Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
While there can be some cool and stylish moments, there are still nightmares to be found in Limbo City, touching heavily on Paranoia Fuel in ways the original series didn’t.
- The first trailer itself is much more grim than previous games and shows Dante chained up in a filthy prison room like something fresh from Silent Hill. Horror is present for anyone who has been to prison before or who has had a loved one imprisoned and faced abuse in prison. Speaking of Silent Hill, the Stygian demons are considered to be some of the most ugly looking demons in the game. With cracked porcelain bodies and black ichor, their appearances look like the nurses from the town's Brookhaven Hospital.
- The premise of the game is paranoia-inducing. A society brainwashed and conditioned by demons without them being aware of it is not something you wanna think about. And only a small group of people, La Résistance, are working to do something about it, but the local demonic propaganda paints them as terrorists.
- Mundus. Everything about the guy is pure Nightmare Fuel. While the original Mundus in the game was a major asshole as Dante would call him, the reboot version is even nastier. There is nothing even remotely redeeming about him, period. It becomes almost memetic to say that Vergil and Dante did nothing wrong with putting him down like a rabid dog.
- Mundus basically can blackmail any politician and keep them on his payroll. What kind of blackmail? He can easily expose secrets of a politician's career or life that somehow only he himself knows, effectively destroying a person’s career in a heartbeat. This can also settle in on Paranoia Fuel as well.
- We get to see a pleasant scene of Mundus murdering Eva (Vergil and Dante's mother). The scene is not only brutal, but downright horrifying: Mundus is shown ripping Eva's heart out right in front of Dante (who managed to hide from the psychopath, thankfully). While the Devil May Cry games feature plenty of character death, violence, and hero killers, cruelty beyond this level is considered one of the most disturbing moments in the franchise. Also, if you look closely, the angels watching the brutal murder unfold are just as horrified as the player would be.
- Mundus' sex scene with Lilith, while unseen by the player, the expression Mundus has during the scene looks like a very angry rapist and gives further insight into how Mundus cares very little about anyone, not even the person harboring his child. Granted, the sex is consensual, but most players find his expression unsettling.
- After Dante taunts Mundus about his dead demon spawn (which Vergil killed), Mundus has a complete mental breakdown and comes dangerously close to killing him with the previously mentioned method. Thankfully, Vergil saves Dante from the tyrant's wrath, but things could have been much worse had things gone differently.
- There's also the fact that in this version, Sparda and Mundus are blood brothers; this means that Mundus is not only harming his brother, Sparda, but he’s also hurting his own nephews.
- The graffiti artwork featured in the background when Vergil explains Sparda's tragic backstory is unsettling at best, almost as if the artwork was painted like a warning for something worse. There is no explanation for who painted the portraits for that matter either...
- When Dante is describing his troubled youth after Eva’s death, scenes of Dante fighting against riot squads, engaging in various orgies, and scratching what appears to be a wound on his skin. While at first glance, it may not seem like there’s anything wrong, but this can be unsettling for many older players with delinquent children.
- Speaking of flashbacks, we get to see Sparda himself imprisoned by two demons. This by far makes it one of the most disturbing moments in the game.
- You know you've done something right/wrong when the ingredient of a fucking soft drink can make you want to yak up. The ingredient? A giant slug-larvae thing constantly chained to a mixer.
- While it's played for Black Comedy, Virility has the affect of making those who consume it morbidly obese. The idea of a food being modified to corrupt a human’s body unless of course you’re a demon, angel, or a combination of the two, is no different from a food being modified to control or eliminate a race or sexual orientation.
- Also, a small one, but if you closely during the Limbo version of the Virility factory, you can see several bloated demons being FORCE FED the previously mentioned Succubus fluids and they seem to be aware of the subject.
- Although its Played for Laughs, during one of the trailers, a child was about to drink the previously mentioned Virility. Anyone who has had a child accidentally consuming a poisonous substance will realize how chilling this scene is. Thankfully Dante, being wise to the true nature of Virility, knocks the drink out of her hands before she can drink it.
- When Limbo transforms, the landscape becomes horribly twisted and just about everything becomes colored, a jarring contrast to the greyed out palette of the real world. It gets worse when you start looking around the place, subliminal messages crawling around. What makes it all the more startling is how seamless the transition is - at one point Dante is just wandering around with Kat by his side, but then a CCTV camera spots him and recognizes him. Almost immediately, the otherwise totally normal city practically breaks itself apart just to trap him and ensure his death. The city's a Genius Loci and it wants Dante's head on a pike.
- How about the mission where the home base of the Order comes under siege? Dante arrives just in time to see a SWAT team start breaching the place, and he moves in to help, but of course Limbo reacts and slows him down with more demons to get in his way. At certain points you come across members of the Order running for their lives and/or getting gunned down, and Dante, due to being stuck in Limbo, can do nothing but watch. It really says something that a demon killer like Dante is completely unable to do anything to stop the SWAT teams from making their way further into the bastion of the human resistance. Dante's effectively their ace in the hole, and yet in their Darkest Hour, he's present but Limbo refuses to let him intervene. All he can do is rush to find Kat and Vergil and help them escape. All while alarms are sounding and the music becomes frantic and panicked.
- Speaking of Kat, the scene at the end where he tells her what to do when the SWAT troops bust in speaks volumes. He tells her to put her hands up and try to be non-threatening, a giant hint as to what he had to do himself back before he got mixed up with the Order. Then, as if to spite the poor guy, she gets shot anyway and is brutalized before being taken away. It paints a picture of how things work in this game's world - you can be completely harmless, and still get assaulted just because you happen to be related to the target they're after.
- In Mission 14, you get to confront Mundus' child, and it is by far the most messed up looking thing in the game. Whereas the Succubus and Bob Barbas provided the players with an awesome (and hilarious) fight, this child is anything but. Not because it was badly designed mind you, but because of how the whole thing plays out. For one, Dante stops trash-talking and instead sounds disturbed for most of the fight. Secondly, there's no indication whatsoever that the child itself is evil beyond being Mundus' unborn child, and possibly just interpret attacking Dante as "play time" as Lilith puts it.
- Mission 15 gives us a nice view of Vergil shooting a pregnant Lilith in the stomach, killing the child and then blowing her head off. Granted, Lilith wasn't the most sympathetic character in the game, but damn. Dante can only get out a flabbergasted "What the fuck?" while looking at Vergil in astonishment and a certain degree of disgust.
- If you look downward when the camera is focused on Lilith, you can see the upper part of the massive hole that was blasted in her abdomen. Naturally it's caked in blood and you can see through to the other side.
- Later, after Mundus completely loses it, he causes massive amounts of destruction to Limbo City. If one looks closely, the player can see human corpses scattered in different parts of the city. This leaves one question: What was the body count during Mundus' meltdown?
- Vergil. While he starts off as a Nice Guy at first, there are some things that are very offputting about him.
- The fact that Vergil used his resources to build a large demon research and vigilante group is pretty much a Mook Horror Show in of itself.
- And then Vergil reveals his true intentions: After Mundus is dealt with, Vergil reveals his plans to rule over humanity while Dante and Kat, are horrified by this.
- The fight between Vergil and Dante is a combination of Tear Jerker and natural fear. As Dante gains the upper hand, Vergil proves just how dangerous he is. Gone is the well composed Jerk with a Heart of Gold, now replaced by an Ax-Crazy abusive sibling who taunts Dante during the fight.
- After Vergil is dealt with, Dante comes DANGEROUSLY close to killing Vergil with his sword, Rebellion while Kat pleads with Dante to stop. Granted, Vergil did deserve it, but seeing the wisecracking Dante so full of rage and heartache is horrifying and the expression he gives indicates that Dante takes absolutely zero pleasure in doing this to his brother. Thankfully, Dante manages to stop before killing Vergil, but the scene is still unsettling.
- The ending: Dante and Kat are left to fend for themselves in a world where demons are now common knowledge and are harassing humans. Bittersweet Ending indeed. Demons begin to appear out in the human world to the horror of several humans. Some humans are even shown taking pictures of demons and posting them on social media. Also keep in mind that Vergil is still out there, though he doesn’t have plans for humanity... yet.
- The Vergil's Downfall DLC finally has Vergil, letting loose in his own story after the game, adding more to the Nightmare Fuel.
- The cutscenes have a touch of Demented Animation in contrast with the CGI and in-engine cutscenes of the main game, making it look even more creepy.
- Keeping up with the whole concept of “Dante is Guts from Berserk” theory, a dark voice tempts Vergil to cast aside his morals to regain his power. It sounds oddly similar to the Godhand tempting Griffith to give up his humanity during the Eclipse.
- The way Vergil just callously cuts down the illusion of Dante and takes his amulet is unsettling for players who have siblings or have dealt with sibling rivalry at one point.
- Thought the main game was a melting pot of fear? Well, one cutscene has Vergil coldly telling off his mother, Eva and telling her how he killed Dante. Eva, not realizing the actual Dante is alive and well, is left crying in horror upon hearing this. Parents who have dealt with children harming or abusing another sibling will relate to this...
- The ending for the campaign: In a twisted version of Earn Your Happy Ending, Vergil becomes the new ruler of the demons. If Vergil wasn’t already a Fallen Hero before, then he has fallen MUCH farther than before. So yeah, Mundus was chump change compared to Vergil. It adds in a bit of Paranoia Fuel as well. If Dante and Vergil do cross paths again after this, it's implied that things will get worse for Dante. Much worse.
- Kat talking about how her foster father would attack her "most nights" and saying "It's ok, I felt nothing, I couldn't physically escape so I found another way. I aimlessly wandered limbo in spirit form." She even describes exploring the factory during an "out of body experience". All of this put together sounds a lot like the way survivors of sexual assault describe dissociation
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