The SDF's attack on Geneva as a whole. Terrified screams of civilians can be heard throughout the "Black Sky" level as they are massacred by Set Def troops.
Even worse in "Black Flag" in which the full extent of the destruction is fully seen, and the streets are devoid of civilians while filled with SDF troops.
Both of these missions seem specifically designed to subvert the common trope of glorious, Collateral Damage free starship battles as seen in Star Wars or other franchises. Just one fleet ship crashing is enough to cause a decent-sized tsunami, and the aftermath of the crash of the Nova in "Black Sky" will remind many a player of lower Manhattan after 9/11. Even if Infinite Warfare doesn't use The Dead Have Names as much as other titles in the series have, scenes like this do challenge the A Million Is a Statistic mentality other Space Opera stories imply.
The entire AATIS hack as a whole. It took a single sleeper cell to turn the entire system against the UNSA fleet, and he was hidden enough to never call any attention to himself for two years. This gives a wonder: how many sleeper cells of the SDF are on Earth?
During the middle of "Black Sky," drop pods start falling down, with Eth.3n saying that they're getting closer. Out of nowhere, a pod drops right in front of Reyes, dropping him into the floor, and a C6 bot immediately jumps and grabs the player by the neck. Considering that in the last game, the player had a less than pleasant experience with war robots, it can definitely scare the living lights out of the player.
The C6s are definitely unsettling. They can take a lot more damage than humans, have a very raspy, robotic voice that is definitely not friendly, and once critically damaged, they will simply crawl after the nearest target and attempt to self-destruct near them. For the better or worse, their AI is very simple and easy to hack.
In Multiplayer, the Synaptic rigs used in the C6 chassis seem to have more advanced AI, being immune to hacking, and having a much friendlier robotic voice, and can be of either gender. The Wraith Mission Team leader, IR-15 (or simply Iris), is a Synaptic, and comes off as sarcastic and friendly as Eth.3n.
After repelling the attack on the Earth, everything looks absolutely normal, and you're ordered to come back to the Retribution. But out of nowhere, the Olympus Mons drops in the middle of the ships, and proceeds to obliterate almost every ship effortlessly using stolen SATO tech. Gator's warnings of "Target has not been reduced!!" just shows how absurdly strong the Olympus Mons is: it shrugs off direct fire from ten different ships and multiple fighter aircraft while destroying them with a single blast of its F-SpAr cannon. It takes the Retributionramming into it to force a retreat.
Just imagine: You're a sailor in one of the ships, and you watch a friendly get completely obliterated with all hands without being able to do anything about it. And you're next. At the end of the attack, only two ships remain, one carrier and one destroyer, and the carrier is severely battered due to the ramming.
The results of the ramming maneuver can be seen as soon as you get inside the Retribution: Plane recovery lines are snagged, everything is malfunctioning in one way or another, to the point a piece flies off and cracks Reyes' cockpit glass, everything is out of place, a large part in the left side of the Retribution is heavily damaged and on fire, and multiple sailors/marines are wounded or dead, including the captain and his executive officer.
During "Operation Port Armor," you see the SDF has executed everyone in the Moon Gateway. Their policy of erasing Earthborns seems to know no bounds, as engineers, civilians, workers and soldiers alike were all executed. At one point, you may even hear a SDF soldier saying "Make sure they're all dead," further cementing this.
After a large battle, the SATO forces are surprised by a C8 CombatRobot that proceeds to kill one Marine with a single arm swing and give a hell of a fight to the player due to it's shields and massive gun.
A Skelter fighter jet blows the glass and throws the player and all their allies into the surface of the Moon, causing Reyes' mask to crack and start leaking O2. The player then has to do a mad dash for a door while in low gravity and walking slow as molasses as their HUD screams warnings of critical oxygen.
During the same scene, the player is almost crushed by a huge forklift, which fortunately is caught by Eth.3n just in time. Even with the low gravity, the forklift seems to be very heavy, and it shows how strong Eth.3n is.
Later on the mission, after boarding a ship, Staff Sgt. Omar is attacked by two SDF soldiers. He manages to throw one over him, and Eth.3n straight up WWE kicks the second guy, killing him instantly and sending him through armored glass. Be glad he's on your side.
One of the SDF's Majors method of training involves pushing recruits out into the vacuum of space with minimal oxygen and a leaking suit. Failure is death.
"Operation Dark Quarry" takes a step into sci-fi horror. You're exploring a mining facility where the power keeps going in and out because of how close it is to the Sun, and then you get the hallway full of dormant robots. Well, they're dormant until the power comes back on and one of them lunges out at Salter. There's hundreds of them, and SDF reprogrammed them to be hostile towards humans. The fact that they keep turning on and off makes it all the more unnerving.
An update added several heroes from Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare as skins for each of the six rigs. The Warfighter gets Omar... but this is Omar after "Dark Quarry", in which he was burnt alive on an asteroid mere distance from THE SUN, and he has horrible burn marks covering half of his face. It's unexpectedly grotesque when compared to literally any other skin in the game.
