The world of Punishing: Gray Raven is already rather grim and gritty, but don't worry, it get worse.
As per policy, Spoilers Off will apply to this page, so beware of potential spoilers.
- The Punishing virus can range from typical clunky robots to disturbing eldritch horrors that happen to be machines. A lot of the higher-grade ones bleed liquids and imitate organic parts despite being, you know, mechanical, which heightens the uncanny wrongness of the thrall.
- The very idea of the Punishing virus being capable of evolution. When it first broke out, it was just a simple gas that killed humans and warped machines. But after the Hetero-Core fell from the International Space Station, the Punishing virus took on various forms that were difficult to control for various reasons. Red Tide could sweep across the land and devour anyone who falls into it, while Hetero-Creatures could behave in ways more similar to animals than machines. It eventually grew to the point where the Punishing virus began to mimic human appearances and emotions such as pain and fear.
- Construct refitting is described as a painful surgery, which speaks volumes about how badly they're needed to fight the Punishing virus.
- First, a human has to be compatible with a special material called Tantalum-193. Anyone whose affinity isn't good enough will likely die during the procedure. But the war made a perfect excuse for anyone who had this technology to go looking for whoever was compatible, regardless of age or wealth. Case in point, Nikola admits that he'd likely go to hell for handing the offer to orphans as young as Lucia and Luna.
- As it turns out, altering a Construct's form to be different from their original appearance can cause their M.I.N.D. to deviate, which makes them more vulnerable to memory loss, insanity, and Punishing corruption amongst other things. This didn't stop some scientists in the Artic Route Union from trying it, with the result being a gigantic monster of a Construct called Amberia who was practically a human torso on a walking tank. While she was sealed away before she could destroy the area, the rest of the ARU decided to punish the researchers and their descendants to be hybrid constructs themselves.
- It's later revealed that Kurono used to have a splinter group called Daedalus Corp., whose research of Constructs was so cruel that even their progenitor company wanted them gone. So far, only two Constructs (Bianca and No. 21) are confirmed to have ever survived Daedalus' collapse.
- Corrupted individuals somehow resisting the effects of Punishing virus and coming together as a terrorist group hellbent on humanity's filtering into their "Ascension Network." From guiding Corrupted into entire cities to attempting a Colony Drop to encouraging the growth of new forms of Punishing virus, it's no wonder they're at the front of the story most of the time.
- As one learns about how Babylonia and other human factions are run, it became very clear that The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People was severely averted. Corporations such as Kurono continued to do unethical experiments on Constructs and other people under the pretense of desperation. It's made a point that some parts of the Golden Age never really left humanity.
- Nothing quite so encapsulates the tragedy behind Selena than the glimpse of her scrapped self.
◊ The deathly pallor, her lifeless expression, that her head seems to be still organic... most of that severed torso is mechanical, but you'd forgiven for mistaking some of that washed-out bone and muscle for the real thing.- It went From Bad to Worse for her after Gabriel managed to get her before Ayla could. The Echo Aria chapter revealed that she was dumped into the Red Tide as part of his experiments, after which the Hetero-Core fragment in her chest warped her into a monstrous being called the Siren. Even after the Merciful One stops the Punishing virus from remerging with her, her mind was broken enough for her to lose her memories.
- Evernight Beat is the chapter in which the second Gray Raven team is dealt their first genuine loss and for good reason. Despite evidence that a Hetero-Hive Mother was reaching critical mass, the Babylonian forces failed to destroy it in time, allowing it to birth the most powerful Hetero-Creatures yet. These Unidentified Twins and the surrounding Hetero-Sapiens would chase after the soldiers and mercifully tear them apart.
- In gameplay, the Unidentified Twins are portrayed as a Dual Boss capable of matching your Constructs in speed and power. They've surpassed Lucia and Lee to the point that they could produce an Anti-Matrix that puts you on the wrong end of Bullet Time. And when it seems that you've beaten them? They pull out a Combination Attack to immediately eliminate you regardless of whether you actually took a hit or two! Finally Liv, whose leg was broken beforehand, is helplessly beaten up without being able to hit them. It was only because of a distraction from a dying Hans that the Twins stop short of reducing Liv and the rest of Gray Raven to scrap metal.
"They will seek, understand, and possess sentiments once only known to humankind. They will learn, abolish, and replace humanity's dated ideas of the world." - Surviving Lucem capitalizes on the horrors that the surge of hetero-creatures brought about. Gray Raven and the surviving Babylonian forces are stuck with human scavengers with their commandant in a coma. The Twins and any horde of Hetero-Creatures are going from town to town, killing anyone and dumping them in the Red Tide, and most attempts at rescue from Babylonia are usually met with flying ActionBombs made of Punishing Virus. It gets bad enough that Lucia, Lee, and Chrome had to stall the Twins while being attacked on a crumbling Asslam, while Liv is receiving her specialized Empyrea frame. They, along with Sophia and Changyu, flee into a church where they are eventually beaten by the Corrupted and succumb in a grim example of a Darkest Hour.
- Said Darkest Hour was only averted by Liv showing up, but as expected, she could not handle the burden of absorbing Punishing from her teammates. Asimov realizes that her imminent corruption would with experiencing the memories of any and every human and Construct who was absorbed into the Red Tide. Cue the cutscene in which Punishing Virus impales her within her M.I.N.D. as she screams in pain. She was only saved in the nick of time due to Lucia holding off the Punishing virus' effects and the newly awakened Commandant showing up to connect with Liv.
- The chapter "Her Last Bow" has Nanami find out that she has gained a following of machines called the Church of Machina, who revere her as their anonymous Sagemachina. Gestalt explains to her that the problem with this is that without intervention, they will likely go onto be a major third party in the war against the Punishing virus and Ascendants. Thus, Nanami agrees to go through over 8000 simulated scenarios in which humanity fails to figure out what she must do.
- The first world shown is that where an Endless Winter occurs, choking out almost everything indiscriminately, with Hetero-Creatures being forced to adapt to the cold.
- The next world shows a future where the attck lead by Trailblazer went without a hitch, with Nanami finding herself in a war after the Ascendants successfully dropped Babylonia on Earth. She runs into Zero, a leading member of the Church who is eventually all but said to have crushed Nanami's remaining human friends into a jewel in an attempt to "preserve" them for Nanami, marking the fact that she hadn't been completely awakened. Murray also points out that other tragedies that occurred include Liv dying during the events of Surviving Lucem, Bianca being corrupted into a witch by a weapon made of Punishing virus, and Hassen and Nikola dying in humankind's largest underwater fort (implied to be Atlantis) along with all members of Strike Hawk except Wanshi, Commandant losing both hands, Vera sacrificing herself to protect Murray, and so on.
- In quick succession, several other scenarios are shown:
- Nanami attempting and failing to save Liv from corrupting herself.
- Nanami fighting a battle against tens, if not hundreds, of Hetero-Sapiens as powerful as the Unidentified Twins.
- Eventually, Nanami began to produce her own simulations, finding herself in a future where she had hooked herself into a spaceship and fled with anyone she could find after Earth was annihilated. Although her future self is able to give her the answer to save Liv by waking up the Commandant, these possible worlds go to show just how much worse the situation could have been if she had failed.
- Spiral of Chronos
- We get introduced to The Observers, a group made up of alien civilizations that Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence to become a Sentient Cosmic Force, and they serve as the Big Bad.
- Picture this: you and your comrades are going about your day, cleaning up after your society as it gets back up from its last cataclysmic ordeal. Then after some unexplained earthquakes, you get word of a giant tower that pulses electromagnetic radiation to drive humans insane, which could reach as far as a Space Station. You've weathered a lot of insane obstacles, but now you face one that not only puts your headquarters in direct danger, but turns your allies against you as they succumb to nonsensical ideas about you being another enemy to kill.
- While inside the Punishing Tower, Lee sees the memories of himself from alternate timelines. Suffice to say, none of them are good as as either Lee is the Sole Survivor or the last one standing before dying.
