Nightmare Fuel / Far Cry 3

Don't let the colourful, beautiful and vivid nature of Rook Islands fool you. The environment can be quite nightmarish at times.

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• The Rook Islands themselves are complete Nightmare Fuel. While they do look beautiful and just like your typical tropical paradise, they are actually a lawless and violent area, ruled by a group of Ruthless Modern Pirates and a Ax-Crazy maniac. For decades the island has driven many outsiders to insanity and its flora has been used by other drug lords to create extremely powerful and dangerous drugs. It is also inhabited by a tribe who, thanks to their nature, don't really seem to be a much better alternative to all the outsider psychos. Some of the local people are clearly out of their minds as well, and often barely seem to care about all the violence and brutality that goes around them. And this is all without mentioning the extremely dangerous wildlife which do not only attack YOU, but can be seen mauling and devouring any random person that walks too close to them. Even if you ignore all the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane things that happen in the game, there is always the feeling that something is very, very wrong with this place.
  • Decades? Make that millennia. Most of Buck's quest chain revolves around a rogue general from Ancient China that set up shop on the Rook Islands at least 3,000 years before the events of the game, and even though there's no mention of what else went down there in the interim, chances are it's best we don't know.
• The Bad Ending of the game in which you slit Liza's throat and then have sexual intercourse with Citra, who during the session, plunges a knife into your chest, killing you.
  • What makes this situation worse is that as you are dying, it is very heavily implied that you may have impregnated her and that she will be using and training your child to be the leader of her group. Problem is, she's not exactly sane now, is she?
• Vaas. Montenegro. A completely Ax-Crazy lunatic, he is the leader of the Ruthless Modern Pirates that proves to be incredibly disturbing because of how batshit insane and vicious he is even among the other pirates. He kills, tortures, and harms others either because he was ordered to or just out of sheer enjoyment, is an unpredictable Mood-Swinger and Psychopathic Manchild who could switch from being chillingly calm to a madman who can't go a sentence without yelling or attacking someone, and the terrible things he does and allows his men to do as well are nothing short of horrific. The worst part? Despite being genuinely insane, he's aware of how bad he is and takes pride in it. A psycho of the highest order, Vaas is a savage and ruthless nutcase who is an absolute nightmare of a human being.
  • The beginning of the game. As if Vaas kidnapping and telling Jason that he's hit the ground isn't bad enough, we see Vaas killing Grant and sending his pirates to hunt down Jason in the middle of a dark, hostile jungle. It has to be one of the most intense and horrifying openings in any video game released in The Seventh Generation.
  Vaas: I'm gonna give you thirty seconds. And if the jungle doesn't eat you up alive, I will. Are you FUCKING DEAF?! I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, YOU CHICKEN FUCK! RUN, FORREST! RUN!
  • Also, Vaas' "The Reason You Suck" Speech as he sets the room you are in on fire during the E3 2012 demo.
  Vaas: Surprise, motherfucker! You didn't think... I knew you were coming, right? (chuckles) I am so DISAPPOINTED! You showed so much promise, Jason. So much fucking promise! Now here you are, trapped in the boxes of life like a fucking rat. And the thing is, I did not bring you here. You walked in here by your own goddamn self! And that's what Citra does to you, right? She turns you fuckers into rats, and now I have to deal with the rodent problem. But... that's what brothers are good for, right?
  • And lest we forget, the Ransom ad which features Vaas trying to manipulate Liza for his ransom video.
  • The fact that Vaas slaughters an entire village just to celebrate his 'killing' of you.
  • The very end of the fight with Vaas. After stabbing him repeatedly like a crazed serial killer, you fall down next to his dead body, as you see his now dead eyes stare blankly to his left...THEN THEY MOVE. LOOKING. RIGHT. AT. YOU. Even in death Vaas still manages to be terrifying!
    • You also never see him dead outside of the hallucination, unlike Hoyt. The only confirmation of his death is what other characters tell you. So for all you know, that nutcase might still be alive.
      • If the ending to 6 and DLC for it are any indication, he is.
• What the pirates do to the hostages. Sweet Jesus.
• So there are a ton of pirates and devious folk spread throughout the island. That's not too bad, right? Well, as it turns out, there's all kind of animal life on the island too. Not just wild boar or hunting game animals, but tigers, bears, crocodiles, sharks, Komodo dragons and so on and so forth. They can very much sneak attack you and can kill you very quickly if you don't fight back. Nature Is Not Nice indeed!
  • And this can also be Nightmare Fuel for the AI enemies. They quite often have caged animals in the vicinity. They're minding their own business, standing guard, when they might hear a wisp of something in the air (your sniping bullet). They don't know what it is, until suddenly the caged animal (bears, tigers, etc) isn't locked up anymore and is set loose and the AI find themselves being mauled.
  • You can also often see the animals eat the people they kill.
  • Adding these animals in was likely in response to a complaint the fans had about Far Cry 2 that there were no predatory animals in the game. Well, fans. Are you happy now?
  • When animals hunt you, they don't just run up and attack either. They stalk. It's one thing to face down a raging feral dog, but it's another thing to think you hear a bit of movement and turn around to see an entire pack of rabid hounds slinking through the grass toward you. It triggers a primal, instinctive terror to realize that you are being hunted. It's made much worse when you're exploring the islands at night.
  • The crocodiles are living Jump Scares. One second your walking along a seemingly safe river or standing in a BOAT. The next, you underwater as the croc has you in its jaws and in a 'death roll'.
  • Crocodiles don't only try and feast on the player character. You can come across an NPC strolling along the river, the entire scene serene and peaceful, when suddenly a crocodile shoots up, wraps its jaws around the screaming NPC, and drags them underwater. This happens so fast, you can't do a thing but watch.
  • One sidequest has you heading into a partially flooded cave to investigate the whereabouts of some missing villagers. On your way out, you find out why they went missing.
  • How about the fucking sharks?? No other animal can sneak up as well as these guys because 1) they make no sound, 2) you can't fucking hear them underwater. At least the other animals grunt and growl if they get close enough. Oh, and there are several relics that are deep underwater in shark-infested waters. Try not to panic when you're in danger of running out of breath and being torn apart by sharks.
  • Through the Lost Letters, you eventually learn that the animals of Rook Island are not normal, having been altered in some way by a Japanese WWII experiment to weaponize them called Project Kyouken. Or, in English? Project Mad Dog.
• In the Lost Letters collection task, we find a series of letters, out of order, from Japanese soldiers who occupied Rook Islands in WWII. Ultimately, we discover that the platoon's radio operator heard the news of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and was so horrified, he promptly destroyed the radios to prevent his squad mates from the horrible news. This ends up pissing off his increasingly paranoid troop leader, who eventually kills him and most of the rest of the squad before being put down himself by the surviving soldiers... all but one who subsequently die from disease, and the last one commits seppuku.
• When we finally reach the point in the game where the famous "Definition of Insanity" scene actually takes place things end up rather horrifically for Jason. Vaas shoots Jason and throws him into a pile of corpses. Jason wakes up buried alive under these corpses and has to claw his way out before he is completely smothered to death. When he finally emerges out from under the pile he backs up from the pile of corpses suitably horrified. The thing that saved him from the gunshot? A lighter in his pocket stopped the bullet. Yeah, Jason probably is gonna have nightmares about that one of these days.
• One of the rare animals featured in the game, the Undying Bear. In its side mission you have to go through a dark cave to find it and once you do lay eyes on it, it's a horribly disfigured, rabid-looking animal with chucks ripped out of it, claw marks over its body, and its brain exposed as well as being slightly larger than the other bears you encounter. Oh yeah, and there are some mauled bodies around the area.
• There is the gargantuan demon you'll have to face midway through the game. Granted, the boss fight is part of a drug induced fevered dream, but every time you shoot it in the mask with the explosive arrows, you get to see more and more of its horrid, skeletal face.
  • The really scary part? All of the weird, Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane stuff you encounter in the game may mean that the demon was real.
  • Hell, all of the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane stuff. The game starts off firmly set in the real world, but things get more fantastic as you go on. Is it all the hallucinogenics Jason has been taking permanently altering his sense of reality? Is there really some otherworldly magic going on? Or is he simply, slowly slipping into complete insanity? The game leaves you with no clear answer and all are equally horrifying.
• The memory cards are disturbing for a host of other reasons. They're straightforward and matter of fact, discussing acquisition of resources, exploitation of markets, and so on - stuff you'd expect in any corporate boardroom. Except they're talking about manufacturing illegal drugs, with discussion on things like high addiction rates and mortality in a rational, businesslike manner. When you start finding the ones talking about using failed military drugs that cause fatal bleeding being seriously considered for distribution, or date-rape drugs being sent to areas where human trafficking is prevalent, things start getting deeply disturbing.
• Bambi "Buck" Hughes - a former Sociopathic Soldier turned Psycho for Hire for Hoyt Volker who forces you to find an ancient Chinese dagger for him while he's brutally raping your friend Keith. And Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male doesn't apply here. Keith is visibly traumatised when you come to save him, and it's heavily implied that Buck wants to do the same to Jason. Additionally, right before you face Buck in a knife fight in his sex dungeon, he coldly implies that he'll rape your corpse after he's killed you. Definitely not an Awesome Aussie.
  • The two scenes where Buck drops his Faux Affably Evil demeanor and you get to see his sheer vindictiveness towards Jason and Keith.
  Jason: I don't have your knife, all right?
  Buck: No... No, no, no, no! Jason, that's not all right! It's just a little FUCKING KNIFE that I asked you to get me, but you're too bloody lazy- too FUCKING incompetent to get it for me!! ''Too busy playin' games, aren't ya?! Well, fine. Now I'll play a game of pin the tail on the donkey with Keith.
  • And again later on.
  Jason: You were bugging me, weren't you?
  Buck: Well, you're my favourite pupil. (He advances threateningly on Jason)
  Jason: (pushing him backwards) Stay away from me!
  Buck: Oh, you're calling the shots now, eh? Is that what you're doing? (on the walkie-talkie) Hector, apparently Jason's calling the shots now, so dismantle everything, and slit Keith open from stomach to chin, will ya?
  Jason: Wait! You're in charge.
  Buck: Hector, there's been a change of plans. I'm in charge. Yeah. Don't gut Keith. Nah. (to Jason) So, any closer to finding me knife yet?
  • Speaking of Buck, he has this really creepy speech in one of the trailers that sums his character up perfectly.
  Buck: When you first looked at my face, what did you see? A maniac? A psychopath? A savage? Round here, mate, you eat what you kill. The jungle doesn't care who you are, or where you're from. It has rules. And the thing is, you must live in the jungle to know the rules. You live in this jungle, you die in this jungle! You see, mate, we're not the savages. We... are the shepherds.
• The fight with Hoyt: after you lose your finger you black out. When you come to, not only have you killed Hoyt, but you killed every guard in the room as well as another six or so guys who must have come in when they heard the commotion. It is hard to claim that Jason is going to fit well back into society after this point
  • This actually becomes even more horrifying if you look at it from the perspective that Jason intentionally hallucinated that fight to make it more interesting. Given how many dead men are surrounding Jason when the trippy disco light hallucination is over it is likely that Hoyt didn't survive Jason's rampage long enough to gloat and put up a fight. Jason's mind could have hallucinated the prolonged knife fight with Hoyt because the reality of Jason killing Hoyt and several other enemies in such quick succession might have come off as anti-climatic, the death of Hoyt needed to seem more dramatic to be satisfying in Jason's mind. Jason has become such a Blood Knight that ordinary fights are too boring, he needed something to spice things up a bit.
  • Also, the bit right before you fight Hoyt, when Jason and Sam are playing an innocent game of poker. Hoyt, who earlier says that if you ask someone like Sam what poker's about, he'll say it's ''bluffing'', unexpectedly whips out a large knife and stabs Sam in his throat and kills him, before casually brushing it off and facing Jason, and then he says this:
  Hoyt: Foster, Jason Brody, whatever your name is, it's slipped my mind. HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM?!
  • And then you've got to continue playing with this scary South African, who knows you and your friend were planning to kill him and has just deprived you of your friend's help. And as soon as you lose, he punishes you by having his men restrain you while he cuts off your finger.
• Speaking of Hoyt, that recording Agent Willis took of him chatting with Vaas. It starts out pretty casual, discussing the weather and so on, but when Vaas expresses indifference to tracking Jason down, since he's more concerned about Citra, Hoyt lets his Mask of Sanity slip.
  Hoyt: I DON'T GIVE A FOCK ABOUT YOUR FAMILY! It is by my grace that your head isn't impaled on the antenna of my car! Therefore, I would like it if you gave a fock about Jason Brody!
  Vaas: Okay, Hoyt, okay, all right!
  Hoyt: Fantastic! (Beat) I am really loving this weather. What's the name of that place down the road? Beras Town? Bunch of native sympathizers. They stole a transportation manifest that's dear to my heart. I think I'll pay them a visit. Nice talking to you, Vaas.
  • What's more disturbing is how unusually quiet and deferential Vaas is when speaking to Hoyt. If Vaas, the Ax-Crazy Ruthless Modern Pirate, is frightened of the less-imposing Hoyt, how much more vicious than him is Mr. Volker?
• Another Hoyt moment is that first espionage mission you go on for Willis. Remember those Beras Town villagers that Hoyt mentioned to Vaas? He's captured three of them, and he escorts them over to a rice field to Make an Example of Them, shouting all the while in that nightmarish raspy voice.
  Hoyt: I want it to be clear! That anyone! Anyone! Who helps those savages out in the woods! Will end up like our friends here! Is my point coming across?!
  • He then drives the villagers across the rice field by letting off his machine gun into the air, and the first two villagers step on landmines and die instantaneously. The third man keeps running, until he's crossed the minefield and has now entered the half of the island patrolled by Hoyt's Privateers. Hoyt cheerfully tells his men to have fun hunting that villager afterwards. Cold, Hoyt. Stone cold.
• Meet Hoyt again when you're undercover as a privateer, and he makes a frightening speech to his men about the three company rules they have to follow.
  Hoyt: First, protect my product. You can fock them, boys, but be gentle. Second, kill any native on sight! And third, all company profits go to me. I'm an understanding boss, but if you break any one of these rules- (he throws a lit match into the blast furnace he was sat on top of a few minutes ago, setting fire to the man inside it and ensuring that he dies burning and screaming)- I roast you in the furnace until your skin crackles like chicken.
  • Even scarier is that we learn that man's locked in the furnace earlier, when he interrupts Hoyt's orientation speech by screaming. How long had Hoyt locked him in there?
• Keith and Riley's fate if you don't save them - sexual slavery. One at the hands of Buck and the other to someone in the Yemen who "likes them young".
• Sometimes, as you pass by the townspeople of Badtown, you can hear them talking in ways that make it clear you aren't the only one going crazy.
  You're just a puppet. Wood and glue. I can see your strings!
• The quest "Pinned to Earth" isn't exactly "scary", but still rather creepy. You start the quest by meeting an old lady in a shack, who hysterically reports that a plane crashed in a lagoon a few days ago. You head down there, and you find the wreckage... it's rusted and overgrown with flora. You head to what remains of the cockpit, and you find a man living there. He says that the plane crashed ten years ago, and that it crushed a house and killed the family living in there. When you bring up the old lady, he looks dumbfounded and says that the shack is deserted and no-one lives there. The quest ends, and if you return to the shack, you find it empty, true to the man's word. Just what the hell is going on? Confused old granny, sick prank, or is there something else at work here?
• The factbook is almost almost entirely full of humorous entries. But one entry can put some serious Mood Whiplash on that. When on the subject of Patrol Boats, the writer, Agent Willis says nothing helpful or funny about it at all, instead leaving just a sentence about how he sent a patrol out on a boat and none of them returned alive. Its in stark contrast to the rest of the entries.
  • The one on Seagulls isn't much better, with him ranting about them watching him and suddenly shifting into a flashback of some traumatic event in the jungle.
    • Completing the trilogy, the entry on Jellyfish can't even be found without exploiting glitches, but it does indeed exist and is bizarre;
      The screams through the night. The hot air of explosions shaking the treetops. The bodies. Some faceless. They were only following orders.
• On the final mission after freeing yourself from your bonds the dragon dagger appears in your hand and you have to make your way across a fiery walkway lined with shadowy warriors with bright yellow eyes. One of them is a shadowy outline of Liza and it steps out and starts to question you in Liza's voice and then dissolves. Not so scary. Then another of the warriors steps out and again in Liza's voice begins to question your actions. That one too dissipates too but then only to pop up at you from the bottom of the screen. Then there's Liza and Daisy standing as tall as giants before a flash of light reveals them to be wearing the mask that the giant you fought earlier was wearing. And they're both staring RIGHT at you.
• The red drugs in the basket found in the cave with the "EAT ME" sign. Eating them will give you flashbacks to a nightclub before you got captured. The questions are who put them there, how did they get there and why are they there?
  • It's pretty obvious that the good Doctor living above the cave put them there - they may even be part of his private stash, but then you have to wonder what he flashes back to.
• There's a small house on the southern island which is completely unremarkable on the outside but which contains a bunch of creepy dolls on shelves and hung from clotheslines. Most notably is a dismembered doll on a table, the floor around which is covered in lots and lots of footprints which may or may not consist of dried blood. The house is never mentioned in any quests or by any characters, and no explanation can be found for the house's existence.
  • If you pay attention to the Shop Fodder you find before selling it you'll notice that one of the most commonly found items is a doll head with creepy large eyes. Its Flavor Text is disturbing enough on its own, but in the context of the above mentioned house...
• There are several rivers and ponds, where if you dive deep enough you can find dead bodies with bricks tied to their ankles, just like what Vaas did to you.
• One of the achievements for the game requires you to dive 60 meters under the water, far too much to perform in one of the rivers or ponds scattered about the island. So how do you do it? Your best bet is to take a boat out over one of the deeper ocean trenches far from the shore of the main islands. Not only are these waters infested with sharks, but there is very little light near the bottom... which can be very disorienting. The achievement's name being "Brave Or Stupid" even seems to lampshade the nightmare potential of drowning in the middle of nowhere without any hope of rescue. Hope you packed some Deep Dive syringes...
  • Actually on the Southeast end of the northern island there is a place that almost seems deigned to allow you to complete this achievement. A perfect circle about 80 meters deep just a couple meters off shore. Of course it's still really dark and disorienting down there, and the sharks will sometimes pay you a visit, but hey, at least you get a relic out of the ordeal.
• When you have to torture your little brother in order to maintain your cover, only to find out that Hoyt knew who you were all along.