Assassin's Creed: Syndicate isn't the type of game to take itself too seriously, being as light-hearted and humorous as it is. And that makes the terrifying moments that much worse. In fact, Syndicate is currently the fastest game in the series to both get get a Nightmare Fuel page and image.
Unmarked spoilers below.
Main Game/General
- The escape from the laboratory in Sequence 2 has a good dose of this, short as it is. At one point a pipe smashes into the floor and it collapses, throwing Evie into the water. Many players their first time thought that it was a death scene, and a rather scary one at that, until they got control of Evie again.
- Dr. Elliotson, in what little time he gets. In his Establishing Character Moment, he casually fails a surgery during a medical lecture, which doubles as Squick when you add those horrible sounds. His following nonchalance doesn't help.Elliotson: Unfortunately, it appears I've... *Rolls his eyes* ruined the organ.
- Also works as Truth in Television. That drilling practice used by Elliotson? It was an actual medical practice
that was used in asylums as a method of "curing" the inmates.
- Also works as Truth in Television. That drilling practice used by Elliotson? It was an actual medical practice
- In Sequence 8, the burning of the Alhambra Theatre. With little warning, Maxwell Roth orders his henchmen to burn it to the ground with all of the guests inside. Once Jacob has killed Roth and is making his escape, he starts to suffer from smoke inhalation as debris crashes down and blocks most of his exits.
- While Crawford Starrick is a prime example of Evil Is Cool, many of his actions or plots can be downright unsettling.
- His complete lack of hesitation to shoot one of his own men in the head for the heinous crime of...interrupting him while he’s playing the piano in grief.
- By the end of the game, his plan is to massacre the leadership of London at Buckingham Palace so that he can take control and make his search for the Shroud that much easier.
- To add to that, his dance with Evie at the ball certainly qualifies. Starrick begins to dance with Evie, informing her that if she leaves, she will be shot. But he also tells her that once the dance is over, she will be shot. The thought of such a situation, to know that no matter what you do, you will be dead within the next five minutes - maybe a little longer if you do as they say, just another minute of anticipating death. Neither of them say a word after a short conversation, and every single second, Evie knew her death was coming closer and closer and there was nothing she could do about it but dance with him a little longer, accomplishing absolutely nothing but anticipating death for a few more minutes before being shot dead anyway.
- Once he finally has the Shroud, his common attack seems to be to grab either twin by the throat. At first you get the thought he's strangling them, which is scary enough on its own, but then you realize the Shroud is sucking the life out of them.
- Even Lucy Thorne gets some of this, if to a lesser extent - she boasts that she will kill the Frye twins by hanging Evie from the gallows and flaying Jacob when he comes to save her. Later she tells Evie that she will strangle her with the Shroud once she finds it. Even though that would mean Evie is wearing it and thus be unharmed, it's still unsettling.
- At the very end of the main story, footage shows Violet da Costa handing the Shroud to Doctor Grammatica. Maybe a little unsettling that they have it, but nothing major. But in a pod behind them... sweet Jesus, that pod. Inside is a horribly failed clone of a Precursor, its skin peeling off, and a face that looks more like Jack the Ripper's mask with flesh instead of cloth.
- Following that scene we discover de Costa is working with Juno. Juno's final line in the game is absolutely terrifying, considering her track record so far in the series.
Juno: You have played your part, my instrument. I will save you. I will save you all. - Likewise, Juno's database entry is downright scary. It's clear that Shaun is afraid of her, and with good reason.Shaun: Nobody knows what she wants, or even what she's capable of. All I know is, she's dangerous, she killed a friend of mine, and she's our responsibility.
- From the Assassin Intel collection, the fate of Giovanni Borgia. Poor kid's been dealt a bad hand to begin with, being born into one of history's most notorious Big Screwed Up Families, and then he gets Mind Raped by a precursor artifact into experiencing all the lives of his various messed-up relatives at once.
DLC
- The Jack the Ripper trailer, hands down. It starts with several police officers rushing to the scene of another of the legendary murderer's victims, a crowd already gathering. Then the Ripper starts talking about how the police will never catch him as a woman walks through the darkened back-alleys of Whitechapel until a man (whose face isn't seen) walks up, pulls out a knife and stabs the poor lady to death. The trailer ends with Jack standing within the wreckage of a burning building saying how much he loves his work, how he's planning to start over again, and taunting the Frye twins, and by extension, the viewer, to try and stop him.
- The poster in the game box-art is plenty scary too. Jack the Ripper looming large like a monster with Evie staring up at the madman.
- The poster in the game box-art is plenty scary too
- Now that the DLC is officially out, it gets worse - in the beginning and a few other sections, you play as Jack the Ripper. And he is just as, if not more, brutal than the Frye twins. This includes a series of brutal takedowns and a scream that can strike fear even into the police. What makes it worse is that the Ripper seems to have his own version of Eagle Sense. As in words will occasionally pop up on the screen, telling you "murderer", "betrayer", "coward", "kill", "rip them", "must not escape", among many others. The worst of these scrawlings early on? "KILL JACOB".
- And that's only the beginning of the DLC - the next cutscene reveals that Evie may be the last of the British Assassins at this point in time, as mentioned by Abberline. Which means that Jacob spends the entire game after the first mission captured by the Ripper, being horrifically tortured physically and psychologically by the Ripper.
- The hits just keep coming too. You know the Rooks? The gang you lovingly built up, saw saving children, and were a force for good? They all work for Jack now, and have kill on sight orders for Evie.
- And we have Ubisoft's interpretation of the Ripper's history. Jack had watched his mother being butchered by Templars under orders for Starrick, and was thrown into Lambeth Asylum. Following Starrick's death, Jack was liberated from the Asylum and brought into the Assassin order by none other than Jacob Frye.
- The final fight against Jack the Ripper. The first stage, you can't hurt him save by sneak attacks, and you are forced to listen as Jack endlessly taunts you to come out. If he sees you, he will chase you like a bat out of hell while taunting you about the Creed and your impending death. And the second part has him go into a full breakdown, with him yelling and screaming at Evie to show her inner monster to him. Perhaps just as scary is the way Evie finishes him, through his own brutal takedown.
