Nightmare Fuel / Spider-Man (PS4)

Ladies and Gentlemen, our esteemed benefactor!

Just as Spider-Man for PS4 has its share of sad moments and funny ones, it has its own section of terrors.

WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Nightmare Fuel pages. All spoilers will be unmarked.

---

Main game

• Basically any of the hallucinations that Mr. Negative causes. Once he grabs Spidey, he gets transported via his mind to a black and white parallel NYC where all the people are lifeless statues that occasionally crumble to dust, while Negative teleports around mocking his foe.
  • The Demons, in general, are pretty nightmarish. They wear creepy Chinese opera masks, can harness negative energy, and are a huge No-Nonsense Nemesis. Combine that with the fact that Mr. Negative can draw out people's negative sides and brainwash them into joining the Demons, and you get some potent Paranoia Fuel.
  • This is taken up to eleven during the assembly where Jefferson Davis is killed. The whole scene is eerily reminiscent of 9/11 attacks and the state of emergency that New York was under at the time, with terrified people and a collapsing things producing a dust cloud that rolls through the streets. And Peter is knocked out for most of the event, meaning you have to play as Miles, giving you a ground zero feel to the whole scene.
    • Everything surrounding the bombing just feels so...grounded in its execution. This isn't an over the top superhero set-piece, this is a terrorist attack, and it is played eerily realistically. Not just in the moment, but even once the dust has settled and you've moved on, you can still feel the lingering effects everywhere.
    • And when you first gain control of Miles, MJ is trying to get a response from the unconscious Peter, and seemingly fails. Add that to Miles' comic origin story, it actually seems for a few moments that Peter is dead.
    • Just imagine that scene from the perspective of Rio, Miles' mother. Your husband is killed right in front of you, you're nearly crushed by debris, and then you're powerless to do anything as your son goes towards the scene. Then, moments later, you hear gunfire and the Demons picking off survivors, and realize that he's trapped with them. Then they do find Miles and he's only barely saved by Mr. Li's Pet the Dog moment. The poor woman came terrifyingly close to losing her entire family in one day.
• Really any scene in which you play as MJ or Miles, neither or them having superpowers and being forced to sneak their way through huge mobs or thugs, terrorists, drones, or in Miles' case, Rhino.
  • Miles's entire stealth section with Rhino is an extremely tense game of cat and mouse. And what does Rhino do if he spots Miles? Forego any sense of mercy and attacks him.
• Miles getting bitten by the radioactive spider. Miles becomes Spider-Man after Peter's death in the source material, so from that point onward, Peter is no longer protected by Plot Armor. Indeed, when Peter allows himself to be wounded rather seriously to get closer to Otto, many players will definitely believe for one second that they are watching the end of the original Spidey.
• Some of the background lore concerning Spider-Man's foes can be unnerving in how it's explained how Spider-Man nearly died multiple times. One special mention goes out to a katana that MJ comes across in the museum. She explains how Fisk used it to "cut Peter open like a pork sausage" the first time they fought, and how Peter had to be rushed to the ER by MJ. This shows how even non-powered foes like Fisk can get lucky and kill Spider-Man one day.
• The Stinger, which features Harry Osborn's actual fate. He has the same lethal disease which killed his mother, which is apparently severe enough that it requires him to be in a sealed liquid tank. With a symbiote. And Norman is more than determined to find a cure for him and is most likely going to go to any extent possible. Which means that Spider-Man, on top of losing his aunt and his goodwill for Otto, is most likely going to face the Green Goblin and Venom at the same time. And that's assuming Otto or his Sinister Six don't bust out of prison again.
  • When Norman puts his hand against the tank’s glass, the symbiote presses back, implying that Harry is still conscious while trapped.
    • Considering what he's in the tank with, there's also the possibility that the one pressing back isn't Harry.
  • And the worst part is that the tank was in Norman's personal lab - Mary Jane even notes it when she's looking around, and you can hear a thud when she gets close to it. Harry and Venom were mere inches away from you, and you had no idea.
    • To find the hidden lab, you need to utilize a rather... familiar-looking helmet that sits on Norman's desk in his penthouse apartment. The Heads-Up Display even notes in the top left hand corner that the 'glider interface' is offline. Inside the lab, you find what appear to be prototype pumpkin bombs. Then you flash back to the Oscorp displays in Grand Central Station. Remember the medical drone the presenter was going on about? It looks pretty familiar too...
• New York City is a Crapsack World halfway through the game and you get to see the effects of this in full force. The Demons and Fisk's gangs are still around causing trouble, Silver Sable and her mercenaries are determined to take you down, the Sinister Six are in full swing, tearing the city apart piece by piece, Doc Ock has unleashed the Devil's Breath, and Ryker's had a massive breakout leaving almost every criminal on the streets. Peter sounds positively broken two-thirds into the game, and you can hardly blame him.
  • Compared to other open world superhero games of its caliber where you can move through the world with relative ease without feeling hampered for the most part, this game makes it so that a hero's playground turns into an active fight for your life wherever you go. Enemies all over the place, eager to shoot you down the instant you get in range, with very few safe places to get to. It really helps sell how much of a hellhole New York City turns into after the Sinister Six are unleashed, because Spidey has quickly lost control over the city he's been defending for years over the course of one night.
• The nightmare hallucinations Peter goes through after getting stung by Scorpion. The ground becomes a rising sea of poison, giant scorpion tails shoot from the water as Spidey swings through the city, and hallucinations of Doc Ock and Scorpion attack him, all while the neurotoxin is slowly killing him.
• Many didn't question Otto becoming Doc Ock... but the game manages to make the player wonder "When?". Each visit to the good old Doc's lab throws in more and more nods to his eventual fate, but it's easy to get nervous about each mission in the lab. It's easy to fear the worst when swinging towards the lab and wondering if this time there'll be a horrible accident that fuses Otto with his experiments, to the point where it's almost a relief when the shoe finally drops. Almost.
  • What's even more insidious about the lab activities is that every one of those fun mini-games you're playing for bonus XP? They contribute to the creation of Doctor Octopus. With every one of them you beat, you allow Otto to get that much closer to the point of no return...
  • Something that actually makes it worse is that there is no one specific lab accident which turns mild-mannered Otto Octavius into the insidious Doctor Octopus. It happens slowly, throughout the entire game, from his very first appearance. The completed arms and its faulty neural processor were just the last step. A late game visit to the lab actually reveals that the "defense contracts" and "Security upgrades" to the Raft were Otto working on his promises to the other villains and planning the break out respectively. These innocuous projects were noticed long before the arms were anything other than theoretical.
  • For a sequence of pure, unadulterated tension, there's the first time Peter sees Otto in the arms. Peter doesn't realize the danger at first: they laugh and congratulate each other on a job well done. But then Peter decides to check the circuitry... leading to a part where the player fixes what seem like a few circuits out of place, until more and more of them pile up, and suddenly the whole thing is falling apart faster than you can fix them. Words like "Critical Failure" and "Personality Deterioration" flash across the screen, and finally Peter turns away - terrified and unsure, and certainly no longer laughing. Then you and he both notice that Otto's smile is a little too big for his face, and there's something manic in his eyes...
    Peter: Otto. The neural interface isn't isolating your motor neurons. It could be affecting other parts of your brain: Your inhibitions, your mood... I just think we need to do some more testing.
    Otto: WE'VE DONE ENOUGH TESTING! For the first time in my life, I don't feel like a failure. [like a man enraptured] I feel like me!
• Doc Ock’s efficiency is a sight to behold. In his first outing, he stages a mass breakout at Ryker’s and the Raft, forms the Sinister Six, and nearly kills Spider-Man. Then he goes on to spread a mass plague, kidnap Norman Osborn, and defeat Spider-Man again before finally being taken down. And remember, this was against a Spidey who’s been at it for almost a decade. Imagine what Otto could’ve done if he’d become a villain while Peter was still a teenager.
  • The beating Spidey takes during that scene is Nightmare Fuel all on its own with his scream of pain when Electro zaps him taking the cake. He's crawling on the ground by the time it's over and Peter later notes that he had 14 broken bones afterwards.
  • Another frightening moment comes when you find Doc Ock's hidden command center while tracking the dispersal of the Devil's Breath. You get a series of audio tape insights into what Ock has promised the various members of the Sinister Six and his proposed upgrades/solutions to their various problems. You even determine his plans for the city and his attack on Oscorp with a specialized weapon called the Icarus. You race to the other end of the lab to find it and open the case only to reveal it's a trap, that Octavius knew you'd find his hideaway, and then draws back a false bottom in the case to reveal explosives. Oh, and as Spidey escapes, it's revealed Ock anticipated that too and has the Vulture lying in wait to attack him and take him to Electro so they can kill him. Doctor Octopus is easily the most terrfiying villain in the entire game.
    Vulture: So refreshing to work for a man like Octavius! Backup plans for his backup plans!
  • Even worse, the ending made it clear that he knew Peter was Spider-Man the entire time. Now, Spider-Man rarely gets angry throughout the game, but suddenly he gets a guttural sense of internalized and blood-curdling fury at the idea that Otto planned the Sinister Six formation and release of Devil's Breath (which is killing Aunt May and countless other citizens as they speak) behind Peter's back and exploited the knowledge of their borderline father-son-esque relationship to best lure him into traps and danger. The result is a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown where Spider-Man stops playing nice and stops trying to save Otto from himself.
    • Peter’s fury is enough that, for one moment, Ock breaks from his Smug Snake act and goes into an Oh, Crap! moment, as if it’s just occurred to him that pissing off a much younger, stronger, more experienced super was probably not a wise move. Worse yet, when Peter finally destroys the neural interface and sends Otto tumbling down hundreds of feet, Peter can only mutter, "The antiserum," as he dives down after Ock. Meaning Peter's biggest concern was retrieving the antiserum, and that Otto's own safety was pretty much an afterthought at that point. He only narrowly averted his Thou Shalt Not Kill policy, for the sake of pragmatism.
  • And to top that off, Otto is tossed into prison with his own expression of vengeful rage. And full knowledge of who Spider-Man really is for any potential revenge schemes in the future.
  • The beatdown Otto gives Peter under one of Oscorp's buildings. Peter is unconscious after the encounter and is bleeding badly enough that his blood formed a puddle on the ground, meaning there's enough blood to get through his suit. Combined with the fact that Miles Morales is present in the game, even if he doesn't have his powers yet, it's not too far-fetched to think Peter actually died in the attack. Only after he starts moving again is the suspense over.
  • The climax of the final duel on the side of Oscorp Tower. Doc Ock manages to restrain Peter with one of his tentacles, and send another one straight at his face, leaving Pete desperately trying to push it away before the mad doctor can skewer his skull. While he begs Otto to stop, one of the blades moves and stabs Spidey right through his shoulder. Even though ultimately he makes it work in his favor, it's still difficult not to wince when Peter drives the huge blade deeper into himself to reach the implant connecting Otto to the neural interface, rips it out and then slowly pulls the blade out while yelping in pain.
• The simple fact that this version of Spider-Man will be involved in Spider-Geddon and going up against the same group of villains who eat even skilled versions of the webslinger such as himself for lunch (literally).
  • This is mostly a case of Fridge Horror and potential trouble down the line, but the person that introduces this game's Spidey to the multiverse hijinks? Oh, it's none other than the Peter Parker of the Superior Spider Man storyline - that is to say, the Jerkass comics continuity Otto Octavius that possessed Peter Parker's body for that entire plot line. The idea that your guide into a realm of logic you can't even begin to dream of previously is a twisted, insane and even more horrible alternate version of your father-like mentor figure, who killed the alternate version of you and took their body for his own, is nothing short of horrifying, even if that Otto did undergo a bit of a Heel–Face Turn.
• The people riding on boats are low-poly models in order to save on processing power, which normally wouldn’t be this, considering how far out they are from the normal playable area. Photo Mode, however, lets you get a closer look, for better or for worse◊.
• The video of the experiment that created Mr. Negative. One second, everything seems fine. The next, Martin starts groaning in pain, everyone else starts freaking out, and then Martin transforms in an explosion of light energy that kills his parents as they're trying to help him. Otto's reaction sums it up perfectly:
  Otto: [to Norman] What have you done?
• Playing as MJ and sneaking through Osborn's lab is a delight for arachnophobes. If the Jump Scare doesn't get you, the photorealistic spiders crawling over MJ in the cutscene will.
• The Sable International soldiers are a disturbingly extreme example of what it would take to even attempt to try to fight the numerous criminals, mobsters and villains in a superhero world — and they can't even begin to actually do it worth a damn. That's not the nightmare part, though; the nightmare part is that they utterly stomp the boot down on the New York citizens in the process without much grace nor concern, performing civil and human rights violations at almost every turn, and only get away with it because the threat is that bad.
  • J. Jonah Jameson himself expresses horror at their methods, and in a surprisingly realistic and rare case of Tranquil Fury compared to his sadness over the Devil's Breath victims or his usual screaming rants about Spider-Man. It's so unnerving to hear him genuinely advise people to avoid trouble, record and report what they can, and not give Sable an inch yet not try to get themselves killed. Because they will shoot to kill if someone presents a perceived threat, and no one can do anything about it until their job is done.
  • If that's not bad enough, if one scrolls through the social feed around the time Sable begins attempting to attack Spider-Man, it's mentioned that they straight up broke someone's arm for no reason whatsoever, not to mention them locking up random people for even thinking about protesting their methods in any way.

The City that Never Sleeps DLC

• Spidey himself gets a pretty creepy moment all on his own in The Heist. After defeating a group of Maggia enforcers, one attempts to get away. Spider-Man webs the goon's hand to the trunk of a car, lands on the roof... and proceeds to slowly, slowly crawl closer without saying a single word. The thug is reduced from hardened criminal to utterly terrified in seconds.
  • It can be especially unsettling depending on what suit Spidey's wearing, such as the Dark Suit, or perhaps the Spirit Spider suit and its burning white skull.
• The cliffhanger ending of The Heist has Spidey racing to Felicia's penthouse to save her from the wrath of Hammerhead. We're set up to expect a one-on-one fight with Hammerhead, but instead, we witness Peter arriving seconds too late to stop Felicia from opening her door and setting off a rigged bomb and being engulfed in a massive explosion. Given what we have seen in the game already, we have no guarantee of a happy ending, even with a To Be Continued card.
• The entirety of Turf Wars is one long Trauma Conga Line for Yuri. All of her men, including one who just celebrated his birthday and showed off his new Spider-Man watch from his child to the webslinger himself, end up dead after a botched storming of Hammerhead's hideout. That's bad enough, but then it goes From Bad to Worse when Hammerhead's goons manage to storm the precinct while Spidey is distracted, resulting in even more causalties. Yuri then grabs one of the Sable guns and decides she's going full Cowboy Cop, even threatening to arrest Spider-Man if he gets in her way. "The Bar With No Name", a frequent hide-out for Maggia goons, is found ransacked with bulletholes and dead bodies, with the heavy implication that Yuri's the one who did it (the mission is even called "Yuri's Revenge"). And then to top it all off, she puts a round right into Hammerhead himself, right in front of Spidey and his officers. It's very likely we just saw the birth of Wraith.
  • The scene in the Bar is, in itself, one of the creepiest scenes in that DLC. Earlier, you go through the bar with the Spider-Drone, get to listen into the various mooks' humorous and once or twice even ironically sweet mook chatter, and generally get to see it as a lively place. When you come back later, it's... not. The whole place is quiet as the grave, with corpses everywhere - on the ground, against the walls, hanging off the furniture. You later tail a rattled survivor who is at the hospital, looking after victims who weren't so lucky. It's like an army scoured the place. Yuri did it all herself. And in Silver Lining, she makes it clear she had no intention of ever stopping.
• Y’know how Hammerhead has ultra-durable metal plating in his head and how he often headbutts his enemies in the comics? We see him do that to one of Yuri’s men... only here, Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs and the poor guy’s skull is basically caved in by Hammerhead’s, instantly killing him. Ouch. It doesn’t feel remotely out of place from an Arkham game, the first three of which REALLY pushed their T-ratings.
• Hammerhead is even creepier in the Silver Lining DLC, thanks to his new cyborg body, that not only towers over everyone else present, but only resembles a human on its basic shape. The only visible human part is his head, making it possible it was "merely" a head transplant. And as we find out later, the conversion was his own decision.
  Hammerhead (in audio file): That cop almost killed me! I thought you said I'd be indestructible!
  Scientist: I said almost indestructible. After all, you're still human.
  Hammerhead: Then make me less human!
• Spider-Man finally tracks down Hammerhead's lair... and the first thing he finds is an entire sewer full of body bags. Spidey rightfully notes how disturbing this is. Not helped by the fact he soon finds Silver Sable being subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Yuri turns into Wraith. Spidey finds a bunch of audio recordings with a therapist and a Maggia enforcer. As we find out, Yuri is still trying to get the Maggia despite being suspended, and it's revealed that the therapist is an undercover officer. The plan is to catch the enforcer in the act of attempting to murder Yuri, but the enforcer is revealed to be onto them and kills the undercover officer. And then, you get to find a lovely scene where Yuri kidnaps the guy, ties him up and shot him in cold blood. Okay, the guy clearly murdered several people and escaped due to Off on a Technicality, but Yuri has clearly went over the line. And when Spider-Man contacts Yuri, her defence is that the justice system does not work for the Maggia. She openly states that she enjoyed killing the enforcer. The final message makes it clear that the Yuri of old is gone and Wraith has been born.
  • The second-to-last call from Yuri to Spider-Man when she calls him "old friend". Every other time they talked, Yuri is always professional, but here, she sounds deranged.
  • The hitman in general is this trope, as it's clear he's a complete Sociopath with absolutely no remorse for his horrible actions. His murder of the undercover officer involves hearing the poor man's dying gasps after he's shot. Spider-Man instantly wishes that, like the player, he'd not listened to that.

---