The Killer Instinct series has always played around with horror-inspired aesthetics and characters, but this game in particular introduces several characters, stages and even concepts that amp up to eleven the Nightmare Fuel factor, even moreso than previous entries.
- Kan-Ra's teaser. It starts off already rather creepy, in his decrepit stage with him standing away from the camera. After a few seconds of him on screen he suddenly turns and starts yelling at the camera, with his face clear in center.
- His bio reveals that he was a sorcerer who tried to steal the Babylonian throne. After that failed, he was cursed with a withering rot that disintegrates his body, organs and all, and he places more curses on himself just to ease the pain. Yikes.
- His facial expressions aren't pretty either, with his psychotic smile and Evil Laugh, especially after he steals his opponent's soul when beating them.
Kan-Ra: You will no longer need this! Hahahahaha! - After Kan-Ra's trailer, we are given a teaser for the next fighter, Riptor, in the form of an UltraTech employee practicing his narration. Unfortunately, we learn it really sucks to work at UltraTech after Riptor escapes and kills the poor guy.
- Hisako's teaser at the end of Aganos' trailer. She is shown walking along Spinal's stage, clearly glitching out. All of a sudden, she starts screaming at the camera, this time with a Volumetric Mouth. Hope you brought your brown pants.
- Hisako in general. She's basically Sadako crossed with Painwheel, taking the look and glitching powers of the former and the rage and horrible contortions of the later. Also, both her pre-fight animation and her victory pose end on a Jump Scare of her Nightmare Face, the former pictured above and the later starting similar to how her teaser ended, only this time the camera gets closer. The only thing that eases the horror is that she is surprisingly one of the good-aligned characters.
- Hisako's Ultimate has her possessing her foe and snapping the bones in their body, and as a final "Screw you," she sticks her head into the final frame at the very last second.
- Her possession grapples has her go inside the opponent's body to contort and break their bones. With sickening crunches.
- Eyedol now has a single head, but it's split in half! You can even see his brain swell.
- To say nothing of his theme. It sounds like the ending credits of a Slasher Movie!
- Maya's Ultimate could best be described as barbaric. The floating dagger strikes are par for the course with her, but near the end, her twin daggers bring her foe to their knees as she jumps offscreen, then position themselves under their face. Even if its your first time seeing it, you'll just know what's about to happen when the daggers snap into position, pointy end facing the sky. With a brutal jumping curbstomp, Maya drives their face into the ground, mercifully sparing us the view of her opponent's eyes getting skewered by the waiting blades. It's a cold, wicked execution that wouldn't feel out of place in Mortal Kombat, and it comes from one of the game's more HEROIC characters to boot!
- How about General RAAM's guest appearance? What's scary isn't the fact he's there or what he says (granted, that windy rasp is always unsettling,) but just how huge he is compared to everyone else. In every video you see of him he will dwarf the character he's fighting unless that character is Eyedol. Hell, some of the other fighters barely come up to his hips!
- He can summon Kryll. While the ones he uses as a ranged attack just do small amounts of damage, veteran Gears fans will remember just how nightmarish these Hollow bats were, what with their ability to tear anything, even Boomers (who, for context, could take 180 bullets before dying in the original Gears of War) apart in seconds.
- Remember how he was able to summon Kryll to such an extent that they completely obfuscated the whole screen in what basically amounted to a pitch-black fog, effectively blinding you? That's his Instinct. And it passively damages you over time while you can't see a damn thing as he approaches and command grabs you to death.
