You really don't want these things to get close...
Since the game is about a special task force assigned to take on the most dangerous missions that any other organization wouldn't risk, there's bound to be plenty of nightmare fuel to go around. Just don't plan on getting any sleep any time soon...
In General
- The Losts, pictured above. Losts are evil ghosts who seek out the living to terrorize them. To give you an idea of how creepy these things are, they're invisible until they get close to you, then scream at you for a lot of damage. It gets worse, since if you don't have a Spirit Shield to protect you from their screams, the textures will shift at a rapid rate while an ear-splitting static noise blares. Your hairs will raise up every time you hear their signature "OOOOOO" sound...
Episode 1
- For starters, the Abyssal Dimension in general. What makes it scary isn't so much being a more detailed and varied homage to the Hell maps from Doom, but that it's able to exist back-to-back with the more grounded locations taking cues from Duke Nukem 3D's level design found elsewhere in the game, something Doom would never even attempt doing.
- To nail it further, the few EDF soldier corpses found there read an unidentifiable time of death, making one wonder if time even exists properly in there. Going there seems at first like a one-way trip, where logic, time, reality, safety and your sanity cannot reach you, making you wish you'd never have to see it for yourself...
- ...Until the mission at Millhaven, a rural Texan town starts. Betraying your expectations of the paranormal being contained at Ganymede, creatures and pieces of the Abyssal Dimension can in fact be brought into reality, potentially even right to your doorstep. No place is truly safe from it.
- In a more mundane example, the Imperial Union, a fascist movement led by a man named Prokhor Vilmos that has successfully taken over Russia in the past and have butchered thousands of civilians who have spoken up against them. To make matters worse, the Earth Defense Force have refused to look into the matter while Highwire was still with them, which disgusted him and forced him to take matters into his own hands to start his own revolution. Anyone who has lived in a similar oppressive state will shudder at the thought of the Union's existence.
- To make matters worse, Vilmos is one of the cruelest tyrants to ever live. His doctrine in life is that only strength matters while kindness and goodwill makes a man weak. He has little-to-no tolerance for failure, as he screams at his own men for letting Highwire and his rebels sneak through the cracks and lead a revolution in his home turf. He owns a heavy powersuit, which he will use as a last resort, as Highwire finds out when he confronts him in his own bunker.
Episode 2
- The dream sequence at the beginning:a nameless figure crawls through an eerily abandoned facility in a canyon until they come face-to-face with a strange creature... which screams at them with enough force to push them back. Then James wakes up, complaining about not getting enough sleep.
- The core of the episode's story is that the Triads have teamed up with the Yakuza and took over Hong Kong, using the power of the Shadow Realm to unleash chaos and throw the Chinese government off-course while they swoop in. And judging by what we see in the missions that make up the arc, the Triads have been... busy dealing with the local populace rather messily.
Episode 3
- One of the missions is set in an abandoned facility on the moon of Umbriel, which seems rather standard for the game, except it's dark and the only enemies are security robots who see you as an intruder. And the reason you go there is that a strange signal was being broadcasted from the facility, which prompts us to wonder how it got sent... or why it was sent. Ultimately, nothing of importance comes up from this, as the base gets destroyed at the end, while Snowfall was left without any answers as to what led to the facility being desolate or the signal being broadcasted.
- The Forgotten Tomb is hands down one of the scariest missions in Episode 3, let alone the whole game. For starters, it's extremely dark down there, and you don't have nightvision until much later in the level, and only in a secret. If you're unlucky, you'll travel the whole area without a torch to guide the way. Much of the level is also home to Abyssal forces, including the dreaded Losts, and since you're playing as Merlijn, your options for vanquishing the Losts and other spectral forces are limited (unless you bring in a gold weapon). And the whole reason you're down there is that you've to investigate reports of a missing archaeological team who had excavated the tomb. With how things have gone down there, maybe the tomb should've stayed buried...
Episode 4
- Throughout the episode, you're beset by Naaldir's forces as you fight tooth and nail to free the realm of his influence. Should you reach certain checkpoints throughout the episode, Naaldir will be happy to pop in with a loud noise to startle you before leaving behind a random event. One of these events is him spawning a Lost on you, and this can happen even when you're in cramped spaces. Have fun!
