Nightmare Fuel / Unreal Tournament

• The very backstory of the game itself. It's basically the glorification of mid-age Rome's Colosseum battles for profit which started as a way to control infighting between workers.
• Something that's alluded to in taunts in both this game and future titles is that even despite all the measures in place, the combatants are still dying horrible, painful, grisly deaths and then revived to feel it all over again for entertainment, fully remembering the experience. The fact that, in certain cases, there have been matches where respawning is disabled; that is honestly more of a Mercy Kill for those that can't handle it.
• The Necris were introduced in this game. Just everything about them, even without the Nanoblack around, is chilling in some way.
  • Kragoth's description in the Deathmatch ladder refers to the race as "a broad of assassins and doomsday cultists who have declared a sort of guerilla war against the Earth", several years before we were shown an actual Necris invasion in Unreal Tournament III.
  • Deathmatch combatant Slain's description (and Demo Deathmatch ladder's Kregore, who share the description word-by-word, both of them not to be confused with Raw Steel members Slain and Kregore) mentions that the First Necris Invasion happened some time before the events of this game.
• Several of the combatant's descriptions are this, if you read between the implications.
  • Luthienne's is especially chilling for those who cared to follow the plot of the ISV-Kran in Unreal, being one of the few survivors of the Skaarj/Krall raid on the eponymous ship.
  • Arkoth 24 was brainwashed in order to serve Xan Kriegor.
  • Criminals and deranged psychopaths are some of the Tournament's favorite warriors, and you will face them constantly.
  • The sole fact that they added "fighting in the Tournament" as a penal sentence, basically doing what Gamer did several years later.
  • Other times, it is poor and/or working class people with financial problems (or even worse, slaves) the ones who resort to Tournament fighting in order to make it to the end of the month.
  • The fact that New York City has been reconstructed (as in "Reconstructed New York"). Kinda makes you wonder how everything fell.
  • Unlike later games, The Corrupt (Xan's unplayable team) is composed by warrior slaves instead of robots. Especially chilling considering some of the descriptions in the Deathmatch ladder (where some of the combatants are explicitly brainwashed and had their memories deleted) and the fact that every one of them bleeds red.
  • The N.E.G. shows up as an oppressive world domination force in some descriptions such as Kyla's (who was forced to fight in the Tournament after being found guilty of masterminding a miner rebellion).
  • Iron Guard member Johnson's description mentions the re-establishment of slavery. Or, at the very least, that black market slavery, despite (or, worse, because of) the N.E.G.'s stated omnipresence, still remains a problem.
  • Near the end of the Console ladder, you're forced to face Dominator; a pure blood Skaarj warrior. Not the Hybrids, a real Skaarj! How did Liandri manage to get one?!
• Not to mention the maps.
  • Think of the Royal Library of Alexandria. Now switch any of its destructions for the discovery of a magma river below it. That's basically the backstory of the Codex of Wisdom.
  • For facilities, well, probably the OSHA ceased to exist prior to the Tournament, or was absorbed by Liandri as a committee for arena dangerousness rating. Many of the battles take place in several facilities with all kinds of dangers such as pressure chambers and molten metal pits.
  • Liandri has no qualms about stripping temples out of civilizations and people who hold them sacred, either being the Nali (Arcane Temple), the Nipi monks of Nepal (Peak) or other races (Eternal Cave, Olden Aquifer), for the sake of the Tournament. Some of them even have the implications that Liandri found them "valuable and entertaining" after the accidental deaths of workers.
  • Other places became arenas after plagues (Sepulchre) and viruses (Hydro Bases) annihilated a large part of its population or staff.
  • Because Batman Can Breathe in Space, one might wonder what could happen to anybody who fell out the asteroid-based maps (Facing Worlds, Orion's Barricade) the platform-based maps (Floating Pyramid, Space Noxx) or even the skyscraper maps (Morpheus, The Cranes).
  • And because moving arenas with the risk of falling and getting gibbed on contact with the floor are still considered entertainments, we have the Assault arena High Speed.
  • Combine a high speed arena with the space, and you have Xan's own ship and arena, Hyperblast.
  • The sole fact Liandri managed to recreate the assault on Normandy beach, complete with mortars and autocannons.
  • Kosov Canon isn't particularly horrifying, until someone gets knocked into the water. Plenty of maps have acid or lava that will instantly kill you, but the water on Kosov takes several seconds. It is possible to get out before you die, but if you get knocked too far, there's nothing but what must be an agonizing death.

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