Being both heavily inspired from and also a massive re-telling of Dante Alighieri's masterpiece, Dante's Inferno, naturally, showcases all of the torments of Hell and its wicked inhabitants in their terrifying glory just as the original poem does.
- The story starts off with Dante sewing a cross-shaped tapestry into his chest like a skin graft. While fortunately we only see a small part of it, and we also cut away just as Dante completes the latest part, it's still disturbing either way, and, upon sewing the latest part of the tapestry in, the massive anguished cry of pain Dante lets out from pulling the thread through will no doubt make for a very appropriate Establishing Game Moment.
- There's also the horrifying feeling of knowing that we were watching Dante finishing the tapestry, which means that he must have been sitting in that forest for a while, and no doubt has endured quite a lot of pain from adding it to his body.
- The tapestry sewing is even worse in the animated epic, as, instead of Dante himself doing the deed, several demonic arms reach up from the ground and give it to Dante instead in a much more aggressive manner, and Dante wails in agony as he bleeds during the process, and even rips the tapestry out after he escapes Hell and enters Purgatory (which was done in the game too, but here it's shown in full detail and Dante winces in pain as it comes out).
- Dante himself is pretty nightmarish considering some of the insanity he pulled during the Crusades. To wit, he butchered hundreds of soldiers and civilians with a sword alone, spilled pools of blood across the land, and eventually cheated on Beatrice with a slave girl before butchering hundreds of hostages and letting his brother-in-law that he swore to protect take the fall. To say he has sinned aplenty would be an understatement.
- Several of the monsters and lost souls in the Inferno are pure abominations:
- The Guardian Demons, Beast Tamers, Throne Demons, and Archdemons who are found all throughout Hell. Occasionally letting out distorted deep guttural goat-like bleating sounds when attacked.
- The unbaptized children in Limbo with their arms having been replaces with blades.
- The Seductresses and Temptresses in Lust.
- Easily a massive case of female Fan Disservice cranked in overdrive. Although they're not unlike their boss Cleopatra, their hands have been turned into sharp talons, and their belly has a deep gash from the waist down resembling a large labia. The reason? Inside their body lies a giant sting-like clitoris, which can be pulled out from the belly and used as an tentacled harpoon. Even if you manage to dodge this creepy attack, the temptress still can cast a spell on Dante and lure him within her range.
- The large bile and feces spewing Gluttons in, well, Gluttony.
- The Gluttons are among the most disgusting and creepiest of the lost souls. They're massive overweight humans whose ears and hands have been turned into mouths. If that wasn't enough, they vomit and defecate hazardous bile and feces if Dante gets too close. Not only that, but their deaths have a lot of Gorn, for that matter too.
- Furthermore, although their sins are supposed to be less despicable than Treachery or Heresy, Gluttons still spend a very nasty time in their circle. The soil of Gluttony is made of filth and grime, giant worms pop out from nowhere and eat whatever stands in their way. Besides, one of the first trailers shows the damned falling from above; some of them are caught by Cerberus' smaller mouths, whereas others fall into the jaws of sentient slopes.
- One scene from Gluttony has a sinner being Eaten Alive by a glutton. We even have an unsettling glimpse of his P.O.V. Cam. Fortunately, the producers skipped the biting scene and went straight to the glutton licking their hands.
- The Hoarders & Wasters; they're a pair of mutilated conjoined men full of and constantly spilling out gold in Greed; the sound of coins dropping whenever they are hit.
- The ominous Fire Guardians, constantly dissapearing into the shadows only to jump out and set you ablaze in Anger.
- The creepy Sinister Ministers that are the Heretics and Pagans chanting spells in Heresy, which is made even worse by the fact that the former are the only enemies that can block Dante's Cross attacks.
- And finally, the Damned Crusaders with their inverted cross shields from Violence. They can augment their swords and shields with hellfire, which makes them invulnerable to Dante's Scythe attacks.
- Oh and also, for one of the trials of the Malebolge in the Eighth Circle, you have to defeat everyone in this list in one single battle.
- When Dante enters the Shores of Acheron, Virgil says, “All souls that die, from every nation, collect here, as one. Charon's rough crossing awaits those who did not fear the Lord.” Considering Catholicism and other religions that believe in Christ haven't spread to most of the countries yet, a lot of people that die probably think that they are entering an underworld that they hear from the mythos of paganism. For example, in the mythos of Greek paganism, most of the people will just normally rest in the underworld. Once they know that they are actually entering Hell, which is extremely horrible, they will realize that they are doomed. However, there is still hope. Some theologians claim that people who never has chance to believe in Christ during their lives (including those who are born after the Messiah is born) are allowed to stay in Limbo, a place where they wait until the Judgment Day.
- He's not that scary, but Charon tends to be brutally honest when he recites the Gates of Hell verses. If you think there might be a chance of weaseling you way out of Hell, then you're nothing but a hopeless fool:"Through me the way into the city of woe. Through me the way to everlasting pain. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
- Being judged by King Minos (a blind giant half snake-half humanoid Hanging Judge) is way more painful than your typical trial: after grabbing one of the damned, he smells their sins and impales the culprit on a huge iron wheel, flinging them down into the circle they have been sentenced to.
- Even before you actually fight him, the way that his voice resonates and echoes throughout Limbo as he calls out the sentences of each and every damned soul while Dante makes his way through is rather unnerving. He pronounces his judgments in a cold and uncaring way, and if you're familiar with the poem you know exactly the torments that each will suffer for eternity, torments that you'll eventually see on your journey.
Minos (said at random):"LUST!" "GLUTTONY!" "GREED!" "ANGER!" "HERESY!" "VIOLENCE!" "FRAUD!" "TREACHERY!" - Cerberus
, who appears in the form of a beast that resembles a giant mutant hydra tapeworm rather than a three-headed hellhound.- Even worse, all the "heads" of Cerberus are actually coming out of the mouth of a giant human-looking... thing.
- Alighiero's afterlife form is nothing but unsettling: his belly is emaciated, one hand has been replaced with a pig's hoof and his eyes are hellish red. If that wasn't enough, we also find out he was about to molest Beatrice while he was alive and alludes to having wished to do so while fighting to kill his own son.
- In Greed, most of the damned spend their eternity being scalded by molten gold. That is, being scalded by something hotter than lava. Which adds a bit of Fridge Horror when you realize that since Heresy is a sin worse than Greed since it's judged in a lower Circle, it implies that the fires of the Flaming Tombs are apparently even hotter than molten gold.
- As a succubus, Cleopatra clearly falls in the Fan Disservice zone. She is as pale as a corpse, her body looks withered and emaciated, her lips form a Glasgow Grin and her nipples have licking tongues which spit out unbaptized children. Moreover, if you fail to kill her, she either bites you on the neck or turns you into her new lover. Shortly before, she reveals that her lover/servant Marc Anthony has been living in her guts before coming out of her mouth to fight Dante.
- The Circle of Heresy's appearance calls to mind the classical depictions of a Fire and Brimstone Hell; it has souls who either denied the existence of God and the soul, or who worshiped false idols and devils in life... to be encased within flaming tombs, or nailed to inverted burning crosses while screaming in perpetual agony. It's every bit as horrific in plain view as it sounds.
- From a psychological point of view, even a former crusader like Dante was shocked to see his own mother being tortured because of her suicide. Since his father told him she died from fever, he was expecting to have at least one member of his family in heaven. He was wrong. Twice.
- Francesco was sent to his death because of someone else's actions (cfr. Dante himself), and yet, he was sent to Hell because of his recent past as a crusader. Part of his face has been monstrously warped and his body is now encased within armour clearly intended to be a mockery of his past profession in life, made of bones. Good thing you can defeat him in a rather short battle...Dante: Francesco? My brother?
Francesco: You... YOU did this to me! - The damned set between two different circles have their body being impaled by a spike. They can't do anything but twitch and wriggle in the darkness and loneliness of their misery. Only the frozen damned of Cocytus suffer from a worse fate.
- Since Lucifer fluently speaks to Dante, it's safe to assume Judas, Brutus and Cassius have been digested for a long time. Obviously, none knows what could have happened to their souls afterwards.
- The revelation that the Hell being traveled through in the game is not the definitive Christian Hell officially taught by the Catholic Church, but rather one reflected by Dante's twisted belief of Hell and everyone that is supposed to dwell there based on whatever he saw as sinful. Based on the amount of souls in Hell and the torments they suffered, Dante's own fundamentalist beliefs and horrific imagination towards how others should suffer based on his sense of righteousness are portrayed as high-octane Nightmare Fuel.
