Nightmare Fuel / TimeSplitters

• The TimeSplitters themselves are terrifying as all hell, especially the Reaper Splitters with them having More Teeth than the Osmond Family, their tendency to turn invisible and shoot lightning bolts, and that terrifying-as-all-get-out roar they sound when they've spotted you in Story Mapmaker and the first and third games.
  • Reaper Splitters may seem similar to Berserker Splitters, but there is a key difference that makes the former far more terrifying. Berserker Splitters merely cloak, and said cloaks aren't completely effective; you can see their silhouettes and shoot them as they cloak. Reaper Splitters teleport and never move conventionally. Expect to see Reaper Splitters pop in front of you from out of nowhere.
  • After being an alien race that appeared from nowhere throughout the franchise, Future Perfect finally explains the rot at the top that started them all. An immortality-obsessed scientist named Jacob Crow who lived in the modern era. And it doesn't take long for him to forsake his own species just to extend his lifespan by that much, even mutilating himself in the process. Humans Are the Real Monsters indeed.
• The latter part of the opening stage of TimeSplitters 2, Siberia, adds an unexpected twist to the usual GoldenEye genre — zombies. Especially in normal mode where you enter a peculiar room decorated with X-rays of the iconic TimeSplitter: if you're not distracted by the militants fighting you off, you'd notice that dead bodies are suspiciously present around the area. When you pick up the memory disk for the power to reset, the room turns red, the exit door seals shut, and the bodies start reanimating.
• The zombie levels in the series are making a good job in being scary... The third installment certainly tops this by having not one, but two "regular" zombie levels which are already by far the most chilling the series ever had, but also by adding a "mutant outbreak" in a later stage.
  • In the series as a whole, zombies still remain uncannily frightening, even to those all too familiar with zombie games. The subtle, yet significant difference is that the Timesplitters games don't have any footstep sounds, and enemies don't make sounds outside of scripted dialogue, getting hurt, and getting killed. So with zombies being the Personal Space Invaders they are, it's all too easy for a zombie to sneak up on you and be all up on your face. Fast zombies being a thing in the third game makes this all the more likely. And while those carrying firearms won't scare you from a distance, they pose a more objective threat.
• The 'prologue' cut-scene sequence in Siberia shows a likable duo of soldiers (Nikolai and, probably, Sgt. Shivers) investigating an ominous cave before being killed by a zombie. When you later enter the same cavern they died in, you can find the same duo shambling mindlessly towards you.
• The entirety of the Robot Factory in TS2. It's already the most difficult story mission in the game, but there are robots that pop out of pods that act as suicide bombers. They just creep towards you ominously until you destroy them or they destroy you. The dark, hostile environment doesn't help.
• In Arcade Mode, 'Virus' mode. Paranoia Fuel at its finest, and god help you if you don't have a radar. The virus spreads and spreads and if you get tagged, you've lost the match. Alarming if you're in the open, absolutely frightening when in enclosed maps. It's at its worst in Timesplitters 2, where the movement is far more faster-paced, the enemies are far more likely to get caught in the virus, and there's no Geiger-counter to help you along.
• The Game Over Music in TimeSplitters 2. Just click restart or go back unless you want to hear a Drone of Dread followed by inhuman groaning.
• While there are a couple sections in the Notre Dame Cathedral stage of the second game where flaming zombies rush you while you're climbing a spiral staircase, the true terrors of that level are the changelings. You are rescuing beautiful young maidens when all of a sudden one attacks you, revealing a hideous face similar to that of a Spitter.
• In the third game Jo-Beth gets separated from you. The next time you see her, it turns out to be a changeling. And it's not the only one down there.
• From TimeSplitters 3, the child's room. Interestingly enough, this section is after a good 20 minutes of the level being genuinely terrifying to a degree. The section mentioned there? It's part of a very, very small section deliberately designed to invoke, what else, Nothing Is Scarier. You go into it expecting zombies to surprise you, cautiously search through a few rooms (finding a LOT of horror references), get confident that you're not in a dangerous area, so you go around opening cupboards and closets looking for health and ammo. At the end of that hallway, a zombie randomly bursts out of a cabinet for no apparent reason. Why was there a zombie hiding in that cabinet? Because there was.
• The Carrion Carcass enemies. Mutilated cow zombies that look like they jumped off the hooks in a meat factory. In other words, they have no heads^note Although they have a head hitbox in their neck stub, and are sliced open vertically all the way down, with their innards removed. Made even worse in that one challenge has you facing an endless horde of them, and it's not as simple as beheading the undead.
• The Deerhaunter, a mounted deer head that breaks out of the wall on a skinless body with hooks for hands and starts attacking you.
• Toward the beginning of TS3's first mansion level, two scientists are found hanging onto a tree in a courtyard with Tremors-esque worm creatures burrowing underground. One scientist attempts to make a mad dash for the mansion, but is quickly eaten by a worm. Complete with his bone-chilling screams of pain and fear, and his friend's devastated cry. Strangely, when the other scientist is rescued, he doesn't seem particularly upset and doesn't mention his colleague at all, leading to speculation that the other scientist can actually be saved.
• Some of the characters will let out blood-chilling screams if they are killed by weapons like the Flamethrower or Flare Gun.
• The way that the time machine in the first two games operates seems to be somewhere in-between Puppeteer Parasite and Grand Theft Me. It is not explained to what extent either trope applies, but the scenario very much exists of you waking up covered in blood surrounded by the corpses of fifty people with absolutely no memory of how you got there. Or worse, knowing full well what is happening but not being able to stop yourself as the Player forces you to commit murder in the name of recovering a shiny crystal.

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