Nightmare Fuel / Batman: The Telltale Series

"Up until now Harvey's been weak, he's been afraid..."

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Season One

Episode 1

• Not one minute into the episode, a poor guard gets his brains blown out in full view of the camera, letting you know right out of the gate that this game will be the most violent rendition of Batman to date.
• If that moment above wasn't enough, then receiving the address of the warehouse where Catwoman was supposed to meet the people she stole the flash drive for, Batman arrives to a scene of absolute carnage. Cops and thugs alike are both dead, with a pile of blood and organs being all that's left of one person, while a cop tore one man's throat out with his bare hands after being doused by a chemical weapon, then had his skull fried from the inside out by an incendiary bullet fired from a sniper.
  Batman: This wasn't a handoff. It was a massacre.
  Alfred: How many?
  Batman: I'd have to count the pieces.
  Alfred: (horrified) Oh, good lord...

Episode 2

• When Fighting Roland/Blockbuster for the first time, if the player fails to beat him, a game over will show him squeezing Batman's head until blood splatters (effortlessly crushing his head into paste most likely). Luckily Batman is off-screen when this occurs, but the first person perspective still makes it quite the horrifying Gory Discretion Shot.
• The Reveal footage of Bruce's father having Penguin's mother drugged into irreversible insanity, consequently confirming the allegations about Thomas's ruthlessness. The horrified faces of the audience just reinforce this — and Batman's reaction is just the cherry on top.
• If Batman chooses to save Selina, Harvey's face-melting injury is absolutely horrifying. Penguin picks up a stage light and smashes it on the side of his head, causing the horrific burns Two-Face is known for. Harvey's VA lets out some of the most tortured screams ever recorded and really emphasizes how painful the burns are, not helped when he's left on the ground bleeding and wounded while breathing with Two-Face's raspy voice.
• The final scene of Episode 2, however brief it is. The camera begins to zoom in on an empty alley, but is suddenly replaced by static and the Children of Arkham Leader addressing us the same way they addressed Gotham earlier in the episode.

Episode 3

• As always, Two-Face's disfigured, disgusting face is meant to do this. It doesn't help that this portrayal doesn't avoid the squickier aspects of his disfigurement so the wound still bleeds and festers.
• The reveal that closes Episode 3. Vicki Vale, whom we had always known as a brave and upstanding journalist in any other continuity, is just a facade here: she is in truth the ruthless, sociopathic villain you've been fighting. Just the fact she was so convincing, Bruce never suspected of her, is terrifying. And she's just drugged Bruce...
• Harvey Dent's Sanity Slippage is terrifying to behold during Episode 3. He begins talking to himself in a low voice, arguing with his normal self. This evil version is brutal and terrifying, and Good Harvey is legitimately terrified of him.
  • If you manage to wear him out, he'll leave, but before he does the Madness Mantra he keeps repeating is chilling:
    Harvey: It's just me. It's just me...It's just me...It's just me...
    • What is especially sad is that depending on choice, his belief that Selina cheated on him with Bruce may be in fact true. If it is the case, Selina point-blank tells Bruce later, that she thinks their affair was the reason that driven his best friend insane.
• The Children of Arkham's Psycho Serum. Visually, it's unnerving, causing Tainted Veins, but psychologically, it causes people to lose all sense of morality and restraint. Renee Montoya caps Carmine Falcone despite being a By-the-Book Cop. In Episode 3, we also see that it has long term effects on both Montoya and Harvey Dent (who were both injected in Episode 2), causing the former to strike on her own to stop the Children, and is heavily implied to heavily contribute to the latter's Sanity Slippage. And the worst part, Episode 3 ends with Bruce himself being the third victim.
• It's actually possible to save Harvey from having half his face burned to a crisp, so you might assume he won't become Two-Face, right? Wrong. Harvey's Split Personality continues to take life as the series progresses. However, his face is in immaculate condition. Somehow that puts his sickness into further perspective.

Episode 4

• Episode 4's trailer gives us an idea for what Bruce is in for during his incarceration at Arkham Asylum. His stay will include such highlights as:
  • Being pummeled and tazed by the inmates.
  • The company of mentally unbalanced individuals such as Blockbuster and Arnold Wesker.
  • Victor Zsasz stabbing an orderly to death, completely unafraid of the taser he's wielding in self-defense.
  • Oh, right...and, of course, the Joker makes his debut. Evil Laugh and all.
• Another thing brought up in the trailer—due to recent events, things are going From Bad to Worse:
  • Vicki Vale, intrepid reporter, has gone missing. Which means that, as the leader of the Children of Arkham, she's still at large.
  • In his zeal to hunt down the Children of Arkham, Harvey Dent is getting closer and closer to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope by enacting martial law. And no one's safe from his authoritarian mindset—not even Bruce Wayne or Commissioner Gordon.
  • Harvey Dent and his hired soldiers enter Wayne Manor. And apparently, the circumstances involved drive Alfred to pick up a gun.
  • Oswald Cobblepot has control of Wayne Industries.
    • Not only that, but the trailers imply that he's found Batman's Waynetech gadgets too!.
  • At the very end, a deep, destorted voice belonging to an unseen figure delivers a chilling message:
    Voice: You made the fire. We're just here to stoke the flames.
• Episode 4 starts out with Bruce waking up in Arkham Asylum, with no idea how he got there. Turns out he attacked Cobblepot under the influence of Vicki Vale's Psycho Serum, and the police threw him in the nuthouse.
• Shortly after Bruce learns how he ended up where he is, two Arkham inmates walk into his room, bribing a corrupt orderly to get a tazer in the process. And while Bruce can land a few blows in the ensuing scuffle, he ends up going down under their joint attack. But just in time, the door opens, and he's saved... by none other than the Joker.
• Afterwards, Bruce gets a tour of Arkham, with the Joker being brought along by the psychiatrist as well. Seeing the notorious Bedlam House, and being witness to the raving, mad lunacy of some of the inmates, really drives home how creepy it is to be one of the patients.
  • Oh, and just to reiterate: you've got the Joker right next to you the whole time. Sure, Joker's being friendly, but there's an unhinged element to his friendliness to remind you that he's going to become the worst enemy Batman will ever have.
• The entire sequence with the Joker is all kinds of uncomfortable, as it simultaneously plays with our expectations while slowly dialing up the dread. From "John Doe's" friendliness to his willingness to help Bruce, the divide between character and player is never more pronounced than in that moment. Throughout the Arkham sequence we're waiting for the other shoe to drop because we know Bruce has no idea who he's dealing with.
  • It doesn't help that Joker constantly talks about Bruce having a secret dark side and suggests that Bruce can escape and bring her down. Almost as if he's figured out Batman is Bruce.
  • The creepiness of having The Joker with you the whole time can't be overstated. The whole time you see him, you know who he is. And, no matter how friendly he is, there's this sense that you're handling a time bomb.
• Joker drops another bomb when he reveals that Vicki Vale isn't even her real name. She was born Victoria Arkham. Her parents tried to blow the whistle on Thomas Wayne, but he had them killed and had her adopted by the Vales.
• Bruce is still drugged with Lady Arkham's Hate Plague for most of Episode 4, and this will at times affect your dialogue choices. This comes to a head when Alfred is driving Bruce home from Arkham. They get stopped at a roadblock and people approach the car, badmouthing Bruce for beating up Cobblepot while under the drug's influence. Even if you try to pick a peaceful dialogue choice, Bruce will threaten the people with violence. Even Alfred is shocked by just how angry Bruce gets.
  Bruce: I am tired. I am hungry. I haven't showered in three days. I want to go home, and if you don't get the hell out of my way, I swear to God I WILL HAVE THIS CAR RUN YOU OVER AND THEN BACK UP AGAIN JUST TO MAKE SURE IT DID THE JOB!
  Alfred: Bruce-!
  Bruce: SHUT UP, ALFRED! I CAN HANDLE THIS!
  • Thank god for the silent option...
• Upon synthesizing an antidote for himself, Bruce tracks down the Vales and finds an absolute bloodbath — Vicki drugged her adoptive mother and gouged out her eyes, then whipped Mr. Vale with his own belt before hanging him; Batman notes his beating was so severe he died of blood loss before strangulation. Their other foster child, a son, was left traumatized and rocking under the stairs.
  • When explaining what he heard while hiding, the poor boy gets flustered and blurts out, "Please don't send me to punishment!" Given that the kid seems to not be too shocked at finding them dead, and Batman remarking that they were receiving a sizeable monthly stipend, it's suggested that the Vales were an abusively strict couple who fostered at-risk youth just for the money it brought in.
• Two-Face Will Remember That.
  • Hell, Harvey's descent into the Two-Face persona is a combination of nightmare fuel and tearjerker as we see the man who we have gotten to be know as Bruce's closest friend and someone who actually cared about making Gotham a better place turn into a cold blooded murderer and psychopath who is willing to blow up a whole block and killing innocent people in the process to stop the Children of Arkham.
• Going after Harvey at the end of the episode leads to Batman causing his gun to explode in his hand, burning the rest of his body to match his face and cementing his fall to permanent super-villainy. The burning itself happens too fast for it to be dwelled on, but the tattered suit and visible burns underneath make it clear that there's no coming back for him now.
• The sheer tension from the situation Batman is facing as of episode 4. It is very clear that if it weren't for the player character being Batman, there would be no hope of saving the day.

Episode 5

• The reveal of just how bad the Vales actually were towards their foster children. During Batman's investigation of the Torture Cellar, there are faint echoes of chains rattling and a child screaming.
  • The hidden torture room needs to be elaborated on. The whole thing is covered in creepy drawings from Vicki and other children, there's a doll that Vicki made that's what inspired the Lady Arkham outfit, there are bloody belts and shackles and, best of all, bloody claw marks implying that Vicki once tried to climb her way out desperately enough to leave lasting marks and blood stains in solid concrete. Suddenly Vicki losing her cool when dealing with her parents makes a lot more sense.
    • While at that, if you look closely at the doll's face and at Lady Arkham's helmet, they bear an uncanny resemblance to a gag mask of a mental patient. While the fact that Vicki did her time at Arkham and following that, chose this as her costume is scary in itself, the fact that a little girl played with a doll of a mental patient is even more unsettling.
  • Thomas Wayne left Vicki in the "care" of these people after he killed her birth parents. Is it any wonder she felt nothing but hate for her adopted parents and the Waynes?
• Regardless of whether or not Batman unmasks when Vicki tells him to, someone is going to bear a permanent reminder of what happened, whether it's Alfred losing his left eye if he chooses not to or Bruce losing part of his right ear if he does.
• John Doe's scene at the end: if the player chooses to attend the speech as Batman, He watches from a bar as chaos unfolds after an attempt on the Commissioner's life, musing "It is going to be hard to top that, but I'll give it a shot" followed by his Evil Laugh. If the player chooses to attend as Bruce, he makes a cold promise "I'll see you soon Bruce."

Season Two

Episode 1

• This Riddler is even worse than the Batman: Arkham Series version, and possibly the outright nastiest version yet. His question mark staff doubles as a bladed weapon, which he uses to slit a man's throat in his first appearance. Then he sticks Mori in a trap that cuts off two of his fingers, and nearly decapitates him.
  • Not to mention that his contraptions look like they came straight out of Saw. And unlike the Arkham Series, we do see them get used. Adding to the horror is the screams you hear of the agent in the VR simulation when piecing together everything that happened.
• Even worse is that in this continuity, he terrorized Gotham years before Bruce was ever Batman. To imagine a man like that free to terrorize the city as his own personal playground is just terrifying.
• While watching a video of Riddler being interviewed by the Warden of Santa Prisca, Alfred suggests he needs mental help. What changes his mind? When Riddler breaks open the prison and decides to cut the Warden's face off for the fun of it.
• Riddler says later on that The Agency made him Ax-Crazy. This raises horrifying implications if he's telling the truth.
• When Bruce is being harassed by Avesta, the evacuation warning suddenly goes off. One might think that someone triggered it to stop Avesta, until Lucius tells Bruce to get his daughter out of the building...
• "John Doe" has been discharged from Arkham. He didn't escape, they let him out, God alone knows why. On a personal note, he's still fixated on Bruce, to the point of listing Bruce as his emergency contact. Bruce is clearly disturbed by this; one of his possible responses is to outright call it creepy.
• If the player chooses to use nothing but violent means to interrogate Eli, Batman fractures his arm, breaks his wrist, and punches and choke-slams him repeatedly until he's nothing but a bloody, pleading mess. Montoya is horrified, mentioning that Knable has likely been left with permanent and incurable brain trauma; Waller, meanwhile, is not only unfazed, but quietly approves of the "efficient" job he did — after all, it got results.
  Montoya: You're... you're a monster.
  Waller: Yeah... but he's my monster.
  • This gets even worse if you leave the camera on. Remember how Thomas Wayne drugged Esther Cobblepot into insanity? Do it with the surveillance cam on, and Batman essentially is not so different from his father in at least one regard, given the implication that Eli will be permanently damaged.
• Six words: Waller knows Batman is Bruce Wayne!

Episode 2

• In Episode 2, we have Batman's first battle against Bane in this continuity. And while Batman is able to get in some good shots, once Bane injects himself with his Venom, the fight quickly becomes one-sided. Towards the end of it, Bane raises Batman up over his head in the infamous backbreaker pose. Thankfully, it doesn't happen (assuming you don't stop to listen to Bane's full speech), but Batman came that close to being put out of commission, or worse...
  • There's something terrifying in seeing Batman's first major defeat in the Telltale continuity, as Batman just sounds so beaten physically and mentally.
• Fittingly John Doe provides some:
  • A lot of John's obsession with Bruce is played for Adaptational Nice Guy. But if you look around his house you can find a photo of him with some guy that has Bruce's face taped over it. Lift it up and you'll see the face of a man absolutely terrified at the smiling maniac that just grabbed him for a photo.
  • John really likes it when Bruce hurts people.
  • There's also the question of John's potential involvement in Riddler's death. Sure, he denies it but then again he's very gleeful about the Riddler's demise...
• The Telltale version of Harley Quinn could easily be the most terrifying to date, veering back and forth between sweet and sinister at near break-neck speed at times. In the absence of the Riddler (whose death she may have ordered), she has managed to not only take over the Pact, but also has ensured villains of the caliber of Mr. Freeze and Bane answer to her. Oh, and in this version she dominates the Joker, clearly intending to mold him into a proper Clown Prince of Crime. And while she does show Bruce a slightly more stable side to her when behind closed doors, that will switch on a dime should you have Bruce sympathize with the loss of her father: she immediately draws a gun on you and questions how you could possibly know about that...

Episode 3

• That bit before about Harley wanting to mold John Doe into her proper Puddin'? Turns out that he might have a case of Laser-Guided Amnesia, as his first memory is being in Arkham, and he knows that there's something lurking just below the surface, prowling like a caged tiger.
• Timothy’s death at Bane and Mr. Freeze’s hands.
• Both endings of Episode 3 Either Bruce takes the fall and is thrown into one of Freeze's devices to freeze to death, or Bruce sells out Catwoman and she's thrown into one of Riddler's murder cages.

Episode 4

• If you gave yourself up at the end of the last episode, Batman enters Sanctus' facility only to find a complete bloodbath. One of the staff even had their legs torn off, leaving only a torso with intestines hanging out. And it's implied Bane did this with his bare hands.
• John's breakdown in "What Ails You" is absolutely terrifying to witness, but the ultimate stroke comes when Bruce confronts him in the Bonus Bros. carnival — after walking down the funhouse corridors, Bruce finds a delirious John covered in blood, surrounded by the bodies of dead Agency operatives, and desperately trying to get his head together. When the two understandably start fighting over it, John eventually realizes he's being lied to and snaps, charging at Bruce; if Bruce punches him into the back room, you hear his voice echoing in the darkness. What follows is genuinely chilling:
  "...I could've had you, if not for that sucker punch. Didn't think Batman fought dirty like that."
  • Long before that, there's the whole area that you meet John in. As expected with the Joker, it's the standard Amusement Park of Doom, complete with creepy mannequins (two of which pull blatant Jump Scares on you), a bizarre swirling hallway , grotesque paintings that change randomly, disembodied screams, and a door near the end that just seems to get farther away from you as you get closer. And somehow, the fact that John himself is the only thing capable of harming you here just makes it worse.
• Both endings of Episode 4 come with a heaping helping of this. Either John Doe finally gives in to his dark side and becomes the unfettered, murderous nightmare of Gotham and all its' citizenry for years to come - or he becomes a costumed vigilante, like his idol Batman, swearing to all and sundry that the both of you will be out for "justice" against The Agency, together, collateral damage be damned. And the worst part? No matter which happens, it's all your fault. All your fault. All. Your. Fault. Poor Bruce just can't catch a break sometimes.

Episode 5

• Bane's condition in the vigilante path is something to behold. He has a back-mounted apparatus that injects an upgraded version of his venom right into his spine, with a metal mask similar to Tom Hardy's Bane. His Volcanic Veins are taken up to 11, and combined with Black Eyes of Crazy, he looks almost like his counterpart from Batman & Robin. But unlike that Bane, who was just a dumb muscle working for Poison Ivy, this Bane still has his intelligence intact. And if you thought he was strong before, wait until you see him pick up a cargo container and toss it like it weighs nothing, punch through solid brick like it's made of paper, or swing a giant metal pipe around like it's a baseball bat. Batman may as well be a fly fighting a tornado during the entire scene, and it takes the combined efforts of both him and Joker to drive Bane off, either by hitting him with Joker's car or dropping a smokestack on top of him.
• The opening scene in the Villain Joker path: you find Bullock crucified in the back of a van with a bomb sewn into his stomach and have to cut it out of him using the Batarang, all while Bullock groans in agony (and the game does NOT stint on the disgusting sounds). The cherry on top? The bomb was a dud, meaning Joker had the poor guy sliced open twice for nothing but sick laughs. Then you head back to Wayne Industries, where Harley and Joker ambush the meeting with a virus bomb; Bruce is restrained and forced into a gas mask, Forced to Watch as the other hostages die painfully, blood streaming from their eye sockets. And then you have to make your way to the lab through the gas-filled, corpse-littered halls.
  • Similarly, the climax of the route features such lovely moments as Bruce having to dislocate his thumb to get out of a pair of handcuffs, getting caught in a majorly Saw-esque trap surrounded by charred Agency member bodies, crawling through a tunnel full of broken glass, and finding cards for a puzzle in a box with what is heavily implied to be a human heart. And that all leads up to a twisted 'dinner party', where he and his allies are savagely beaten whether or not they play along, with Bruce in particular being forced to eat food with razor blades slipped into it, and having a knife twisted in one of his wounds. Joker swings wildly between sadistically gleeful, stone-cold furious, and disturbingly close to turned-on the whole time.
• Vigilante Joker telling Batman that his superhero name is going to be one people will remember. They'll remember it, alright. For ALL the wrong reasons.
• In a way, Vigilante Joker's psychotic break is more disturbing than his villainous counterpart, simply because no matter what you do to him, no matter how much punishment he takes, he keeps on laughing. And he never, ever stops laughing.
  • Special mention should go to the fact that, when he finally snaps, he brutally stabs a knife up through the lower jaw of one Agency employee, slicing right through the throat of another, and stabbing a third one in the gut multiple times before throwing them over the railing into the chemicals below. And the blood spray gives him a 'smile' that could put Heath Ledger's to shame.
    Batman: (horrified) John...
    John: (starts giggling) It's Joker! (cue psychotic laughter)
  • What makes this version of Joker, arguably, the scariest version of the Clown Prince of Crime? He's an Evil Counterpart to Batman. A vigilante with bladed boomerangs, tasers and a grapple gun, skilled at hand-to-hand combat, certain psychological issues... really, the only thing separating Batman and Vigilante Joker before the latter's breakdown is the willingness to kill. And that, more than anything, underscores just how easy it would have been for Batman to become such a psychopath - one really bad day.
  • Not to mention the specific WAY that Joker laughs, and his expression during. It's not the Psychotic Smirk of the gleeful sadist that Bat-Fans have come to expect. His eyes are wide, his eyebrows sharply turned up. He's losing himself to his madness, destroying his valued friendship with Batman, and he knows it. For the first time ever in the franchise, the Joker is absolutely terrified of himself and what he's doing. Like he's being Forced to Watch something he can't control.
• Villain Joker after the credits burning a Bruce Wayne doll and promising, "I can't change the past, Bruce, but I can make sure our future is very, very bright!"
  • In a variant of that scene, telling him you cherished your times together has him draw a smile on the doll with lipstick, potentially implying he wants to make Bruce like him. Remember the last time he did something like that?