Characters / Days Gone

Main characters

Deacon

Deacon Lee St. John

Voiced by: Sam Witwer (English)^note Other Languages:Dmitry Polyanovsky (Russian)

"Do you know why we keep going? Because what the hell else are we going to do?"

A biker in the Mongrels MC, a native of Farewell, Oregon and a veteran of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, Deacon barely survived the opening days of the Freakers' outbreak. He now ekes out a living as a bounty hunter, doing jobs for the handful of survivors' communities that have risen in the years since the fall of civilization.

---

• All Bikers are Hells Angels: He and Boozer are explicitly one-percenter bikers, with their experience as outlaws being contributing to their ability to thrive in the collapse of society.
• Ambiguously Christian: While he dodges the question when directly asked if he believes in God, Deacon demonstrates a capable knowledge of Christian doctrine. He is able to recognise a vague reference to the Decollation of John the Baptist made by a NERO soldier, and corrects Colonel Garret when he claims that the story of Noah’s Ark comes from the Book of Revelation. In particular, he might come from a Mennonite background, as he seems annoyed by Weaver’s suggestion that Mennonites forbid music and snaps at him that they love music, it’s dancing that they don’t approve of.
• Anti-Hero: Deacon is willing to do whatever it takes to protect his loved ones in the apocalypse and is willing to help innocent survivors in need, but his brutality, anger, short-fused temper, and need for vengeance causes him to do things that leave his allies shook, such as drowning the entire Ripper camp after learning who Carlos really was, an act that Rikki, Iron Mike, and eventually even Boozer, his best friend and his partner in that act, were disturbed by.
• Anti-Nihilist: As noted in his quote above, he and Boozer keep moving forward because that's all that's left to do.
• Awesome McCoolname: According to Taylor, whose mind is completely blown by the name.
• Badass Biker: Deacon is a one-percenter biker who can craft weapons and use the environment around him in his quest to survive against the horde of zombies.
• Berserk Button: If Deacon sees you harm a woman, especially one who might not be able to defend herself on her own, you're pretty much already dead and just don't know it yet.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's not as nice as he used to be, but he's still a decent person. However, the horrors of the apocalypse and the loss of his wife have caused him to develop a deep well of anger that's frightening when unleashed upon bandits, Rippers and Freakers, whom he seems to take a savage glee in killing.
• Blood Knight: He has a streak of this at times clearly enjoying the violence he unleashes upon his foes.
• Book Dumb: A high-school dropout who didn't do well academically, but judging from the things he regards as collectibles, he seems to have a genuine interest in history, botany (thanks to Sarah), and other peoples' business.
• Bounty Hunter: He typically gets hired by the various camps to deal with troublemakers.
• Brains and Brawn: Played with. On the surface Deacon's a tough biker who never finished school and Sarah's a genius with two PhDs. However, he's more intelligent and sensitive than he appears and she's both tougher than she looks and a bit naïve.
• Cannot Spit It Out: While somewhat justifiably cautious, there are plenty of times in the story where Deacon could probably avoid several problems and arguments with other characters if he would just explain himself properly, or stop for a minute to provide details on what he's learned or how he knows something. And every single time, Deacon will avoid doing this, tell a half-truth, or outright lie about something and make things that much harder on himself. It becomes especially egregious when Skizzo is accusing him of being a criminal to get Colonel Garret to execute him, and Deacon maintains he doesn't know who Skizzo is instead of explaining that it's Skizzo himself who is a traitor and saboteur.
• Character Development: Deacon starts the story as a hardened and cold survivor who believes that caring about people will just get you killed. But as he begins to grow closer and work with other survivors, Deacon learns that caring about people can make you stronger and that not caring can get you killed just as easily (just as it got the selfish Skizzo killed at the end). He also slowly becomes slightly more hopeful and kind, especially after finding Sarah and a newfound purpose for living.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: As Days Gone is a Stealth Sequel to Syphon Filter, Bend's previous game series, Deacon is this to Gabriel Logan, the hero of the Syphon Filter games. Both are ex-U.S. Army soldiers who served in Afghanistan and are the Anti-Hero main protagonist of their games, though Logan served in the Soviet Afghan War while Deacon served at an unknown U.S. campaign in Afghanistan akin to The War On Terror. But unlike Logan who actively works with the IPCA, a governmental organization, and is actively operating in stopping Synthetic Plagues including the titular Syphon Filter virus, Deacon is extremely antagonistic against government agencies like NERO and instead affiliates mostly with survivors from survivor camps across Oregon, showing unbridled disgust towards NERO for being ignorant of the Freaker outbreak. While Logan is a Celibate Hero and is unmarried, Deacon is married to Sarah Whitaker. Logan emphasizes lethal stealth in combat while Deacon is forefront in attacking enemies front and center, preferring More Dakka.
• Crazy Sane: He tends to talk to himself while taking down camps or stalking enemies, or just when he's alone, but otherwise comes off as reasonable and well-adjusted. It seems to be his way of coping with the constant danger he's in.
• Create Your Own Villain: He and Boozer are partially responsible for the Rippers, as "Carlos" is actually a former member of their MC that he helped restrain as he got his tattoos removed via blowtorch. This drove Jessie insane and led him to create a cult of lunatics.
• Deadpan Snarker: Before the apocalypse he had a pretty sharp tongue and clever sense of humor—now it's not so much "deadpan" as "bitter".
• Death by Childbirth: Not Deacon himself (obviously) but his mother, who barely lived long enough to give him his first name.
• Death Seeker: It is heavily implied he has a death wish due to his reckless actions and several characters suggest it.
• Demolitions Expert: His Army company was trained in demolitions, and he's able to tell Boozer where to plant dynamite in order to take down a dam.
• The Exile:
  • Prior to the events of the game, Deacon was exiled from the Lost Lake Encampment by its leader "Iron" Mike because they scouted survivors to send to Ada Tucker's harsh work camp, which Mike saw as tantamount to selling her slaves. It's also implied to have been partly due to Mike and his peaceful ways being at odds with Deacon's Blood Knight tendencies and the tension thereof. He is not pleased when Deacon is forced to return to the camp in order to get medical aid for Boozer, but grudgingly accepts them so long as Deacon works for the camp.
  • And then just when he and Deacon were mending fences and getting to understand each other, Deacon goes and drowns the Ripper camp, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Deacon coincidentally needing to go south to find Sarah, Mike agrees to take him on a trail to Southern Oregon as long as he never comes back.
• Expy: Deacon St. John and Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead have a lot in common, such as both being badass bikers, expert trackers, hardened loners, and are both good with a crossbow. He also has a bit of Jax Teller in him, best shown through his relationship with Sarah.
• Famed In-Story: At one point he lampshades this, noting that he and Boozer had made something of a name of themselves in northern Oregon with their exploits.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: His skills are justified as him being a soldier before the apocalypse.
• I Did What I Had to Do: His attitude towards drowning the Ripper HQ. Noticeably, he never budges from this stance, even though he expresses much remorse for mutilating Jessie/Carlos which put them on the path of insanity.
• Ink-Suit Actor: He heavily resembles Sam Witwer, especially when he was clean-shaven.
• Irony: Once the player gets all of the 18 IPCA Tech pieces, Deacon will have the IPCA Stun Gun. IPCA is a governmental agency and Deacon is known to be antagonistic towards them including NERO.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Deacon can seem cold and pragmatic when interacting with people, but in the end, he does what he can to help his friends and any other innocent survivors. His interactions with Lisa and the puppy he got for Boozer are clear signs he cares deeply about other people but prefers not to let anyone in the post-apocalyptic world he lives in see his softer side.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Deacon is resigned in the belief that everybody will eventually die and there's no point trying to fight the freakers, especially after losing Sarah at the start of the game. However, that doesn't stop him from helping anybody he comes across.
• Like Brother and Sister: He sees Sarah's little sister as being his own sister.
• The Lost Lenore: He's constantly looking for any information of Sarah even after seeing how billions of other people have died or become monsters in the aftermath of the outbreak.
• Made of Iron: Even before the outbreak, in one of the flashback missions, Deacon manages to shrug off a beating from three guys. After the outbreak, he goes through one of the trickier parts of the game after Carlos takes an acetylene torch to his arm.
• Mercy Kill:
  • Deacon, after offering a dying Leon a quick death in exchange for the location of drugs he stole for Copeland, shoots him in the head to keep him from being torn apart and eaten alive by a Horde.
  • After Wade accidentally kills Doctor Jiminez while trying to steal drugs from the infirmary, Deacon tracks him down and discovers Wade is crying on the floor of an old ski resort cabin, broken and fearing his imminent hanging at the hands of Colonel Garret and the Milita. Wade begs Deacon not to let them hang him and so Deacon kills Wade via drug overdose to save him from that fate.
  • When Deacon and Skizzo sneak into Ripper territory to find detonation cords for a plan to seal a Horde living in a cave near Lost Lake, they find a woman that had been tortured and left for the Freakers by the Rippers. After they cut her down and see that her legs are broken, thus meaning she can't go any further before Freakers or more Rippers arrive, Deacon suffocates her to death while telling the woman "it's going to be okay". Deacon sounds heartbroken to have to do this to a woman, considering his moral code against hurting or killing unarmed women.
  • Deacon mercy kills a dog Boozer had found after Rippers hunted the dog down and shot it for no reason. Refusing to leave the dog to suffer, Deacon put it out of its misery.
• Missing Mom: Deacon's mother died in childbirth, although she was able to give him his name first. (Deacon mentions it in the completion text for one of Wade's missions.)
• Mr. Fixit: He talks about having worked as a mechanic before the Apocalypse, and is pretty adept at fixing things with scrap, though it seems he leaves more dedicated repairs and alterations to his bike to practicing mechanics.
• Motor Mouth: Deacon is prone to angrily muttering his thoughts out loud, typically commenting on his current situation or responding to someone. He's also uneasy in conversation with strangers and tends to trail on, even if he could just say a simple "yes" or "no".
• The Mourning After: Never got over the death of Sarah. Others call out the fact that it's stunting his decision-making - Deacon can't (or won't) focus on the future in any way, focusing solely on the "now".
• My Greatest Failure: Deacon's past being a "recruiter" for Tucker's camp in exchange camp credits. Given that Tucker effectively runs her camp as a Prison Camp, Deacon doesn't take it too well whenever anyone refers to that period of his life as him essentially "capturing slaves" for Tucker.
  • Deacon's participation in Jessie's torture and violent rejection from the MC led to Jessie becoming Carlos and founding the Rippers. He did not take the revelation well upon meeting Carlos/Jessie face-to-face.
• Nice Guy: Before the apocalypse, Deacon was someone with a bit of a rough side but was overall a kind-hearted gentleman who helped Sarah back when she was only a stranger to him, respected his girlfriend's dedication to her work, and was even willing to be less involved in the Mongrels in an effort to get Sarah's family to come to their wedding. The only time he was ever not so nice was when he was provoked, such as when a security guard at Sarah's workplace disrespected him when he tried picking her up to teach her to ride or when a couple of red necks nearly rode him and Sarah off the road before messing with Sarah's rental car. Even on the night of the apocalypse, he tried to reason with a man driven over the edge by the death of his wife before being forced to kill him when the man blamed Deacon for his wife's death and nearly shot him in the face.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: One of his in-jokes with Sarah was pretending not to know about something elementary/obvious and tricking her into explaining it to him.
• One-Man Army:
  • The game depicts Hordes as a relentless threat, with dozens, if not hundreds of rabid freakers in each colony, and are best avoided at all costs. Even if you don't do any of the optional missions, Deacon takes a Horde out by himself four separate times over the course of the story, by using speed, the environment, and homebrewed explosives.
  • Once you have better weapons and explosives, Deacon is able to take out every horde in the game all by himself.
  • During the final mission in the main game, Deacon's plan to besiege Wizard Island hinges upon him and Boozer driving a truck bomb in through the front gate as a distraction, while the entirety of the rest of his assembled forces hit the other entrance. In other words, the whole plan hinges upon Deacon being able to hold up one front of the battle by himself, since Boozer's effectively a noncombatant. It works.
• Perma-Stubble: Has this after shaving his Beard of Sorrow. It grows thicker towards the end of the game but never back to the same length as before.
• Rank Up: After joining the Milita, Colonal Garrett starts him with a rank higher than usual for new recruits, citing his military experience. This allows Deacon to have a bit more freedom to explore the region and compete errands.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: After Sarah is taken prisoner by Colonel Garret and his men, Deacon organises and launches a major offensive against the militia camp, cutting a swath of death and destruction through any militiaman trying to get between him and Sarah, killing a treacherous Skizzo and finally Garret, before taking his remaining sympathisers prisoner and liberating the rest.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: He learned how to track people from Boozer, and is good enough to accurately determine the actions people were taking at certain locations. He also gets special training from Copeland about tracking and butchering deer. Depending on how you build him, his skills can get downright supernatural.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Downplayed. Deacon says outright that serving in Afghanistan messed him up and it seems he joined the Mongrels in the first place because he lacked structure after coming home, but he's well-adjusted in the flashbacks. In the present, it's implied the apocalypse is triggering his PTSD all the time - he's clearly stressed by social encounters, constantly talks to himself and is always on the edge around Freakers, even if other, less lethal characters keep their calm.
• Spider-Sense: Deacon can tell when enemies are nearby—this is shown to the player as red coloration on the minimap. He eventually also gets an upgrade which lets him sense enemy movement through walls...because being a good tracker gives you X-ray vision? Sure.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors: He and Boozer are still wearing their Mongrels regalia (down to the rings) long after the motorcycle club's been taken apart by the apocalypse.
• Super Drowning Skills: Deacon can only swim for a few seconds before death (presumably via panicking and drowning) is triggered. At the very end of the game he manages to overcome his mental block against water in order to swim to Wizard Island and rescue Sarah from the Militia.
• Super-Speed: Extremely downplayed, but Deacon can sprint a bit faster than most Freakers and even outpace them enough to huck a molotov or fire some shots.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • He's not very fond of Mark Copeland or Ada Tucker, but they all have a vested interest in helping people survive.
  • He also doesn't like working with NERO or doing missions for O'Brien, but that's the only way he can get information on whether Sarah is alive or dead.
• Time-Passage Beard: Deacon starts the game with a short beard that doubles as a Beard of Sorrow. When he goes back to Lost Lake with Boozer he shaves his beard into a Perma-Stubble that gradually grows thicker over the rest of the game but it never grows back to the length it was in the beginning.
• Took A Level In Cynicism: The Freaker collapse and the presumed death of his wife hardened him greatly.
• Undying Loyalty: To Boozer and Sarah, as these two are his entire world and think about harming either of them and you die, just look at Carlos and Skizzo.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While the R.I.P. cult existed before Carlos aka Jessie joined them, it's implied that he's the one who made them take their violent turn. Since Deacon and Boozer holding him down while Jack blowtorched his back is what drove Carlos murderously insane, it means that technically the three of them are indirectly responsible for all the deaths the cult caused.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: During his term in the army, the Humvee Deacon and his troop were riding in was hit by a repurposed anti-aircraft gun and flipped upside-down into the Hari River. Deacon was luckily thrown clear, and when he came to all he could do was dive under seven times to recover the bodies of his companions. After this he developed a mortal terror of being in water deep enough to swim in. This is represented in-game by giving him a very short timer to get back to land if he's in deep water and a game over if it runs out. He's forced to face this and overcome it, naturally.
• Would Not Hit a Girl: Has a personal code where he won't harm women unless outside of self-defense such as when fighting bandits or Rippers. He also extends this code to other people, and gets really pissed if he sees men attack an unarmed woman. It's implied that he used to play this completely straight, but time in the apocalypse has forced him to be pragmatic about it and only spare unarmed women.

Sarah

Sarah Irene Whitaker

Voiced by: Courtnee Draper (English)^note Other Languages:Polina Shcherbakova (Russian)

Sarah was a botanist before the outbreak. When she and Deacon got married, it scandalized both his friends and her family. In the chaos of the evacuation of Farewell, a little girl lashed out and stabbed her in the stomach, forcing Deacon to put her on a rescue helicopter alone. That was the last time he ever saw her.

---

• Action Girl: As a member of the Militia, she's trained with guns. She also uses a sleeper hold at one point, implying she's had hand-to-hand training as well.
• Badass Bookworm: Pharmaceutical researcher and A.K.A.-47-toting gunwoman who can keep up with her Action Hero husband.
• Character Development: When Deacon finds her, she's just dedicated to the militia without a thought of leaving with Deacon, but after being with Deacon again and seeing the Colonel's mental state cracking, she wants to escape and do anything she can to stop the true evil of the militia and end up with Deacon once again.
• Damsel out of Distress: After Deacon single-handedly cuts through half the Militia to rescue her, she's already poisoned Colonel Garret (who has her at gunpoint) with hemlock.
• First-Name Basis: She refers to Colonel Garret casually by his first name when talking about him, though she quickly checks herself when Deacon questions it.
• Guile Hero: By the time you get to the General in the final mission, Sarah's already killed him by spiking his herbal tea with water hemlock. If Deacon hadn't lived to reach the Ark, Sarah would've still effectively decapitated the militia.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: While everyone and Deacon are trying to kill the freakers, she's trying to cure them. This motivates Deacon to further help her with her projects.
• Ice Queen: Sarah cultivated this image after joining the militia. Coupled with her being known as a genius who was allegedly working on a bioweapon, this led to her gaining the appellation of "Wizard Island Witch".
• It's All My Fault: Sarah doesn't take it too well when she learns that her research was used by her company to help create the Freaker virus. Or that she ignored the lowly intern who'd break in to expose it and instead became Patient Zero who spread it to the entire world.
• Like Brother and Sister: Sees Boozer as the big brother she never had.
• The Lost Lenore: She was once Happily Married with Deacon, but he presumed her dead after finding out the refugee camp she was supposed to be evacuated to was massacred by Freakers. Two years later, it turns out Sarah is alive and was taken to another camp.
• Male Gaze: One flashback has Deacon pointedly staring at and quipping about her rear when she was bent over, and Weaver comments that she "has a fine ass".
• Nerds Are Sexy: Bring conventionally attractive helps, but it's clear that Deacon loves her for her brains as much as her body.
• Brains and Brawn: As outlined with Deacon.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Her parents went no-contact after she married Deacon, and Boozer was the only "family member" present. It seems they also kept her younger sister from attending as well.
• Sarcasm-Blind: She always fell for Deacon's sarcastic jokes. And she still does 2 years later.
• Took a Level in Badass: Pre-Apocalypse, a sweet, smart scientist lady who was terrified of even holding a gun. Post-Apocalypse, joined the Deschutes County Milita, learned how to use a rifle, and has gone on a number of supply runs herself. She also learned how to do a sleeper hold and has apparently seen enough combat that killing a group of Marauders doesn't even phase her.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: At the end of the game, despite spending the last third finding Sarah and rescuing her, she just vanishes from the game entirely with only some NPC dialogue about her here and there. It became such an issue among gamer complaints that Patch 1.60 made it so she can now be found in Lost Lake sitting next to Boozer.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist:
  • Sure, the government was using some of her research, but they totally weren't gonna use it to make bioweapons! They even signed a contract saying they wouldn't!
  • Despite the world gone insane and surrounded by overly-zealous, almost unhinged militia people, she still believes in curing the freakers, and continues to consider them as people, not monsters.

Boozer

William "Boozer" Grey

Voiced by: Jim Pirri (English)^note Other Languages:Denis Stroyev (Russian)

Deacon's best friend and the only other surviving member of the Mongrels motorcycle club, Boozer has joined Deacon in his post-outbreak career as a bounty hunter. He's badly injured at the start of the game, however, which forces Deacon to start improvising.

---

• An Arm and a Leg: Requires his right arm to be amputated after he’s injured by a group of Rippers and catches septicaemia.
• Bash Brothers: Clearly has this relationship with Deacon.
• Call to Agriculture: Eventually, after losing his arm, he starts to think that being a farmer at Lost Lake sounds like a nice life.
• Disney Death: Appears to be killed driving the truck bomb to the front gate of Wizard Island, but it's very soon after revealed that he jumped out at the last moment. He even lampshades it.
  Boozer: "You didn't think I was gonna blow myself up, didya?"
• Face of a Thug: Boozer is built like a brick shithouse, has a sinister-looking goatee and is covered in tattoos, looking much more like the biker stereotype than Deacon. Of the two, he's more sensitive and friendly with a massive love for dogs.
• Handicapped Badass: He was able to beat up Deacon with only one arm.
• Hook Hand: After losing his arm, he gets fitted with a prosthetic hook that gets switched out with various tools over the game, such as a knife and a scoop for changing truck gears.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Picture Jim Pirri with a clean-shaven, tattooed skull and a goatee, and you've got Boozer.
• Irony: Boozer's rank in the MC, as evidenced by his cut, is "sergeant-at-arms." By the end of the game, it's probably more like sergeant-at-arm.
  • He also becomes the new Head of Security for Lost Lake after kicking out Skizzo.
• Leeroy Jenkins: When he's teamed up with you in battle, after getting a blade for a hand he tends to charge straight for foes. Which can be kind of annoying if you prefer to snipe your enemies from a distance and he keeps fouling your shots and there's no way to tell him to fall back and argh argh argh.
• Like Brother and Sister: Sees Deacon as his brother, and when Deacon hooked up with Sarah, he came to see her as a sibling, too.
• The Lost Lenore: Boozer is a widower. Late in the game, you can find a photo of his wife Joany in his house in Lost Lake. It's not mentioned in the main game what happens to her, but if you go to the storylines section and read some of the descriptions for the missions, it's mentioned that Joany died after a bike crash as a result of Boozer riding while drunk, which made him extremely guilt-ridden. You can find a memorial to her on Highway 97, near where you start the Chemult Horde mission.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Pretty much. His real name is used here and there (mostly by Addy), but he's predominantly called Boozer.
  Deacon: "His name is William, or Bill, I've always called him Boozer.....don't ask me why."
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Used to spend a lot of time hunting elk with his uncle and taught Deacon everything he knows about hunting and butchering prey at the start of the game.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: His personal gun is a Mossberg 500 Cruiser simply known as "Boozer's Shotgun". He lets Deacon borrow it during the intro missions and gives it to him for good partway through his personal questline.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors: As with Deacon, above.
• Tattooed Crook: Boozer resembles a typical biker thug, but is a subversion, as his lifestyle as a bounty hunter is comparatively more legitimate than the raiders he hunts and his less-overtly-tattooed partner, Deacon is much more hot-headed.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: A justified example. He gradually becomes more mean-spirited and hot-tempered the worse his arm gets as his judgment is clouded from battling septicemia. He quickly becomes his normal self again after recovering from the amputation.
• Vitriolic Best Buddies: He and Deacon constantly snipe jokes at each other, but are practically brothers who love each dearly, and would do anything for each other.

Copeland's Camp

Copeland

Mark Copeland

Voiced by: Crispin Freeman (English)^note Other Languages:Ilya Isaev (Russian)

Leader of his survivor's camp. Before and after the Freaker outbreak, Copeland is a very strong believer in American constitutionalism, believing that the U.S. Constitution took precedence over the laws of the day. He even runs his own conspiracy radio show, Radio Free Oregon.

---

• The Cavalry: If Deacon has max Trust with Copeland's Camp, Copeland shows up at the end with his men from the encampment as reinforcements for Deacon's assault on the Militia base.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Most of his conspiracies are actually about 90% right on the mark, and the only reason he isn't 100% is just due to not having all of the info.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Copeland claims that he foresaw the coming of the Freaker outbreak, and strongly believes that the Federal government was responsible for causing the outbreak, and that NERO's sudden return is their attempt to reclaim what is left of the United States. He is at least right about the Freaker virus being created by the government. Deacon and Iron Mike are pretty annoyed with Copeland's conspiracy theories in which they deride him as a truther.
• Crazy Survivalist: John Garvin stated that Copeland is based on every Pro-Second Amendment rights activist he knew growing up.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: After NERO helicopters have killed six of his men and wounded more, he declares that anyone he finds working with them is going to be both hanged and quartered while they're still alive.
• Death of a Child: He lost his son Christopher (nicknamed Christy) at some point prior to the game.
• Honor Before Reason: At one point Manny insists on going on a supply run, and although he tries to persuade him otherwise Copeland lets him go (with some helpers, obviously) and the mechanic gets captured by raiders. Deacon is scornful, but Copeland says he doesn't tell people how to live their lives.
• Hypocrite: When he and his group take resources or territory from others, it's righteous "conquest". When people take stuff from them, it's "robbery" and punishable by death.
• Insistent Terminology: If Copeland's people come across things that aren't currently in use and take it for his camp, it's "salvage", not stealing.
• Jumped at the Call: One thing becomes evident as you listen to more episodes of Radio Free Oregon: Copeland is loving this. He's an apocalypse prepper who actually got an apocalypse, and is riding high on "I told you so."
• Kick the Dog: It's all but outright stated that, knowing Deacon and Boozer's bikes on sight, he deliberately scrapped Deacon's bike as a way to get him to run missions for his camp.
• Pet the Dog:
  • If Deacon does enough for his camp, he will call him up on the radio and give a genuine apology for scrapping his bike. He also teaches Deacon a better way to skin animals to get more of the meat.
  • Partway through the game, Deacon and Boozer's safe house is discovered by Copeland's men. Rather than "salvage" everything, he tells Deacon about what his men found and subtly implies that he knows something had been wrong with Boozer.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: As part of his "Might Makes Right" beliefs, he thinks that the trampling of Native American culture is completely justified since it proved that they were weak.
• Properly Paranoid: He's dead on the money when he accuses the government of causing the outbreak. Though he is wrong about the Freaker virus being "foreign" made in which Deacon lampshades that if Copeland knew that the virus originated in his home state then he would have a heart attack.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: During the disaster he called NERO's refugee camps "death camps", because his distrust of the government led him to believe they existed for some nefarious, potentially fatal purpose. When the Freakers started showing up en masse, those camps ended up as all-you-can-eat buffets. So they died, but not because of the government, right? Well... in at least one case when Freaker Hordes were on the way, NERO bugged out without so much as warning the thousands of refugees in their camps, let alone letting at least a few (such as children) ride to safety in their vehicles. Which, given what we see of NERO, isn't exactly atypical behavior.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: His grandfather took him deer hunting quite a bit in his youth, and he became adept at hunting and butchering deer meat.
• Straw Character: He's a stereotypical anarcho-libertarian with extreme anti-government beliefs. While Deacon treats him as little more than a loon reveling in being vindicated by the world going to hell, Cope is also treated as mostly right as far as the government goes.
• The Extremist Was Right: Via his radio program, he spent years warning people to make preparations for a disaster, using Aesop's fable of "The Ant and the Grasshopper" as an example. Although as Deacon notes, once the disaster actually hit many who did the same still got killed for their supplies, so the parable doesn't exactly hold.
• Voice of the Resistance: He expresses his conspiracy-fueled and extreme libertarian beliefs on his radio station. He begins his tagline "The Truth Shall Set You Free" and ends with "Don't believe the lies."

Manny

Manny Mendez

Voiced by: Andrew Kishino (English)^note Other Languages:Sergey Smirnov (Russian)

The official mechanic for Copeland's camp selling motorcycle parts as well as providing refuel and repair services

---

• Big Damn Heroes: Despite not being a fighter, he shows up as part of Copeland's reinforcements at the end of the game.
• Catchphrase: "Keep your nose down, they feed ya."
• The Lost Lenore: Probably. He keeps a card from a lady who calls him a stud among his personal belongings, but we learn nothing else.
• Mr. Fixit: He's a source of both bike maintenance and upgrades.
• Non-Action Guy: Largely, yes. At one point he feels that he's not doing enough for the camp and decides to tag along on a supply run—only to get captured by marauders. Deacon warns him away from trying that again, telling him that anyone can shoot a gun, but people with Manny's skills are a rarity. Nevertheless, he joins the final battle—and survives.

Hot Springs Encampment

Tucker

Ada Tucker

Voiced by: Dee Dee Rescher (English)^note Other Languages:Olga Kuznetsova (Russian)

Leader of Hot Springs Encampment. Under her rule, all the survivors in the settlement must work to earn their keep.

---

• Black-and-Grey Morality: How many evil things can you do (forcing the residents of your camp to work backbreaking hours in exchange for food while refusing to let them leave and having armed guards beat them for objecting to any of it) while still having a fundamentally good motivation (the camp keeps people safe and the work has to be done if they want to stay fed and healthy)?
• Enemies List: She's got an actual "Who can I trust?" list with a lot of marked out names, little notes and question marks. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
• Evil Old Folks: Ada is one poisonous old lady.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Briefly shows what appears to be a kinder side when Deacon brings back Lisa, a young girl who used to live up the street from her, embracing her and calling her survival a miracle. Then when Deacon tries to ask her to go easy on the traumatized girl, she makes it clear she intends to work Lisa just as harshly as everyone else and mocks Deek for getting "soft." When later (falsely) informed of Lisa's death, she only rues losing a worker.
  • However in a later side mission when taking out a Ripper Camp, she does sound more vicious in her desire for Deacon to kill them all, noting how they killed Lisa as her reason.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: If less dramatically than The Colonel. Deacon believes she's in the process of doing this - trying so hard to keep people alive that she's losing perspective on what a life worth living is like.
• The Lost Lenore: You can find her husband's suicide note if you go back to her house in Marion Forks.
• Wardens Are Evil: Prior to the outbreak, Tucker previously worked in prison as a matron of the women's ward. She applied her work experience on her camp, which she sees it no different from running prison.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: So far, whatever you think of her methods of doing so, she's still one of the rare people with the skillset and personality to be able to build something to keep humans safe from Freakers.

Alkai

Alkai Turner

Voiced by: Jonathan Joss (English)^note Other Languages:Alexander Hoshabaev (Russian)

Ada Tucker's second-in-command, Alkai is also the gun merchant for the Hot Springs encampment.

---

• Arms Dealer: He's the primary vendor for weapons for the early parts of the game.
• Beleaguered Assistant: He takes a lot of heat from Ada whenever something goes wrong, but sticks by her nonetheless.
• The Cavalry: If Deacon has max Trust level with the Hot Springs, Alkai shows up at the end with fighters from the Hot Springs as reinforcements for Deacon's assault on the Militia base.
• Token Evil Teammate: Sort of. Alkai himself never seems like too bad a guy (not that Deacon ever does anything but buy supplies from him), but Deacon is astonished to see him and other representatives of the Hot Springs camp ride to Lost Lake to join him for the final assault. Deacon's relationship with Tucker growing increasingly sour over what a (all but literal) slavedriver she is, it might have made sense for them to sit this one out.

Lost Lake Camp

Iron Mike

"Iron" Mike Wilcox

Voiced by: Eric Allan Kramer (English)^note Other Languages:Igor Staroseltsev (Russian)

A former forest ranger and leader of the Lost Lake Camp.

---

• Big Good: Serves as the moral center for the Lost Lake camp as well as being the most stable and idealistic of the Camp leaders, and clearly influences Deacon's cynical outlook.
• Child Hater: Mike mentions (when talking about the Newts) that he never did like kids much as they got on his nerves, which had been always a point of contention between him and his late wife.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Iron Mike was one of two survivors who survived the massacre in Sherman's Camp. Mike was part of one group of survivors violently opposed to another group. After Mike's group's ammo ran out, they called for a truce in which both sides only ended up killing each other. This left Mike traumatized and making him to completely rejecting violence towards human survivors.
• Dented Iron: He has earned that nickname "Iron", but it's also clear he is not as tough as he used to be after everything that has happened.
• Forgetful Jones: Downplayed. Many characters comment that his memory isn't that good, with some dialog here and there suggesting that he has been told some information before but forgot about it. However Iron Mike will sometimes use this to his advantage and pretend to state he "doesn't remember" after someone states he told them not to do something.
• Grumpy Old Man: Downplayed. He tells Deacon that he actually likes very few people, but can tolerate most.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Iron Mike believes in pacifism and strongly refuses to seek violent resolution when dealing with other humans. This includes honoring a peace deal with the psychotic Rippers from intruding on each other's territories. But when a vengeful Carlos comes for Boozer and Deacon by attacking Lost Lake and then demanding Mike turn them over in return for restoring the peace, Iron Mike ISN'T sold on it, and forces Carlos and his Rippers to leave at gunpoint.
  • Rather than hanging Skizzo for being responsible for the Rippers attacking the settlement, Iron Mike chooses to banish him. This ultimately costs him his life as Skizzo soon returns with the Deschutes County Militia to attack Lost Lake again.
• Large and in Charge: Iron Mike is a mountain of a man and the leader of the largest survivor community north of the mountains.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Iron Mike's pacifistic ideals ultimately turned against him: though Skizzo is directly at fault for leading to Rippers to attacking Lost Lake and killing numerous settlers, Iron Mike refuses to execute Skizzo and chooses to banish him instead. Skizzo soon repaid Iron Mike's kindness by leading the Deschutes County Militia to attacking Lost Lake again, and Iron Mike is fatally wounded in the process.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He cares about protecting his people and helping anyone that needs help, even Deacon and Boozer regardless of their past fallout. This is mainly due to what he had experienced in Sherman's Camp. He also doesn't accept unnecessary battles that would repeat the same tragedy as what he lived through in Sherman's Camp.
  "The thing is? Not caring will get you killed just as easy. What the good folks of Sherman Camp did was stop caring about anyone else but themselves and their own."
• Red Baron: Don't let his age fool you. There's a reason he's nicknamed Iron Mike.
• Sole Survivor: Iron Mike was one of the sole survivors of Sherman's Camp after a vicious battle with another group of survivors that left everyone in town dead, the other being a woman named Nora.
• Survivor Guilt: After becoming one of two survivors in the Sherman's Camp massacre, Iron Mike admits that he sometimes wishes that he hadn't walked out of town alive.

Skizzo

Raymond "Skizzo" Sarkozi

Voiced by: Jason Spisak (English)^note Other Languages:Vladimir Golitsyn (Russian)

If you listen to Skizzo, he was a small-time gang member before the Freaker outbreak, although nobody's quite sure how seriously to take that. He's become the head of security at Lost Lake just the same, throwing around his authority and constantly clashing with Rikki.

---

• Asshole Victim: He ambiguously begs mercy after his throat was slit by Deacon, but it's clear that Deacon simply wants to kill him for real instead of sparing him, a mistake that Iron Mike made, after many of the crimes he had done to Lost Lake, making his death satisfying on top of being a Smug Snake.
• Big Bad Ensemble: While Garret and the Deschutes County Militia are the utmost threat to the survivor camps up north, as well as being the primary threat to Deacon, Skizzo serves as a personal nemesis to Deacon for the entire story.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Betrays Deacon to appease the Rippers (which inadvertently brings the Rippers to Lost Lake), and later betrays Deacon again to the Militia, and this time deliberately leads the Militia to destroy Lost Lake.
• The Dragon: Worms his way into becoming Col. Garret's number two by the end of the game. In addition to becoming a part of the Big Bad Ensemble, since he's later revealed to be the one actively fuelling Garret's agenda of destroying rival human camps, particularly Lost Lake.
  • Dragon with an Agenda: While he takes Kouri's place as the second-in-command to Col. Garret nearly at the end of the game, he only uses his Captain rank and the Militia army to personally target Deacon and the rest of the Lost Lake Camp's dwellers, as a warning message for his banishment from the camp. This is also because of his personal beef with Deacon.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As much of a bastard as he is, he does still show some lines he's unwilling to cross, at least until he goes completely crazy
  • He's freaked out by the Rippers for being Axe-Crazy maniacs.
  • He first tries to get Deacon to ignore a woman the Rippers strung up to be killed by Freakers before eventually changing his mind and trying to help. When he sees that her legs are broken, he urges Deacon to perform a Mercy Kill and tries to reassure him afterwards that he did the right thing.
• Evil Gloating: After the Militia attacked Lost Lake, Skizzo radios Deacon and brags about having Sarah under his watch and how the Colonel will use her skills to make hemlock to poison other survivor settlements.
• Evil Is Petty: Uses the Militia to attack Lost Lake because he was banished from there.
• The Farmer and the Viper: Iron Mike spares his life after he betrays Lost Lake to the Rippers, letting him go after knowing that he wouldn't get a fair trial. Skizzo repays this by telling the Militia the location of the encampment, and kills Iron Mike in return.
• Final Boss: He's effectively the final obstacle before the ending is reached. Rather than a straight-up shootout however, Deacon hits an explosive that both disarms and critically injures him and must make his way to Skizzo (who is armed with a laser-scoped gun) to engage in a QTE fight.
• Gangbangers: Skizzo claims of being one and bragging that he had been smuggling drugs and guns between California and Oregon. Deacon believes he's a poseur, suspecting Skizzo was just a fratboy working a food stand in a mall. If you search his house after he's thrown in jail, you can find a greeting card from his grandparents. Skizzo was a young accountant.
• Hate Sink: Obviously the most hated character in the game as he serves as a slimy asshole with a talent for worming his way to positions of authority and constantly causing trouble for everyone around him, with his only purpose in the story being as a hateable personal nemesis for Deacon.
• The Heavy: While Colonel Garret is the primary instigator of the conflict during the finale between the northern survivors and the militia, Skizzo has the most screentime of any other villain in the game and drives most of the story up to the end.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Skizzo claims that turning over Deacon and Boozer to Carlos and the Rippers is the only way to ensure Lost Lake's safety. But his betrayal only had Carlos ordering his Rippers to go on a revenge frenzy and directly attacking Lost Lake.
• Informed Flaw: Various characters call him a Lazy Bum who never really does anything except bark orders. This doesn't mesh well considering he goes on multiple missions with just Deacon as backup and never seems afraid to put his life on the line.
• Jerkass: He likes to flaunt his authority as Iron Mike's second-in-command, and has a clear dislike for Deacon and Boozer.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Skizzo is very skeptical of Lost Lake's peace treaty with the Rippers and believes it wouldn't last long to prevent a cult of self-mutilating psychopaths to massacre Lost Lake. He makes the astute observation that the real reason Rippers don't attack Lost Lake is that Copeland's camp and the Hot Springs are much closer.
  • While most of the names on his "enemies list" are just people with the guts to stand up to him (including Deacon, Boozer, and Rikki), a few of the names on the list later turn out to be murderers and end up becoming Bounty Targets. On the list Skizzo also notes his suspicion that Addy isn't an actual medical doctor, which turns out to be true.
• Karmic Death: He’s stabbed and has his throat slashed by Deacon, the man he tried to backstab and throw to the Rippers, in the retaliatory strike against Wizard Island after he betrays the Lost Lake camp to the Militia.
• Narcissist: Skizzo constantly flaunts his title and thinks he's better than everyone else and has no regard for anyone else, luckily this gets him killed by Deacon.
• Never My Fault: Repeatedly states he never meant to kill Iron Mike, even though his actions deliberately led the Militia, who are in genocide mode, to Lost Lake's doorstep.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: In Lost Lake, he's only ever called Skizzo. When he joins the Militia however, the Colonel calls him Captain Sarkozi.
• Pervert Revenge Mode: On the receiving end from Rikki, where she threatened to shoot his cock off if she caught him watching her or Addy taking a shower again.
• The Starscream: He is very open about the fact he wishes to be the one running Lost Lake to the point Iron Mike is fully aware of it.
• Smug Snake: He’s a suck-up who likes to throw his weight around for any reason, and after Iron Mike imprisons him for trying to sell Deacon and Boozer to the Rippers, he escapes, signs up with the Militia and becomes Garret’s toady instead.
• Ultimate Job Security: Despite a good amount of the people running Lost Lake disliking him, him spying on Rikki and Addy while they were in the showers, and being so open about being The Starscream that even Iron Mike is fully aware of it, he remains Head of Security until he made a deal with Carlos that lead to an attack on the camp. Though after he was kicked out he is able to join the Militia and instantly become the Col. right hand man.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He should have been executed for his actions that caused the Rippers to attack Lost Lake, but Iron Mike allowed him to just be banished from Lost Lake. He thanks this mercy by manipulating Colonel Garrett into attacking Lost Lake with the Militia.
• Villains Want Mercy: After Skizzo is imprisoned for attempting to betraying Deacon and Boozer to the Rippers, and putting Lost Lake in danger, he quickly loses his shit and begs for his life when Deacon gleefully taunts him of what he and Boozer will do to him when Skizzo is declared guilty: tie him up and leaving him in the middle of a highway to be torn apart and devoured by a Horde. But unfortunately for Deacon, Skizzo's life is spared by Iron Mike and he is only punished with exile from the settlement.

Rikki

Rikki Patil

Voiced by: Nishi Munshi (English)^note Other Languages:Inna Koroleva (Russian)

Rikki used to ride with Deacon and Boozer, but split with them over the dispute that made them leave Lost Lake. Now she serves the Lost Lake community as Iron Mike's effective second-in-command. Before the apocalypse, she was in school to become an electrical engineer and had a factory job with Boeing.

---

• Action Girl: Rikki holds her own in a couple of fight scenes.
• I Choose to Stay: After riding with a group of people that included Boozer and Deacon for quite some time, she eventually chose to settle down in Lost Lake. Deacon thinks it might be because of Addy.
• Twofer Token Minority: East Indian and presumably bi/pansexual.
• Wrench Wench: While Rikki doesn't handle the bike repairs in Lost Lake, she's always tinkering with hers, and you accompany her on several different missions that involve restoring the local electrical grid.

Addy

Addison "Addy" Walker

Voiced by: Debra Wilson (English)^note Other Languages:Anastasia Lapina (Russian)

Commonly known as Addy, she is a former veterinarian who became the community doctor of Iron Mike's Camp. She is also the romantic partner of Rikki Patil.

---

• Clingy Jealous Girl: Addy gets very upset when she learns that Rikki and Deacon went on a ride together without telling her, making a scene when they get back. Somewhat justified: the apocalypse made relationships very hard and Rikki is much less committed to the relationship, as she basically admits to Deacon when she tries flirting with him.
• Combat Medic: Rides out to the battle against the Milita with Rikki and a handgun, then starts immediately patching people up after the fight.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Addy is a veterinarian and is the closest the settlement has for a medical doctor. She believes herself to being ill-suited to help people, but Deacon helpfully reminds her that she has come a long way in being adapted to healing people including successfully amputating Boozer's infected arm. Jiminez, a trained doctor, even notes that she did good work on Deacon's bandaged arm.
  • She later accepts the role of being a Doctor at the end of the game.
• Twofer Token Minority: A black lesbian. You can find a note from her parents on her desk in the Lost Lake infirmary, trying to get her to renounce her homosexuality.

NERO

The National Emergency Response Organization (NERO) is a U.S. government agency that was tasked, and failed, to control the Freaker outbreak.

---

In General

• Armies Are Evil: NERO have no interest in helping other survivors and are willing to shoot them if they try to interfere in their work.
• Faceless Goons: All NERO personnel wear armored hazmat gear that completely conceals their faces. The Stinger implies that they wear this to conceal their evolved Freaker forms.
• Government Agency of Fiction: NERO is essentially a stand in for the CDC and FEMA, with a little bit of the CIA thrown in.
• Kick the Dog: Deacon mentions seeing some of their number shoot civilians during the outbreak—and even now they're willing to fire ostensible warning shots at people who get too close to what they're doing.
• Meaningful Name: NERO shares the same name of the Roman emperor who was known for "fiddling while Rome burned," which is a comparable situation to NERO's dormancy to the Freaker plague.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Their exact agenda has yet to be revealed, with even O'Brian and the other field teams being in the dark about the ultimate goal of studying the virus. But the ending implies that it involves controlling the virus so it's members can become intelligent Freakers.
• 0% Approval Rating: Given the government's abandonment of its citizens, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks well of them.

O'Brian

James O'Brian

Voiced by: Bernardo de Paula (English)^note Other Languages:Ivan Kalinin (Russian)

O'Brian is as a graduate student who helps Deacon St. John evacuate his wife Sarah at the beginning of the Freakers outbreak, only to be believed dead afterwards.

He later is reintroduced as a lieutenant and a member of the National Emergency Response Organization. He is forced into working with Deacon to find out about Sarah's fate, while Deacon helps him investigating N.E.R.O. operations.

---

• And Then John Was a Zombie: By the end of the game, O'Brian is revealed to be an evolved form of Freaker who retains his sanity. It's left ambiguous if the rest of NERO share this condition or are aware of it (though the complete lack of reaction from his comrades strongly suggests this), but O'Brian's sudden speech imediment in his final radio transmission to Deacon suggests this was a recent development.
• Defector from Decadence: He and a few other NERO personnel are dissatisfied with the plans their superiors have for the rest of the world, though, while he's willing to secretly provide Deacon with some assistance in the end, it seems he's unwilling or unable to directly oppose his leaders.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: When Deacon starts aggressively wringing him for more information after finding out that Sarah wasn't at the overrun NERO Refugee camp but O'Brian doesn't know where she ended up, O'Brian snaps back that he went above his pay grade helping her as best he could before getting her treatment, which pissed off his bosses.
• The Faceless: Barring the prologue of the game where his face can be seen on his badge. By the time he and Deacon meet after the apocalypse, he's always seen with his face covered by a helmet or his suit. It helps hide the fact that, at least by the end of the game, he is an evolved Freaker.
• Non-Action Guy: He's a scientist, not a fighter, and despite carrying a sidearm he folds immediately whenever Deacon starts physically threatening him.
• Not So Above It All: He will sometimes snark back at Deacon or mess with him when he can tell Deacon is in a more tolerable mood.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: O'Brian makes it clear that he is not a medical doctor.
• Rank Up: Two years prior, O'Brian was just a grad student who volunteered during the outbreak. In the present, he is now a Lieutenant in NERO.
• Willfully Weak: Despite being an Intelligent Freaker, described as being as strong as a Breaker and nimble as a Newt, he cowers anytime Deacon threatens him.
  • This would further enforce the idea that his transformation into a sentient freaker is a development which took place near to the end of the game, though Deacon's journal notes after this occurs indicates that he believes that O'Brian and the other NERO personnel were like that the whole time.

Deschutes County Militia

Colonel Garret

Matthew Garret

Voiced by: Daniel Riordan (English)^note Other Languages:Vladimir Antonik (Russian)

A former U.S. military leader, Garret founded the Deschutes County Militia in the early days of the apocalypse to eradicate the Freakers. However, his fanatical religious views gradually warped his mind, resulting in him becoming dangerously unstable.

---

• Alas, Poor Villain: You can’t help but feel a little sorry for the man, because unlike many of the other unsavory characters Deacon runs into, he was actually helping on making the world a better place through eliminating the Freaker swarms in the region, until he goes crazy from Jimenez’s death.
• As the Good Book Says... As time goes he quotes the bible more and more frequently, seeing the bible as a metaphor for the world around him and as justification for his actions.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: While he doesn't engage in combat at any point in the game, in the ending he appears to manage to overpower and start to choke out the much younger Deacon, before abruptly dying of hemlock poisoning.
• Big Bad Ensemble: After Deacon kills Carlos/Jesse and Taylor's murder of Dr. Jiminez, Colonel Garret becomes the Big Bad for the rest of the game's final act and the last enemy Deacon has to deal with. However, on the other side of the conflict there's Skizzo who wormed into The Dragon to Garret, where later willingly joined Garret in order to further his cause of mass-murdering rival human camps including Lost Lake and his inhabitants, as well as planning to kill his nemesis Deacon.
• Character Development: The worst kind, as he goes from a well-intentioned ideal leader to a genocidal fanatic after Jiminez's death and becomes the final Big Bad as a result.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: The Colonel doesn't discriminate based on race, sex, or (despite being The Fundamentalist) even sexual orientation or gender identity. However, he has no tolerance for criminals and only assigns them to work duty rather than being part of his armed forces.
• Fling a Light into the Future: He plans to store as much of humanity's knowledge as well as seeds and other essentials, in the caverns near Crater Lake so that humanity will not lose it before his plans to rebuild come to fruition.
• The Fundamentalist: He's a devout Christian and frequently references scripture.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope:After his Morality Pet Dr. Jiminez is murdered, the Colonel decides that Humans Are the Real Monsters and decides to wipe out all survivors who aren't part of the Militia rather than wiping out the Freakers like he originally planned.
• Knight Templar: Although he starts out simply as a strict leader of Wizard Island, after the death of Jiminez he comes to see all other camps as full of degenerates, thieves, drug addicts and murderers and seeks to purge the world of all but his followers.
• Large and in Charge: The Colonel towers over everyone else and is the leader of the largest and most well-organized human survivor faction in the game.
• Mission from God: One day, he was struck with the idea of creating an ark of knowledge and supplies in preparation for the Biblical apocalypse he was certain would come to pass. And then the outbreak happened. Naturally, he believes it was divine inspiration.
• More Expendable Than You: He has this mindset when it comes to his higher officers. They have very specialized skills that makes them much more valuable than the rank and file. So he will usually forbid them from leaving the safety of the camp unless absolutely necessary. Then he all but locks them up in the Ark after Jiminez is killed.
• Politically Correct Villain: In one of his "fireside chats" he openly states that he will accept any man or woman into his militia (who is not a criminal) and does not care if they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. While he invokes God in so doing, he straight-up says those are innate characteristics no person can change.
• The Unfought: By the time Deacon returns to the Militia Camp to rescue Sarah, Sarah had already poisoned Garret's tea.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Colonel's sanity completely snaps after Dr. Jiminez is killed, which begins his fall into genocidal villainy.
• Visionary Villain: He's the only character in the game with anything close to a viable strategy for retaking the world from the Freakers, and seems to have the resources to actually pull it off. Also, while his rule can be harsh in certain ways, it's much closer to tough but fair than capriciously tyrannical. Unfortunately, events over the course of the game push him into Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: While he is a strict disciplinarian, the Colonel is determined to find a way to eliminate the Freakers and rebuild society. Unfortunately, as time goes on, he switches his focus from eliminating the Freakers to rival human camps.

Captain Kouri

Derrick Kouri

Voiced by: Phil Morris (English)^note Other Languages:Radik Mukhametzyanov (Russian)

Garret's second-in-command.

---

• Bald of Authority: He's a bald black military man who leads the Diamond Lake outpost as well as The Dragon to the Colonel.
• The Dragon: To Garret, he's his second-in-command who oversees the militia's missions before betraying him after he goes off the deep end.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Somehow was unable to spot that Taylor was a junkie despite having all the obvious signs, and thus put Taylor on guard duty at the medical post while already high on oxy thus leading to Jiminez's murder.
• The Lost Lenore: He had a wife and children before the outbreak, and keeps both a picture and what seems to be their last letter to him.
• Mirror Character: Kouri and Deacon are both former soldiers who have lost a loved one and carry a picture of them to remember by. Their commonality gives enough reason for Kouri to save Deacon from being hanged.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's a solid, reliable, level-headed officer and ultimately saves Deacon's life and abandons the Colonel after he jumps off the slippery slope.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After the Colonel goes completely insane and orders the extermination of every other survivor camp, Kouri decides to desert the Militia and head for Reno with his like-minded subordinates.

Doctor Jiminez

Arturo Jiminez

Voiced by: Al Coronel (English)^note Other Languages:Anton Eldarov (Russian)

He is a physician serving in the Deschutes County Militia, holding the rank of captain and possibly the last actual trained doctor in the world.

---

• Combat Medic: We never get a chance to see him in action, but he tells Deacon that he knows his way around The Shit and asks to go on a run with him. The Colonel forbids it.
• Failed a Spot Check: Okay, maybe it's possible that everyone else in the camp didn't notice that Taylor had drug problems, but a trained doctor who worked the poorest streets in LA couldn't spot a junkie right in front of him?
• Gratuitous Spanish: A typical case, right down to repeating a word or phrase in Spanish right after English. Also his surname, Jiminez is actually badly written Spanish, the surname would be Jiménez.
• Last of His Kind: Colonel Garret notes he is probably the last medical doctor alive and won't let him ever leave the camp because this makes him irreplaceable.
• Morality Chain: For Colonel Garret. After he is killed Garret loses it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His giving Taylor Oxy for the pain from his severed ear brings the young private's addiction roaring back, and he kills the doctor while trying to rob him.
• Vetinari Job Security: Played for Drama, as it means he cannot be allowed to leave the camp. The Colonel also notes how the biggest tragedy following his murder is that Jiminez was their only trained doctor and may have been the only one left in the world.

Lieutenant Weaver

James Weaver

Voiced by: Darien Sills-Evans (English)^note Other Languages:Peter Ivaschenko (Russian)

Weaver's knowledge of chemistry has made him one of the officers in the militia. His research involves coming up with new, improvised explosives to use on the Freakers.

---

• Because You Were Nice to Me: Weaver unexpectedly provides a distraction to aid in Deacon and Sarah's attempt to escape from the Militia camp.
• Demolitions Expert: He's developing explosives, so he'd better be.
• Heel–Face Turn: After the Colonel goes crazy, Weaver is all too happy to side with Deacon.
• Mildly Military: Weaver makes repeated requests to Deacon that he drops any military formalities around him.
• You Are in Command Now: Post-game with Garret dead and Kouri having gone AWOL with his troops, this leaves Weaver as the de facto leader of the remnants of the Militia camp.

Taylor

Wade Taylor

Voiced by: James Allen Mc Cune (English)^note Other Languages:Peter Kovryzhnykh (Russian)

A new recruit to the Militia, he claims to be an experienced Drifter, but his attitude and behavior have Deacon wondering how he could possibly have lasted so long.

---

• Addled Addict: Deacon can tell from the way Taylor acts in their first conversation that the guy is probably high on something and certainly not all there. At first his behavior is a source of humor, then tragedy.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: After Deacon tracks Taylor down for Doctor Jiminez's murder, Taylor breaks down and claims he didn't mean to hurt him and doesn't want to be publicly hanged by the Colonel. Deacon takes pity and gives Taylor a Mercy Kill by overdosing him on drugs.
• Ear Ache: While he's out marauder hunting that is, looking for drug connections, one group captures him and the leader sadistically cuts off his right ear.
• Functional Addict: He was able to hide his problem from everyone in the camp (even Deacon says he only had his suspicions). It's noted that he kept going on solo missions all the time—turns out it was to get connections.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When Deacon finds him he's absolutely miserable with regret and guilt at killing Jiminez, noting how the doctor had helped him.
• Plucky Comic Relief: He practically exists to bring a good laugh. His first impressions are making a crack on Deacon's last name and making some lustful remarks on Sarah's photo in front of Deacon (who is restraining himself with a disapproving glare).
• Reckless Gun Usage: At one point he waves around his rifle without care who's standing in front of it, visibly scaring Deacon who faces the barrel several times before he manages to get Taylor point it downwards.
• Recruiters Always Lie: He joined the Militia for the food and protection they offered, not to be ordered around or forced to attend public hangings. Shortly after he and Deacon join, Taylor suggests going AWOL.
• Secret-Keeper: When Deacon first gets to Southern Oregon, he shows Taylor Sarah's picture and says he's looking for her. Later after they're part of the Militia, Taylor recognizes Sarah as Lt. Whitaker, but keeps his mouth shut, which Deacon is grateful for. Although Deacon doesn't say it, it can be inferred that this is why he didn't report Taylor's possible drug addiction.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: After he is killed, the story gets a lot darker.
• Small Role, Big Impact: While initially seeming like an annoying comic relief character, his murder of Dr. Jiminez kickstarts Col. Garret's descent into genocidal madness.
• The Stoner: Taylor is a junkie and his addiction causes him to murder Doc Jiminez for the camp's narcotics.
• Sympathetic Murderer: He didn't mean to kill Doc Jiminez, he just wanted to get the drugs and didn't expect Doc Jiminez to return early and killed him out of panic. When Deacon reaches him, he is a crying mess.
• Too Dumb to Live: Nearly gets himself killed tracking a suspicious recruit, despite Deacon constantly warning him not to. He also even suggested going AWOL on an unsecured line, until Deacon asked him if it was one and then secures it in a panic.

Other Survivors

Carlos

Carlos/Jessie Williamson

Voiced by: Scott Whyte (English)^note Other Languages:Andrey Waltz (Russian)

Leader of the Rippers. Formerly Jessie Williamson, an ex-member of the Mongrel MC who harbors a grudge against Deacon and Boozer.

---

• Big Bad: He's the cause of Deacon and Boozer's troubles in the game, who is responsible for sending the Rippers to blowtorch Boozer's MC tattoo. Carlos is revealed to be Jesse Williamson, the former member of the Mongrels MC and Deacon and Boozer's nemesis. But killing him only ends his own villain arc and Garret is still the final villain Deacon has to face.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Killing him ends only the first act of the game, leading to the final, second act with the Militia, who are a much bigger threat than the Rippers. Colonel Matthew Garret later becomes the Big Bad from that point onwards.
• Expy: He is very much like Kyle Hobart, an excommunicated member of the Sons of Anarchy who also had his MC tattoo forcibly removed via blowtorch.
• Hypocrite: Part of the Rippers' belief is to remove all connections to the past. Carlos however clearly hasn't let go of his grudge towards his former biker gang members and have been hunting them for some time.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He's got twice as much health as a normal enemy and a much more wilder and aggressive moveset with a longer reach (you actually have to time your dodges against him instead of just rolling out of his attack range). If you've fully upgraded your melee skill tree you can still slice him to pieces fairly effortlessly, but he can be a decent fight if you haven't.
• Slashed Throat: Deacon finishes off Carlos/Jessie by slicing his throat.
• Unknown Rival: Carlos puts a bounty on Deacon and Boozer, who are confused as to why the Rippers are after them. It is not until Deacon recognized Carlos as his hated former MC buddy.

Lisa

Lisa Jackson

Voiced by: Laura Bailey (English)

A teenage survivor who has been living alone in her family house for two years since the outbreak.

---

• Badass Biker: After brief turns at the work camp and Ripperhood, she ultimately gets a mototcycle and becomes a bounty hunter like Deacon.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Despite slowly losing her hope and her faith in humanity, she still risks her life to save Deacon in the Ripper camp because he was kind to her when no one else was.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Deacon manages to get her to convince herself that her mother might be at the Hot Springs camp, but it's indicated that she had known that her parents weren't coming back and that she had been deluding herself.
• The Drifter: After leaving Hot Springs, Lost Lake, and the Rippers, she decides against staying in camps and starts hunting for bounties on her own.
• I Reject Your Reality: She's unable to get over her parents' deaths, staying in the house for two years in case they come for her, and running away from every camp she's in. It culminates in her becoming a Ripper, saying she wants to be like the Freaks because they don't remember who they lost. By the end, she seems to be getting better.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: She starts out believing her parents will come for her and things will go back to normal. It doesn't last.

Jim Moore

James "Jim" Moore

Voiced by: Scott Whyte (English)^note Other Languages:Ivan Zharkov (Russian)

A former security guard working for Cloverdale.

---

• Boom, Headshot!: He is killed this way by Sarah.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He claims he couldn't take the risk of running out of food by letting his co-workers bring their families to Cloverdale and its crops, so naturally he had to murder them.
• Ironic Echo: Jim's "can't take the risk" line is used by Sarah for refusing to let Jim get away with his murders.
• Irony: All the people Jim saved proceed to attack Deacon and Sarah when they enter Cloverdale and die anyway. Well, one of them may have sensibly run off.
• Jerkass: Was not so polite to Deacon on their first meeting. In the early stages of the apocalpyse, he executed some of his surviving co-workers to stop them from contacting their families and bringing them back to Cloverdale as it would mean having to share their limited food with them.
• Nepotism: Kind of funny how most of the people Jim chose to spare seem to be wearing security uniforms. Did he deliberately pick people who were already used to following his orders?

Enemies

Freakers

Infected humans and animals that are turned into ravenous cannibalistic monsters.

---

• The Berserker: Breakers are this trope in the Freaker hierarchy, able to tear them, and an unlucky Deacon, limb from limb.
• Enemy Summoner: The Screamer's sole function: let loose an ear-piercing, disorienting scream that attracts other Freakers, then run away.
• Evil Smells Bad: Several characters repeatedly notes that the Freakers smell horrible from being covered in urine and excrement. They smell even worse when they join in a Horde.
• Evolutionary Levels: O'Brian says that Reachers have gone through millions of years of evolution in the short period since the disaster.
• Extreme Omnivore: They eat any meat they can get, including years old carrion, and a researcher notes that they're adapting to not only eat plants, but a wider variety of plants than humans are capable of, due to their stomachs being able to break down cellulose like a deer's.
• It Can Think: They possess some form of pack behaviour, and even a fairly stable social hierarchy, and one NERO researcher even notes that "Stage Two" Freakers even change their clothes and maintain jewelry. They also construct nests of branches and underbrush instead of sleeping out in the open. At one point, a Newt apparently is smart enough to move some flares Deacon and Skizzo had dropped to mark their trail, in order to lure the two of them into an ambush.
• Human Subspecies: They have been so mutated by the virus that they might as well be, and seem to be treated as such by NERO researchers.
• Kill It with Fire: Fire is one of the best ways to deal with clusters of Freakers, and the only way to destroy their nests to make fast travel easier on your gas.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Runners can hit sixty miles an hour while still being able to rip a bike apart with their jaws.
  • Breakers are not slowed down in their slightest by their massive muscles.
  • Reachers are easily the fastest enemies in the game (rivaled only by Runners), and will rip you to shreds if you don’t dodge their attacks.
• No Zombie Cannibals: Swarmers and Bleachers don't harm each other, and no one seems to harm Screamers. That's about it, actually, as different types of Freakers will happily kill each other. That is, furiously kill each other. Newts will dogpile Swarmers, Ragers will battle Breakers and you can sit back and see how it all plays out, provided you're in a concealed spot.
• Our Zombies Are Different: "Freakers" are Technically-Living Zombie and are very fast and agile. Also they have a social order and ecosystem based on physical maturity. Newts, the adolescencents and teenagers, are attacked and eaten by adult Freakers; in response they stick to roofs and high places for protection as it appears most adult Freakers can not climb or at least not as well as Newts or Deacon. It’s found out later that the Freakers also are suffering from almost-constant mutations inflicted by The Virus.
  • They also don't need to eat meat to survive, they just prefer it. A NERO researcher can be overheard explaining that they have found evidence of the Freakers eating plants, similar to deer. Meaning the survivors can't just wait for them to starve to death.
• Raising the Steaks: The Virus affects animals as well, which so far includes "Runners" (wolves), "Ragers" (bears) and "Criers" (crows).
• Super-Scream: Screamers let out a shriek which knocks Deacon off his bike if he's riding, drains all his stamina, summons a small group of Freakers from thin air as well as alerting any nearby and can get the attention of a Horde. Snipe from a distance if possible.
• Was Once a Man: Freakers are human beings who have contracted a virus which transforms their bodies into creatures who are outwardly human but have been altered in sometimes particularly drastic ways.
• Zerg Rush: The zombies in this game can either attack alone or in overwhelming hordes, as the gameplay trailers demonstrate. Most Freaker groups encountered in the game world are much smaller than the huge horde seen in the trailer, though still consisting of large numbers. It becomes a mechanic to clear out each and every horde nest in the game for not only camp trust, but also 100% Completion.

Marauders

Unaffiliated gangs of bandits who prey on other survivors.

---

• Always Chaotic Evil: Deacon sure thinks so, and admittedly as soon as he approaches (and they see him) they invariably whip out their weapons and start trying to turn him to a fine red paste, even if they seem to be minding their own business beforehand.
• Caught in a Snare: One of the traps they use is sticking something of interest like a corpse in a spot, and then setting a leg-grabbing tree snare near it. If caught, Deacon awakens in a marauder camp with everything but his knife stolen and has to get it back from the box they stuck it in.
• Cold Sniper: One trap they use is setting up a sniper to shoot Deacon's bike, throwing him off while a couple of people rush up to attack the dazed biker and the sniper offers fire support. Best to get them first.
• Disaster Scavengers: This is true of mostly everyone who survived into the world, and marauders are no different.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Unsurprisingly, many of them are less than happy when you shoot their friends.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Some groups of Marauders have resorted to cannibalism.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: One of the accusations constantly thrown at them by Deacon when assaulting marauder camps. While certainly not unlikely in such a lawless world, women are mostly shown to be on pretty much equal footing as men in these gangs, with Deacon and Skizzo even running into a small group being led by a woman. The only instance in the game of a marauder shown actually committing said act is during the Lost Lake camp job Gone Fishing, but his would-be victim stabs him before he can actually do it.
• Trip Trap: One of the traps they use is stretching a rope across the road to knock bikers off their bikes, while a couple of people rush up—Look, a good plan is worth repeating.

Rippers

The Rest In Peace cult, or known simply as Rippers, are a group of very psychotic humans that worship the Freakers and the virus that created them, and are hostile to other humans for clinging on to the last vestiges of pre-outbreak civilization.

---

• Addled Addict: It is revealed one of the factors to their degraded minds is taking Bath Salts, which is a true drug that causes people to act like rage zombies.
• Ax-Crazy: Their minds have degraded so badly that they’re now Freaker-wannabes, and mentally are not too far off from the real thing, either.
• Bald of Evil: All the cultists are shaven bald to emulate the hairless Freakers.
• Cult: They are psychotic cultists who worship the Freaker virus and openly seek infection.
• Despair Event Horizon: A number of their members are willing subjects who've joined in an effort to forget everything they lost two years ago.
• Fun with Acronyms: They are members of the "Rest In Peace" cult.
• Human Sacrifice: They like to take people, string them up by their arms, and break their legs so Freakers can get them.
• I'm a Humanitarian: They are a gang of cannibals.
• Join or Die: First they torture you, if you survive they offer you the chance to join them. If you say no they just continue to torture you till you die.
• Kick the Dog: Midway through the game a brief sidetrack reveals that the Rippers have been killing non-infected dogs, apparently so that the only dogs left will be Runners. It's noted that this is particularly pointless as Runners like to eat the Freakers that Rippers worship best of all.
• Kill It with Fire: Some Rippers wear a bandolier of molotov cocktails, ignite themselves, and rush at Deacon in an effort to "purify" him.
• No Needfor Names: Rippers ditch their names because Freakers have forgotten theirs.
• Psycho Serum: They do a lot of drugs including the above mentioned Bath Salts, and the more advanced ones literally cover themselves in PCP. Despite not wearing any armor, they've got nearly twice as much health as Marauders do, and Deacon notes that the more psycho ones Feels No Pain. If you search their bodies you'll occasionally get drug cocktails.
• The Remnant: The Rippers are rendered leaderless and scattered after Deacon killed Carlos and flooded their main camp. However, the Rippers still remain a threat in which Deacon is savvy enough to realize that someone else will take Carlos's place.
• We Have Reserves: Rippers are high on PCP and bath salts and don't have the best self-preservation instincts; some of the most fervent members will actually set themselves on fire before trying to tackle you, and when faced with Freakers they'll often submit willingly to their fate instead of trying to fight. They can do this and still remain a credible threat as a faction due to their sheer numbers. Deacon notes that the Rippers number in the hundreds and possibly even in the thousands; meanwhile the total population of Copeland's Camp, the Hot Springs, and Lost Lake combined probably doesn't even add up to 100.