Unreal Championship features a Crapsack World set After the End when humanity was all but enslaved and almost wiped-out due to the invasion of the Overseers, making them an even worse force than the already frightening Skaarj.
The ending of the game forces you to kill your teammates in a free-for-all, only, out of the camera, for you to be encased in a people jar to witness others fighting for the rest of your life, with the only redeeming factor is that you got shot in a crossfire.
Several of the characters' descriptions, when not directly chilling, are frightening when reading between the lines:
Faraleth: a Death Seeker who had to witness her entire clan being extinguished because of a human plague known as the Crimson Scourge.
Nebri: Her face was disfigured by an Arborean predator, forcing her to wear a mask.
Just about anything about the Automatons, with things like their own combat-oriented features:
Thorax has possession of what's called "digital immortality".
Mandible slaughtered 76 people (one of them implied to be its own creator) in just three days.
Syzygy's "bleeding edge" description is ambiguous enough, yet still terrifying.
Ginsu can track you by your DNA, meaning that no trick is enough to avoid him when he chases you.
Corrosion was a former human who sought to rule at the side of the Overseer Emperor turned into an automaton against its own will.
Rapier had mercy at one point, but "this feature was removed from the last OS update".
The Juggernauts are no slouches either:
Diva has a life sentence on the Allerian Ice Mines after cutting the hands of a briber.
Reinha became another Death Seeker after her husband's death in a mining accident.
Ambrosia strangled a judge in a fit of adrenaline-induced rage. In 2003 she also had to endure Gorge's nasty advances.
Siren has tree DNA spliced directly into her genes.
Gorge has no problems in using his own fists to destroy his opposition. This rudeness also let him to become the Tournament champion, breaking Malcolm's winning streak and spine.
Cannonball is described as the offspring between a trash compactor and a tank: big, ugly and with the personality of a rabid grizzly.
And finally, the Nightmares. The game's take on the Black Legion team is even more frightening than the already frightening Necris, composed mostly of failed experiments.
Domina is an assassin working for the Overseer Empire who has the ability to ferret treason before its committed, by hearing guilty thoughts and find the threads of dissent woven deep into the DNA. Her description closes with "if the shadows speak to you in a child's voice one day, run, and never stop running as long as you have breath in your body".
Fate was a rebel who lost her legs on an attack towards an Overseer medical supply transport and was sentenced to deletion of personality, with both her mind and body being rebuilt.
Brutalis was part of an experiment to hybridize human and taratic DNA in order to create a highly intelligent killing machine. Needless to say, the project Gone Horribly Right.
Unlike Mr. Crow, Harlequin is a more frightening Monster Clown, complete with decoration.
As usual, several of the maps are located in nasty areas with horrifying backstories:
BR-Endagra takes place in a cold, desolate wasteland of permafrost and broken stone. Priorhand, it was an endless field of obsidian left behind by the volcanic activity of a young planet. Either way, it's NOT a nice place to live.
CTF-Citadel can be described as two death castles atop several mountains, filled with Spikes of Villainy and overall eerie ambience.
The Allerian Ice Sharks from DM-Aqua_Mortis and DM-Vidona. In the former the water is practically lethal.
The final fate of the losers in DM-Flux2: they enter cryostasis "the hard way".
DM-Inferno. Possibly the evilest arena of the game, as its set into Hell itself, with even a musical theme designed to chill up your bones.
DM-Insidious's description: the dark world of the Overseer Inquisition, and the only companions of the combatants are the ghosts of the innocent. See the tanks in one of the sides of the stage? That's where your Player Character ends once all is said and done.
As peaceful and natural as the rest of the Arborea settings are, some of them have dark secrets.
The weaponry has some frightening backstories adding to their in-game effects:
The Shield Gun's plasma wave (its primary fire) inflicts massive damage, rupturing tissue, pulverizing organs and flooding the bloodstream with dangerous gas bubbles.
The reason why the Translocator has charges? The rapid deresolution and constitution of the body had several side effects such as increases in aggression and paranoia, as well as increased probabilities of respiratory and cardiac arrest. Artifacts of synaptic disruption accumulate in the biological snapshot of the individual, leading to Teleportation Related Dementia (TReDs), an incurable disease that has stricken some of the Tournament's greatest champions.
The Link Gun, should it kill an enemy with its alternate fire, leaves only its skeleton behind. This is tempered by the fact that you cannot kill your teammates because of its team damage boosting abilities.
The Flak Cannon received the ironic codename of "Negotiator". Its ionized flechettes (primary fire) deliver second and third-degree burns to organic tissue, cauterizing the wound instantly.
