realise that could have happened to Baird, if you didn't get to him in time. Then consider the sheer number of the cages you can find in the docks. ''How many people have the Locust already done this to?''

* Tai is stated to be virtually unkillable. [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat He is shown to have survived many things that should've straight up killed him]], and [[HoldTheLine he got in a direct chainsaw duel with Skorge to give you time to make it to your objective.]] Turns out, he's not dead, and when you rescue him from the Locust, Marcus tosses him a shotgun. And Tai, who is visibly ''broken'' after only a few hours in Locust custody, [[AteHisGun blows his own head off without so much as a word]]. Which leaves you to question - ''what the fuck did the Locust [[FridgeHorror do to him]] to cause [[DrivenToSuicide that]]? What did they make him ''see?''

* Tai is stated to be virtually unkillable. [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat He is shown to have survived many things that should've straight up killed him]], and [[HoldTheLine he got in a direct chainsaw duel with Skorge to give you time to make it to your objective.]] Turns out, he's not dead, and when you rescue him from the Locust, Marcus tosses him a shotgun. And Tai, who is visibly ''broken'' after only a few hours in Locust custody, [[AteHisGun blows his own head off without so much as a word]]. Which leaves you to question - ''what the fuck did the Locust [[FridgeHorror do to him]] to cause [[DrivenToSuicide that]]? ''What did they make him see?''

** Oh, and the way you're introduced to them? One of your random AI partners completely loses his shit, says "ScrewThisImOuttaHere" and runs into a convenient hallway, only to get pounced upon by the Berserker and get torn to pieces. All that remains of him when you go into the hallway is a bloody mass of leftover flesh and bones. The scene in question is effective enough that it's one of the rare occasions on which the spilling of way more blood than could possibly fit in a human body is [[AvertedTrope not in any way]] [[{{Narm}} narmful]].
*** The Ultimate Edition makes use of the shadows to show us exactly what's happening. You see every detail of the Berserker tearing apart every inch of soldier's body.

* In Fort Mercer, we see a Locust soldier execute a downed gear. By ripping off his arm and beating him with it. We even get the ''pleasure'' of seeing this up close and personal.

* In Fort Mercer, we see a Locast execute a downed gear. By ripping off his arm and beating him with it. We even get the ''pleasure'' of seeing this up close and personal.

* In Fort Mercer, we see a Locast exucute a downed gear. By ripping off his arm and beating him with it. We even get the ''pleasure'' of seeing up close and personal.

* Sudtle moment being Marcus screaming at Griffin, not only is Marcus a big guy, but it's so out of character.

** This gets followed up by the introduction of the Stump, a [=DeeBee=] defense droid that was taken over by the leeches. What seems like a civilian evacuation of a play theater quickly falls apart upon seeing this transformed abomination sitting idle before a packed house of corpses it subsequently proliferated with excess lead. A few people tried to escape, and they didn't even make it to the exits. [[MoodWhiplash Then the play stage automatically boots up and plays a rocking theatrical version of the Gears theme as it gets alerted to your presence.]]

** Myrrah's taunts to Kait as she travels through Mount Kedar. The visions get more intense and blood soaked, culminating in Kait bowing before an illusion of the deceased Locust Queen. Kait proceeds to try to stab the illusion, but Myrrah laughs it off. Carolyn Seymour's terrifying voice work really nails it.

* The Flock, an aerial swarm of leech-like creatures that are the new Kryll. Except not only can they reside in any location regardless of the time of day, but they're incredibly hardy as a group and eat people alive by viscerally tearing them limb from limb much more violently than the razor-blade esque Kryll. Even worse, they can possess technology- which turns Baird's DeeBees into a potential robotic ZombieApocalypse wherever the Flock appears, some of which killed more people than the Swarm personally managed.
** This gets followed up by the introduction of the Stump, a DeeBee defense droid that was taken over by the leeches. What seems like a civilian evacuation of a play theater quickly falls apart upon seeing this transformed "thing" sitting idle before a packed house of corpses it subsequently proliferated with excess lead. A few people tried to escape, and they didn't even make it to the exits. [[MoodWhiplash Then the play stage automatically boots up and plays a rocking theatrical version of the Gears theme as it gets alerted to your presence.]]

** You think the normal Berserkers are bad, wait until you see [[spoiler: the Lambent Berserker]] in ''Gears of War 3''. Picture it, [[spoiler: you just saved Anya and Sam from being overrun by Lambent Locusts. As you make your way back to the fort, you see a rather large Lambent stalk appear in front of you. Then, it pops out screaming and instantly killing the COG in front of it before tossing the jeep in your direction. Surely the Hammer of Dawn can kill this thing right? So you make your way back inside the fort and watch it get nuked via satellite, only to find out that it survived. And is ''very'' pissed off.]]

** And how do they kill it? [[spoiler: By cutting out its three beating hearts within, narrowly avoiding drowning a horrible death in a river of the creature's blood]].
* The final boss of ''Gears of War 2''. [[spoiler:A Brumak gets overdosed on Imulsion and when it mutates its head violently deforms, with a second head bursting from its mouth, which is followed by the creature going berserk and growing tentacles from its body.]]
* It doubles as a TearJerker, but imagine being in Dom's place for a second. His life is made of AdultFear. His ''entire'' family is dead, and the only part of it that could still be alive is his wife, the only woman in his life he's ''ever'' loved up to that point. She is [[DistressedDamsel missing]], possibly [[NeverFoundTheBody dead]], and he's been on a crusade to find her, or at least her fate, for years. And then in ''2,'' he finds out that the Locust have [[POWCamp taken prisoners]], which they [[LeaveNoSurvivors never do]], and via [[DrivenToSuicide Tai]], he finds out ''[[ColdBloodedTorture why.]]'' None of this points to a happy ending, but he keeps up [[HopeSpot hope]] despite that. And then he finds her. His [[DownerEnding wife]] has been [[spoiler: lobotomized, malnourished, and tortured into insanity, and she's been like this for]] ''[[spoiler: years.]]'' [[spoiler: The damage is clearly irreparable, and Dom has to MercyKill her.]] Dom is ''broken'' after this. DespairEventHorizon doesn't even begin to describe what happens to him.
* ''Raam's Shadow.'' Right before a child is about to evacuate Ilima City on an APC full of civilians, Tai gives him encouraging words to help him survive the days to come. A cute, hopeful moment [[spoiler: that is brutally cut short. Not thirty seconds later he and you are forced to watch as that APC and everyone in it is pulled underground by a Corpser, spelling certain death for said child.]]
* Tai is stated to be virtually unkillable. [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat He is shown to have survived many things that should've straight up killed him]], and [[HoldTheLine he got in a direct chainsaw duel with Skorge to give you time to make it to your objective.]] Turns out, he's not dead, and when you rescue him from the Locust, Marcus tosses him a shotgun. [[spoiler: And Tai, who is visibly ''broken'' after only a few hours in Locust custody, [[AteHisGun blows his own head off without so much as a word]]. Which leaves you to question - ''what the fuck did the Locust [[FridgeHorror do to him]] to cause [[DrivenToSuicide that]]? ''What did they make him see?'']]

** When we see what happens to people captured by the Locust in the long run later on in the same game, it's somewhere between this and a Tearjerker. [[spoiler:Dom finally finds his wife Maria, who has been held captive by the Horde for several ''years'' rather than just a few hours. She's emaciated to the point of looking like a living skeleton and her entire body is covered with scars]]. That she can't recognize anyone she knew during her life on the surface or even really react to the world around her is partly due to a sort of lobotomy that she received during final processing in the Nexus, but it seems like it might have been an inadvertent act of mercy by that point. [[spoiler:Recognizing that there's no real chance of recovery, Dom performs a MercyKill to end what's left of her life]].

* The first time you meet [[spoiler: Lambent Humans]] in ''Gears of War 3''. Marcus and Anya are in the sewers under the town of Mercy, and they spot a woman huddling in a corner, crying for some reason. They get closer, and Marcus asks if the woman's okay, and every viewer knows damn well what's about to happen, but somehow it's still chilling. [[spoiler:Marcus reaches out to touch her, and the woman whips around to face him, and in that instant we see that not only is her flesh practically liquefying, but that horrible [[SicklyGreenGlow lambent light]] is shining out of her mouth and the gaping holes where her eyes should be. And she screams as she rushes at you]]. Anya shouts that [[spoiler:the woman isn't human anymore]] and that Marcus should just open fire, but most players won't need any encouragement to gun that thing down.
** The entire lead-up to that moment is more and more unnerving. Marcus, Dom and Company are clueless about what's going on, but to most every viewer, the signs of the [[spoiler:ZombieApocalypse]] will be all too clear: the seemingly abandoned town, the crazed survivor shouting about some kind of disease, the locked doors with giant red X's painted on them, and the fact that those doors are barricaded from the outside.
** The [[spoiler: Lambent Humans]] shows up again with the same creepy suspense and tension in ''Aftermath''. Especially unnerving when you hear them whisper ''die!''.

* The Swarm. Seriously, [[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EQTS2yoWzr8/maxresdefault.jpg this]] is ''NOT'' the face of mercy. Know what it ''is'' the face of? [[spoiler:A ''baby''. That thing ''just'' hatched from its pod and it already wants to tear your head off.]]

** Making this all the more horrifying is that they repopulate by [[spoiler:kidnapping humans and putting them in pods that turn them to their ranks]].
** On top of all this there's the horrifying truth behind their origin... [[spoiler: they're not a new species. They're The Locust reborn and modified from when the device from Gears of War 3 supposedly killed them.]]

* The first time you meet [[spoiler: Lambent Humans]] in ''Gears of War 3''. Marcus and Anya are in the sewers under the town of Mercy, and they spot a woman huddling in a corner, crying for some reason. They get closer, and Marcus asks if the woman's okay, and every viewer knows damn well what's about to happen, but somehow it's still chilling. [[spoiler:Marcus reaches out to touch her, and the woman whips around to face him, and in that instant we see that not only is her flesh practically liquefying, but that horrible [[SicklyGreenGlow lambent light]] is shining out of her mouth and the gaping holes where her eyes should be. And she screams as she rushes at you]]. Anya shouts that [[spoiler:the woman isn't human anymore]] and that Marcus should just open fire, but most players won't need any encouragement to gun that thing down.
** The entire lead-up to that moment is more and more unnerving. Marcus, Dom and Company are clueless about what's going on, but to most every viewer, the signs of the [[spoiler:ZombieApocalypse]] will be all too clear: the seemingly abandoned town, the crazed survivor shouting about some kind of disease, the locked doors with giant red X's painted on them, and the fact that those doors are barricaded from the outside.
** The [[spoiler: Lambent Humans]] shows up again with the same creepy suspense and tension in ''Aftermath''. Especially unnerving when you hear them whisper ''die!''.
*** Sometimes they scream "[[AFateWorseThanDeath Kill me]]!"
** The scene in Mercy where they are trying to break though the church. The battlehardened gears have no reaction, but viewers might be unnerved.
** Also in Mercy, the scene where they kill two Stranded.
* [[SeaMonster Leviathans]], and not just the Lambent ones either. Imagine the shark from ''Film/{{Jaws}}'', but three times bigger with massive teeth. Leviathans also have pretty creepy eyes, either the pure blue ''Vampyroteuthis'' [[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/wp-content/blogs.dir/470/files/2012/04/i-6ccf90c0455b735133f92f0aa1685bc4-vamp_open.jpg eyes]], or the Lambent Leviathan's GlowingEyesOfDoom.

* Several of the weapon executions are pretty brutal but the Lancer and Scorcher executions take the cake. To wit,
** Lancer: The downed player is kicked over onto their back, then the chainsaw bayonet of the Lancer is thrust onto the downed player's chest at an angle and activated, resulting in blood and small chunks of flesh being thrown into the executioner's face.
** Scorcher: The player can jab the Scorcher's nozzle into a downed enemy and shoot fire into their body, which causes flames to erupt from their eyes and mouth. If this isn't enough, there's also screams of pain from the victim as well.
*** Honestly, both the COG and Locust characters scream horribly when being hit from an incendiary weapon on their own. And if they die to one? All they can do is let out a long, painful shriek that sounds like they’re in ''pure agony'' while they writhe on the ground at your feet. [[FridgeHorror All that metallic armor must conduct heat like crazy]]...
** Gears 4's introduction of the Enforcer results in an execution in which the attacker chokes out the downed player with the gun as they writhe and try to escape, ending as the attacker *rips the downed player's head off*.
** Thought those were bad? You should get a look of the Tri-Shot execution from ''4''. The wielder presses the gatling gun’s barrels into the victim’s head, then activates the barrels so that it ''spins the victim’s entire body and grinds it into paste where they lay''. The execution is pretty much a mechanized version of an ''alligator’s deathroll''.

* The nightmares Kait has in Gears 5 are downright apocalyptic, and while the Locust and Swarm were bad, in her nightmares, they look demonic. Oh, and then there is Kait's personality change. Kait becomes stubborn, mistrusting of her comrades, and increasingly violent. And the necklace she got from her mom that was her grandmother is a Locust symbol, which along with Myyrah having a clear flashback, gives the strong message MYRRAH was Kait's grandmother. And the final scene of the trailer has Kait holding Del at gunpoint demanding to know what JD told him, regarding his belief Kait could become an enemy.

** By far the worst thing about the Berserker though, is that the Locust actually ''reproduce by raping them!'' And making this all the more harrowing is that it's ''the only way'' they can reproduce. Otherwise, they'll be reduced to a red paste by them.