Moment pages are Spoilers Off by default, so all spoilers are unmarked. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned.
The Stroggs' idea of a "personal" computer.
The story involves cyborgs who forcefully butcher prisoners of war to turn them into more cyborgs and literal Human Resources so there's high-yield nightmare fuel in Quake IV.
- The intro shows what appears to be a marine contemplating the vastness of outer space, but as they turn around, it is revealed that they're dead, and drifting in space with graphic injuries along with the rest of their group. The gory scene also helps break one out of the mindset of A Million Is a Statistic, by bluntly showing off some of the loss of life.
- The Rhino Squad's dropship crash-landing due to the pilot being unable to shake off a guided missile. Kane is rendered unconscious and wakes up in the twisted wreckage. A marine urgently tries to make him to get up and get out of the wreck, but gets shot in the back by a high-caliber projectile and dies. Fortunately, Kane pulls himself up after coming to his senses, but his squad was ready to bury him.
- For arachnophobics, the introduction of the Harvester. After Kane makes his way out of the Aqueducts, he enters the Annex section. After exiting the tunnel, he sees two military hovertanks discussing the current situation while a giant mechanical red spider comes from the hole in the middle of the area, clawing the tanks and throwing the second one at Kane.
- Another instance happens at the Nexus Hub level, while going to disable the thermal controls in order to proceed to the place where the last remaining EMP bomb must destroy the Nexus from its core. Strauss advises Kane to not to bother the Harvester that's going through the still-frozen tunnel. After they exit the tunnel and prepare the bomb with the rest of Rhino Squad, a Harvester destroys the door nearby the area, kills Sergeant Bidwell and pushes an engineer from the other squad to his doom with a truck, then destroys the EMP bomb.
- The Strogg Medical Facilities act of the game can be disturbing, with tortured screams of prisoners echoing all over the facility. Fridge Horror can set in when you realize you're likely hearing prisoners screaming in agony/terror from the medical experiments, stroggification, whatever is happening. Also, there is poor sanitation with dried blood covering many surfaces, and you are separated from your squad, leaving you alone in this house of horrors. Some of your squad never make it out. The Strogg Medical Facilities & Stroyent Factory chapters are like Quake IV's equivalent to Doom³'s trip into Hell due to all the suffering and horror encountered. Except, it can be more disturbing due to the experience not being tempered by the stereotypical Fire and Brimstone Hell and more akin to a trip into an visceral-industrial hell similar to Silent Hill.
- The "Stroggification" scene. After Kane is captured by the Makron, he's Strapped to an Operating Table which moves across a facility designed to turn regular humans into Strogg. We see the process with every bit of detail, from the sedation phase to the mutilation to the implants being connected to the body, and the neurocyte being implanted in the brain. What also makes it jarring is how robotic the assembly-line is, like humans are merely cars to be reassembled, and their agony is completely irrelevant. One part of the process is to have one's legs chopped off with a saw. The pain becomes so terrible that Kane blacks out for what seems a few seconds or much longer. Kane's probably not gonna be the same after the mission is over. Luckily for Kane, he's rescued in the nick of time before a laser activates his neurocyte. Good thing that Rhino Squad was there to save him. IGN's walkthrough of the game
outright refers to the sequence as "the rollercoaster ride from Hell". - One of the more horrifying aspects of the Stroggification scene is the fact that there's a guy ahead of you on the production line. You get to see what awaits you just a few seconds before it happens to you, knowing there's nothing you can do to stop it. Worse, Rhino Squad manages to save you from having your neurocyte activated, but they're just about a mere ten seconds too late to save him. It's entirely possible the poor bastard in front of you wound up as one of the dozens of Strogg you wind up gunning down.
- The track that ambients the cutscene, "The Long Ride", fills the scene of Controllable Helplessness with a sense of serious danger.
- Mercifully, Kane's only reaction to the whole thing is remaining completely silent and only momentarily emitting the same grunting sound, that sounds more like someone angrily screaming in defiance than someone being brutally mutilated. Hearing your character screaming in realistic torment might have made it too unbearable to watch. But there are moments where even Kane himself shows fear or at least discomfort - namely, he is seen struggling when his legs are about to get cut off with a buzzaw and when a neural chip is about to be implanted in his brain. Even he knows how bad things are going for him.
- The death (or is it?) of Medic Jeremiah Anderson. Right after Kane's rescue, they set to abandon the planet and return to the Hannibal. Problem is, the rescue ship got gunned down, so they have to find another way. Anderson and Kane are then paired. The next room they visit is a medical operations room. Anderson inspects the facility and gets trapped in a cage, after which a Strogg Medic attacks, injects something into him, slashes him a couple of times in the back and then abducts him, then sets to face Kane. The background piece which ambients this scene, "One by One", doesn't help the situation, and makes it worse.
- The "Stroggification" scene. After Kane is captured by the Makron, he's Strapped to an Operating Table which moves across a facility designed to turn regular humans into Strogg. We see the process with every bit of detail, from the sedation phase to the mutilation to the implants being connected to the body, and the neurocyte being implanted in the brain. What also makes it jarring is how robotic the assembly-line is, like humans are merely cars to be reassembled, and their agony is completely irrelevant. One part of the process is to have one's legs chopped off with a saw. The pain becomes so terrible that Kane blacks out for what seems a few seconds or much longer. Kane's probably not gonna be the same after the mission is over. Luckily for Kane, he's rescued in the nick of time before a laser activates his neurocyte. Good thing that Rhino Squad was there to save him. IGN's walkthrough of the game
- The Tactical Strogg can come across as purged of emotion and especially robotic, even by Strogg standards. The way they calmly communicate over their radios sounds very calm and collected like their psyches were broken to the point that there's no sign of resistance by the former Marines. Their pained death reports seem like the only remnant of a human not ready to die.
- The Dispersal Facility has a depressing room before the end. There's giant dirty cogs rotating and piles of human bones on the floor, as if they were swept up like garbage. It really emphasizes that you're in a Nightmarish Factory and on your way to more disturbing areas of the facility. It's little wonder a screen shot of this room◊ was used for the loading screen.
- The Strogg also have a penchant for using dismembered human corpses (or dismembered living people) as decorations, as areas in this game and it's canonical predecessor show. But it gets worse: they use them as batteries. The Nexus Hub Tunnels have rooms with live humans under heavy delirium with their arms and legs removed and computer screens implanted in their bowels. The delirious moans of pain they make can be eerie. Some bodies are found hooked up to a strange machine, face-first, making it look like they had been decapitated.
- The Waste Processing Facility is perhaps where the game hits a new level of bleakness. This basement under the Putrefication Center is where failed Strogg transfers are sent for disposal. Some of the "zombies" are still alive and can only attack with acid vomit. The more "successful" zombies are patrolling the dumps with shotguns. If one has a fear of blood and guts strewn everywhere, this level could very well be horrifying. The Tactical Strogg interceptors can come almost as a relief from the bleakness thanks to the action they add to the level, especially when you meet a surviving marine to team up with.
