Nowhere is safe from their violence, least of all a church
World's End relies heavily on black comedy and cartoonishly exaggerated violence to keep things from getting too heavy. Despite that, there are a few moments that cross the line into unsettling territory.
From Chapter 1
- Boris Beleyav, although being evil is hammy personified, comes across as very disturbing. Whether it's his red eyes, unkempt, unnaturally alert face, or the way he casually mentions to his pharmacist that he will harvest his endocrine system if he fails to keep him high, nothing about this psychotic stoner feels right. Not to mention the squick involved with some of his attacks, which include gutting you with a butcher knife, Playing with Syringes and flinging his own enema water at you.
- In Episode 3, Tevoran attempts to infiltrate the Church of Ecthain by pretending to be a beggar. When that fails, he smashes the stained glass window, leaps through, and cleaves a guard in half from head to groin instead. You can see his entrails bleeding out for the rest of the fight. The guard never had a chance to react, and this is arguably the first time Tevoran & Co. are shown flat out murdering someone who showed no aggression towards them. It's easily the most graphically violent scene in the whole of Chapter 1, and possibly the whole series.
- Tevoran's response to this butchery, as seen above, is potentially just as chilling. He describes slicing a man in half the way he would grabbing the mail. If you had any lingering doubts that Tevoran & Co. might just be down on their luck but decent mercenaries caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, this moment shattered it.
- The way the Redshields can take punishment and just keep getting up is unnerving. Not even running them over with a train is enough to kill them.
From Chapter 2
- The battles in Episode 6-1 and 6-2 can be this for someone with a arachnophobia. Spiders the size of cats that move with uncanny animation and even more bizarrely, all have names, implying intelligence.
- In game, players quickly learn to dread spiders in spite of their diminutive size, as they move fast, attack relentlessly, and all too often carry nasty status effects with their bites.
- A bit of implied fridge horror concerning the walking pigmen. Although their origin is never directly explained, they all wear Voronese uniforms, their animations are virtually identical to Voro soldiers, and yet they fight on the side of Fallon, a Hrvaincais sorceress. Many have speculated that Fallon was turning Voro soldiers into pigs for fun.
- Some of Fallon's dialogue towards Aizu is eerily reminiscent of an abuser talking down to her victim. The fact that she calls Aizu her property does not help, nor that the normally emotionless, disinterested Aizu is adamant about not going with her.
- Vadim's death comes right out of nowhere, and it was a shock for many players that the characters you play as could die in such an abrupt, gruesome, and ignominious manner. From Vadim's perspective, this is doubly horrifying; no warning, no fight, no chance to brace for impact. One moment your pumping a dubious hellcar and the next you're impaled by a stalagmite with only seconds to scream out a final obscenity before dying. There's something truly horrifying about Vadim surviving all the overwhelming perils Tevoran & Co. wen through, only to die without a chance to fight back. Even more chilling is just how random the death was. Ivan never seems to appreciate the fact that it could have just as easily been he on the far side of the hellcar, and the same thing would have happened to him.
- The Cavern of Euphoria battles are creepy if just for the music. This is the only point where the soundtrack descends into cacaphony as demonic spiders and slimes overrun you.
- The sewer minions and the Sewer Shaman are more than a bit bizarre and disgusting. Just the idea of a blind hobo summoning plague ridden tentacle monsters up from rivers of feces, and...well, you get the idea.
From Chapter 3
- The poison gas battle from Episode 10-3 counts as one. The normally goofy looking Voro soldiers manage to look quite sinister in plague masks, combined the discordant soundtrack, menacing ambiance, and whole the idea of being gunned down in an ambush while choking to death is none too pleasant.
- The revelation that the brothel you were sent to infiltrate is a cover for a human slaughterhouse. Even Ysabel was disturbed by this one.
- Jedmesz Ludziret, full stop. Take everything that was disturbing about Boris Beleyav and amplify it by three. Morally depraved aristocrat, corrupt to the core, a revolting pig pen, unnaturally strong, and oh, he's a cannibal. He will literally hack chunks of flesh off of you and eat them during the middle of a fight to regain health. Heaven help you if you send anything but your tankiest fighters to go up against this monster.
- The hallucination scene in Episode 12-3 marks the first time the game descends fully into Body Horror territory, and damn if it isn't effective. Characters become unintelligible, Vera's eyes grow to the size of pumpkins while her nose disappears, Tevoran and Ysabel fuse into a single entity. The artwork is pants-shittingly creepy, and then Vadim shows up back from the dead. It's enough to make most veteran players slam their keyboard and yell, "What the hell is going on?"
- Shortly after this incident the series finally embraces it's Lovecraftian bent and we get to fight Nidh-Perquunos, a literal eldritch abomination. The appearance of the abomination is basically a sanguine Shoggoth, replete with eyes everywhere, mouths, tentacles...and human arms? With the implication from Aizu that this creature has burned countless lives. Added to the horror is that the Abomination seems to be operating via psychological combat just as much if not more than physical. Nidh-Perquunos isn't just trying to break your body, it wants to consume your soul. And it almost does with Ysabel.
- The battle in 14-3 seems too simple to be true. After decimating 20 soldiers on the palace steps, how could three drug addled members of the Arkanad court give you any trouble? And then Oskar(?) begins getting back up when you kill him, stronger and more savage than before. It was more than enough to throw most players off, and robbed many of their flawless victories.
- In 14-4, some of the dialogue and flavor text indicates what Aizu is going through psychologically as her powers awaken, and it's pretty brutal. Doubles as a tearjerker moment when you have to strike your old teammate down.Aizu: Just let me sleep.
