History NightmareFuel / Halo

As a grounded and cynical war story, ''Halo'' depicts humanity's desperate struggle against an alliance of alien zealots and ancient parasites. It's no surprise that the games contain many terrifying moments, considering the games have some pretty gruesome violence and said parasites' penchant for BodyHorror.

And that's not even mentioning stuff in the ExpandedUniverse, like the ''Forerunner Saga'', which turns the franchise into a borderline CosmicHorrorStory that could've come straight from the mind of Creator/HPLovecraft.

As a grounded and cynical war story, ''Halo'' depicts humanity's desperate struggle against an alliance of alien zealots and ancient parasites. It's no surprise that the games contain many terrifying moments, considering said parasites' penchant for BodyHorror and [[Main/Gorn some pretty gruesome violence]].

As a grounded and cynical war story, ''Halo'' depicts humanity's desperate struggle against an alliance of alien zealots and ancient parasites. It's no surprise that the games contain many terrifying moments, considering said parasites' penchant for BodyHorror and some pretty gruesome violence.

As a grounded and cynical war story, ''Halo'' depicts humanity's desperate struggle against an alliance of alien zealots and ancient parasites. It's no surprise that the games contain many terrifying moments, considering said parasites' penchant for BodyHorror and [[Gorn some pretty gruesome violence]].

As a grounded and cynical war story, ''Halo'' depicts humanity's desperate struggle against an alliance of alien zealots and ancient parasites. It's no surprise that the games contain many terrifying moments, considering said parasites' penchant for body horror and some pretty gruesome violence.

[[folder:Halo 3: ODST]]
* The story that the audio logs tell is much darker and more gruesome than the main storyline. This includes a corrupt cop Kinzler who tries to rape Sadie, massacre civilians, and send dozens of his men to their deaths just so he can secure the Engineer and become a hero. He eventually gets what he deserved, by being torn apart by an angry mob, still alive throughout the entire process.
* The Mombasa Streets level is quite eerie, especially with the moody music, being utterly depopulated except for the occasional Covenant patrol, with signs of the UNSC forces [[DoNotGoGentle having fought tooth and nail against the Covenant]] for control of the city. The walls are littered with graffitis such as "Twilight of Man" or "We're next" highlighting how humanity is making a LastStand against ''utter extinction''. Up until Halo: Reach this was one of the most visceral way to show how horrifying a HopelessWar against genocidal ScaryDogmaticAliens would be.
* The sight of the [[MileLongShip Covenant Carrier]] beginning to [[DeathFromAbove glass]] the city is enough to give a [[HeroicBSOD panic attack]] to [[SergeantRock Gunnery Sergeant]] [[BadassNormal Edward Buck]] who was there on Reach when the same thing happened and barely survived to escape.

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** The utterly gigantic [Proto-Gravemind tentacles.

[[folder:Halo: Infinite]]
* On June 24th, 2020, a teaser for Halo: Infinite was dropped. All it shows is a datapad intercepting an alien transmission. One would assume it's about remnants of a faction of Covenant, but it's not. It's worse.
-->''"The hour approaches. Our forces occupy the ring, within hours, it will be under our control. [[KillAllHumans Humanity will burn.]] Their brazen defiance will be all but a memory. [[NeverBeHurtAgain No more Prophets, no more lies!]] We stand together, brothers to the end. We are his will. We are his legacy. We are [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized the Banished.]]"''
* As of ''Infinite'', the Hunters no longer simply grunt when they attack. Now they make some ''unearthly'' roars, sounding less like a sentient being and more like an animalistic monster. [[https://youtu.be/d_dFfWngj38 Here]], have a listen, and imagine a 13 foot tall behemoth chasing you down.
* The BossBattle against Jega 'Rdomnai. It starts with the player hearing the voices of the Pilot's wife and child coming from a room in the third training course, and when the Master Chief picks it up, Jega starts speaking in time with them as they're bidding the Pilot goodbye, briefly scraping his crimson-red energy blades across the floor and ceiling to add to the deathly-vibe in the room, all the while telling him he won't be leaving alive. He then decloaks, ignites some ''very'' scary-looking energy blades, and seals you in the room with him, remaining cloaked while creepily taunting you throughout the fight. Mercifully he's actually one of the easier bosses in the game.
-->'''Blade Master:''' '''[[BadassBoast Say goodbye...]]'''
* In a later-game mission, you begin to hear whispers from Cortana. Some are callbacks to things she previously said in the series, which can be tearjerking or nostalgia-inducing. Others? Others are cryptic statements spoken in rhyming verse of trochaic heptameter--the same speech pattern as '''The Gravemind'''. This implies that Cortana's FaceHeelTurn may have been due to the Gravemind's MindRape of her in ''Halo 3''.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Halo 2]]
* The Gravemind is a particularly frightening being that truly lives up to being a EldritchAbomination, thanks to VoiceOfTheLegion and its creepy competency at delivering [[BreakingSpeech breaking speeches]] and corrupting people to evil. Its appearance, particularly its graphically updated one pictured above, doesn't exactly help matters either. Plus, there's no telling where those awful tentacles will pop up next...
** Oh, and one of those tentacles? The Prophet of Regret is ''melded'' to one of them, still completely conscious and clearly in great pain. There's no answer for why the Gravemind would do such a thing other than [[ForTheEvulz "He can."]]
** ''This is not your grave...*incomprehensible gurgle*...but you are welcome in it.''
** The HD Gravemind has another detail that makes him worse than his original graphics. In the original, the impression that the Gravemind gave was that of a vast Venus Flytrap-esque beast. Look closer at the HD Gravemind when he talks, specifically at the back of his throat. That's a giant fanged ''maw'' with brief flashes of what looks like an organic meat grinder of teeth in its gullet. The way it's animated makes it look like it's in a perpetual SlasherSmile as well.
** In the original game, the animations made it look like Arbiter was struggling against it's grip and at least gaining some ground if not enough. The anniversary edition and it's improved animations makes it clear that the Gravemind is just ''toying'' with the Arbiter, twisting and turning him at its leisure. It says incredible things that Arbiter manages to keep his NervesOfSteel when he's being held ''very'' close to the Gravemind's horrible maw.
** At one point, you can just barely make out the voice of a ''child''.
* The level "Sacred Icon" where you play as the Arbiter is an exercise in creepy. It starts with some NothingIsScarier, in sterile, quiet, brightly lit Forerunner corridors filled with the bodies of [[EverybodysDeadDave dead Covenants]] who were on the same mission as you wiped out by the Sentinel security systems and a few surviving [[ShellShockedVeteran traumatized]] Grunts and Jackals. To proceed in the level the Arbiter needs to open "pistons" and slide down a series of tubes that take him down to God-knows-where in the bowels of Halo, utterly powerless to stop his descent, while PsychoStrings [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlbsyqVenvo play]] in the background. The whole thing is vaguely reminiscent of [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Luke Skywalker's ]] falling down the shafts of Cloud City.
** And then you start running into the [[TheVirus Flood]], this time in [[EvilIsNotWellLit poorly]] [[BlackoutBasement lit]] Forerunner corridors filled with toxic Flood mist that fog your vision while all kind of Flood monstrosities crawl around and you hear the panicked chatter of Marines over the radio as they're overrun by the Flood and infected.
** It's not over yet! You jump once again into a series of shafts once again with the PsychoStrings and end up at night in a desolate wasteland of [[SnowMeansDeath snow]], dead trees, and Forerunner wreckage, heavily implied to have been turned into a freezing lifeless environment by Halo's security systems to hinder the massive [[ZombieApocalypse Flood outbreak]]. It looks eerily desolate, even worse than something you'd find in VideoGame/{{Fallout}}. At least the [[SwampsAreEvil swamp]] in [[VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved 343 Guilty Spark]] was a natural but alien ecosystem. Here it looks like a nuclear winter. And then the Arbiter links up with an Elite outpost and has to hold out against several waves of Flood forces constantly encroaching on your immediate area. How does a new wave warn you to their appearances? [[HellIsThatNoise With an announcing scream that doesn't sound like it should be made by the vocal chords of anything human or in the Covenant.]]
** Fairly late into the Sacred Icon level you can encounter Sentinels who don't attack you (they still show up as enemy, and shooting them will make them retaliate), [[ImpliedTrope implying]] the infestation [[GodzillaThreshold got so bad]] that they focus entirely on the Flood instead of you (though the Forerunner constructs go back to being hostile in the next level).
* You probably think [[EldritchAbomination The Flood]] are incapable of anything beyond their usual gurgling noises, eh? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTlkVfqs5cM#t=11m36s Think again...]] Their laughs in victory are '''very creepy''' to those not used to them like an avid Halo Veteran would be.
* The hidden messages in the game. In Halo 2's soundtrack, we have ''Mausoleum Suite'', a song that plays during the intro cutscene of the ''The Arbiter'' and during the confrontation with Tartarus in ''The Great Journey''. In this track, a voice can be heard in the background. At first, it seems intelligible, but play the song in reverse, and you get [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNPFD8lt6zc#t=1m13s this]]. Fans like to speculate that this is Mendicant Bias.
* Much like the first game, the soundtrack itself offers many terrifying tunes:
** The middle section [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ara1HO6CbpE (Infected)]] of "Mausoleum Suite". It starts out with slow jungle drums and spooky moaning voices (similar to the Shadow Temple music from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'') and then turns into a cacophony of synthesizer effects with guttural voices that seem to be reversed speech but are really just gibberish.
** Another scary one is "Ancient Machine", a [[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 Twilight Zone]]-like melody with organic Flood noises and vocals similar to the aforementioned "Infected".
** The second section of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsZAtqEzC24 Librarian's Gift]]" from ''Halo 2: Anniversary'' heard on The Oracle after the elevator ride (replacing the second half of the aforementioned "Infected") will give you recurring Flood nightmares for a long time to come.
* When you kill a Brute, [[JumpScare you may see his eyes twitch]].
* Speaking of Brutes, the Brutes themselves are terrifying considering their capabilities. In Halo 2, their introduction makes them one of the most terrifying enemies you could possibly encounter. Their health is quite high for ''any'' covenant infantry and they're even capable of killing ''hunters'' which usually kill anything that gets close to them, let alone at a good enough distance they can use their fuel rod guns instead of just chasing after their foes. And when they're the only pack member left alive, they "berserk" which basically means they beat the living soul out of whatever they consider an enemy, '''including you, the player'''.
* The infestation of High Charity. As if the EnemyCivilWar wasn't bad enough, suddenly a human spaceship teleports into the central dome of the Covenant's capital city and crash-lands, disgorging a horde of zombies; infested Pelican dropships are sent across the city in every direction, immediately rendering quarantine impossible. As all hell breaks loose and both loyalist and rebel forces lose ground, the Prophet of Truth's reassuring transmissions are hijacked by the Gravemind, who gleefully taunts the populace and reminds them that resistance is futile. Eventually even the life support systems are contaminated, filling the entire city with a poisonous miasma. In the end, the city - and its civilian population - is simply abandoned by all sides.
** Parts of the "High Charity" level are a BlackoutBasement. That's because the [[{{Precursors}} Forerunner]] dreadnought in the middle of the city was the main source of power for the city, and since Truth is preparing it for launch, it's disconnecting from the power grid. Imagine being a Covenant civilian, knowing that the Flood are spreading, desperately trying to escape, [[FromBadToWorse and then the lights go out]]. Add to that the DroneOfDread [[https://youtu.be/-cwS6s4E4Go ambient track]] that plays throughout this section...
** The battling fleets outside don't fare much better; despite better success at quarantining the city from space, individual ships are still boarded and overrun, their shipmasters [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled begging for allied cruisers to open fire on them as the Flood force their way into the command chambers.]]
* The remake of the multiplayer mode in ''Anniversary'' provides us with a design for Flood-infected Spartans with [[https://www.halopedia.org/images/3/32/H2A-InfectedSpartan.png a design that's almost as terrifying as the concept itself]]. ''VideoGame/Halo4'' had previously featured infected Spartans in multiplayer, but ''Halo 2 Anniversary'''s takes the idea to a whole new level. Mercifully, neither of these monsters have appeared in the canon story...[[TemptingFate yet]].
[[/folder]]