Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
[PROTOTYPE]. A game in which the Cruelty Potential is boundless, and the Nightmare Fuel is practically taken up to eleven. The entire game is made of it, from eating random pedestrians to heal yourself to the monstrous Infected creatures that pursue you. Many of the Web of Intrigue videos are not for the faint of heart, either.
- The game's opening cutscene is laden with this.
- First, we open in an infected zone with Meat Moss creeping up an abandoned taxi. Then a Blackwatch patrol walks into frame, with one noticing the Meat Moss, reaching to his radio...and calling in an "All Clear". This right away shows the player just how bad things have gotten in the infected zones if mobile Meat Moss is considered benign enough to qualify as "All Clear."
- Then we pan up to see just how bad things have gotten on the ground before cutting to our "Hero" Alex Mercer, watching over the Blackwatch patrol like a human gargoyle and giving an Internal Monologue about how he's the reason for everything in the story. His assessment that everyone calling him "A Killer...a Monster...a Terrorist" is true as the patrol moves away before dropping off of the building and landing unharmed with a massive impact crater and sprinting off across the Meat Moss and corpse ridden infected zone, showing off his superhuman abilities through parkour and a vertical Wall Run while musing about the virus's release in Pennsylvania Station and his own waking up in a morgue with nightmarish powers and no memory of how he got there before detailing his desire to find whoever made him into the monster he is now...and make them pay.
- When the camera pans back down it's now nighttime and the Blackwatch patrol encounter a woman in torn clothing begging them to help her before a hideously mutated man hangs the corner, sees the patrol and screams while charging them with a horde of similarly hideous mutants who hang the corner in response to his scream. Blackwatch effortlessly turns the alley into a kill corridor, mowing down the Walkers easily and calling the area clear. The commander has two of his squad move up and brings another one with him to the crying woman, remarking "Her too." as his subordinate pulls out his pistol and executes her as she looks up and realizes that they aren't there to save her before she can even scream.
- The camera then pans up to reveal Alex, who didn't even try to save the woman, prompting one of the patrol to shout "That's him!". Alex then extends his Claws power and impales the soldier who killed the woman, slashing the chest of the commander and knocking a third into the air before bisecting him by the waist. Another Blackwatch agent, presumably a member of another patrol that stumbled into Alex's ambush on their comrades, tries to rush him only to get grabbed and hurled hard enough into a car to move it as another desperately tries to kill Alex with a grenade launcher, only for Alex to extend his Blade power and block it before leaping over a car and splitting him in half height-wise. The last remaining Blackwatch soldier then hefts a rocket launcher and blasts Alex with it, seemingly killing him.
- As the dust settles, the surviving soldier hears the pained grunts of the other patrol's commander, injured near the wreckage of the destroyed car, and rushes to his aid. Pulling the commander up, the injured soldier asks where the soldier's commanding officer is. He responds by telling him that he's in Times Square before saying he'll call for transport...and getting interrupted by a Scare Chord and a set of claws impaling him as he's lifted from the ground by the "commander" who coldly remarks "That won't be necessary." holding the soldier there until he dies, cruelly tossing the gurgling corpse to the ground before his flesh shifts, revealing Alex, who marches off towards Times Square with grim purpose. Everything just listed happens before you even start the game within the space of three minutes.
- To begin with, Alex himself is Nightmare Fuel. He has Lovecraftian Superpowers, and very frequently devours his victims.
- And the manner in which he eats people may actually be more horrific than simply biting, chewing, and swallowing - he tears you apart, while you're still alive and conscious, and then draws you into him gradually, brutally torturing you as you die. And after that, he gains all of your memories, and can transform himself to impersonate you perfectly.
- Which just makes it all the worse, really. Imagine, for a moment, that you live in the Prototype universe. Zombies are rampaging through the streets nearly unchecked, the military authority is more interested in destroying the enemy than in protecting you, and there's a psychopath so powerful that nobody can stop him and who doesn't actively try to prevent collateral damage or innocent casualties... and the most terrifying part of it is that he can impersonate pretty much anybody he's killed. He could be your wife/husband, whom you've known and loved beyond anything else for ten years or better, and YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW. Or, better yet, your innocent child whom you've loved and cared for since their birth suddenly transforms their arm into a gigantic sword and stabs you with it, and you're forced to watch helplessly as your son or daughter murders you and begins drawing you into his/her body, and you're so confused and in shock and suddenly, it begins to dawn on you that this isn't your sweet and loving child, but a ruthless monster that killed him/her and who claimed their identity. And by the time you realize this, you've been cleaved in two, and your spouse walks into the room and you try to shout, to tell them to run, but it's too late because you can only scream in pain and horror, and you're being absorbed into this Humanoid Abomination which, by now, looks almost as much like you as you do, and your last living thought is that your family will be next and that everything you've ever known and cherished is like an ant before an utterly ruthless and diabolical God...
- Alex, and the game makes sure you know it. He can be anyone, he can beat you into a literal bloody pulp bare-handed (not to mention the other implements), and the obvious fact that he routinely eats his victims. Notable examples in cutscenes include when he finds Karen Parker and when he gets back up as Taggart (with a whole piece of his head gone from a point-blank bullet).
- And the manner in which he eats people may actually be more horrific than simply biting, chewing, and swallowing - he tears you apart, while you're still alive and conscious, and then draws you into him gradually, brutally torturing you as you die. And after that, he gains all of your memories, and can transform himself to impersonate you perfectly.
- On the other hand, imagine being Alex himself. You're a living nightmare, a monster feared by other monsters, an apex predator...and you know this because everyone you've ever killed, you know in perfect detail right down to the moment you murdered them horrifically, and their memories are yours - they are you. You'd know every little thought they ever had to justify themselves, every moment of happiness, every moment of pain and sorrow, and their final agonized screams are still going on in your mind. And yet you're going to keep killing people because if you don't, you'll never find the truth and even more people will die and they'll never stop hunting you. At first it's all right because you're mostly a sociopath, but you absorb more pain, more humanity, more guilt...
- And then you realize what you are - a goddamned virus created by the spite of a complete monster, and it turns out that the only people you thought you cared about either want to use/destroy you (Karen Parker), or end up having a momentary BSOD and scream that they never want to see you again (your "little sister", Dana). And you've killed so many people, absorbed who they are and what they were, and you are them, and imagine trying to hold onto your sanity with hundreds - no, thousands, even TENS of thousands of voices in your head at every hour of the day and night, screaming in everlasting pain because you remember when you killed them without mercy or regret, and through the eyes of the victim, and in a way, YOU are the victim of your own brutality, because you have become nearly everyone you've ever killed.
- Know who's even worse than Alex Mercer? The original Alex Mercer. To begin with, this guy is where the Alex we know gets his sociopathic tendencies. Except he was even worse as a result of a spending years in the foster care system before being reunited with his mother after she got out of prison. He grew up to become an extremely brilliant scientist, but didn't trust nor care about anyone else, not even his own sister, who'd been his only family for many years. In his own words, he "wasn't paid to feel." This is also the guy responsible for the creation of the most dangerous virus in history, which, when his back was against the wall in Penn Station, he unleashed on Manhattan. It took a Viral Transformation for him to actually develop a conscience. It really says something when, no matter how much of a murderer you are in the game, you'll never be as bad as the original Alex.
- Gentek and their experiments on people are the stuff of nightmares. Anyone who knows the history of their experiments and research react with disgust in-universe, considering they primarily focus on children and cause massive collateral death. Worse is the scientists involved are a chilling example of Humans Are the Real Monsters. They have no regard for their fellow man except as a means of research and earning a bigger paycheck.
- Blackwatch is an organization of Boxed Crooks that have no identity, a hair-trigger temper, are incapable of any kind of remorse, and are such ruthless fanatics that even the most fascist Dystopia dwellers would be awestruck. They are The Dreaded for civilians and every military force on the planet, deeply hated and disgusted by even the most hardened Marines for being monsters and "deranged baby-killers" and have a nearly inexhaustible amount of weapons at their disposal. They also have no issue with firing missiles into populated areas like Manhattan and will blow up entire blocks full of people just to attack Alex. Their creed is a chilling example of what these horrific soldiers are:"WHEN WE HUNT WE KILL. NO ONE IS SAFE. NOTHING IS SACRED. WE ARE BLACKWATCH! WE ARE THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE! WE WILL BURN OUR OWN TO HOLD THE RED LINE. IT IS THE LAST LINE TO EVER HOLD."
- What make it so terrifying is that, they're right. They are the last line of defense and Godzilla Threshold against the infection when all else fails and they must do all those things to stop it.
- Then there's that little bit of Paranoia Fuel that is Alex Mercer's reunion with Karen Parker:Soldier: We've been compromised: Mercer knows you're on the payroll. We're evacuating. [escorts Karen to the elevator]Karen: You know what he can do? Oh, Goddammit. He'll kill me! [elevator stops] Oh my God. Oh my God, he's here! He's in the building!Soldier: [transforms into Alex] I know.
- Cannibal babies, as in babies that eat other babies...
- Elizabeth Greene's One-Winged Angel form. Even Mercer is freaked out.Mercer: What the fuck is that? Elizabeth? What is she?
- These two
◊ pages◊ of pregnant infected women from the Prototype comic. It's definitely NSFW. Also, feel free to scream. - PARIAH. Seriously, we know very little about the "kid" other than the fact that he's the virus' full potential realized and considering what we saw the virus can do, that is a scary thought all on its own, and then there's the picture from the web of intrigue with him standing next to a mutilated corpse with plenty of blood on his hands. And finally the oh so lovely scenario thought up by one of the people you eat for the web of intrigue of what if Alex and PARIAH meet up. In his words "Alex and PARIAH meeting would be exceedingly bad." No shit doc, no shit.
- People have, in fact, said that it would be the End of the World as We Know It. This is not an 'if X character meets Y character, their shared awesomeness will cause the universe to explode' jokingly theorized in the spirit of fun, this is the actual end of humanity apocalypse we're talking about here.
- One of the Web of Intrigue entries is Colonel Taggart being briefed on expected Marine casualties during the Manhattan occupation. He's told to expect at least 1000 to 2500 dead per week. That's bad enough, but it gets worse. The expectations were drawn up from the information Blackwatch had before the occupation began, based upon the idea that they knew what they were up against. However, it's repeatedly made clear that Blackwatch had been preparing to fight the wrong war. Considering what we actually see in-game, the Marines likely took far worse losses.
- The first game's Web of Intrigue slowly paints a Cosmic Horror Story. The viruses does things that break the natural laws and no one knows how. The Body Horror and Zombie Apocalypse might be at the forefront, but in the background it seems that Idaho kickstarted something terrible. The virus is sapient, breaks established biological and physical laws and it is unknown if infecting people is its end goals or the means to an unknown end.
