Characters / Desperados III

Note: this page predominantly describes character tropes found in the Desperados III. Tropes associated with characters as they appear in Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive, Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge and Helldorado will be indicated as such.

Only spoilers to Desperados III are marked.

Tropes applying to all gang members

The gang as it appears in Desperados III

• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Cooper is brown and/or teal.
  • McCoy is black and/or purple.
  • Kate is rosy peach.
  • Hector is dusky orange.
  • Isabelle is green.
• Price on Their Head: Despite themselves making a living off hunting for bounties, all of the playable characters of Desperados III have accumulated fair prices on their heads.
  • Cooper has a $1000 reward for robbery and assault.
  • Kate has a $500 reward for bribery and cheating at cards.
  • McCoy has a $250 reward for trespassing and fraud which, in Wanted Dead or Alive, evolves into swindling and fraud. Some local vigilantes attempt to lynch him for that to boot.
  • Hector has a $100 reward for disorderly conduct, assault, poaching, vagrancy, and drunkenness.
  • Isabelle has a staggering $5000 reward for hers for practicing witchcraft.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Oh, so much. In addition to the mainstay rugged, loner cowboy, the drop-dead gorgeous cardsharp, and the war veteran doctor-turned-hitman, the games likewise include a number of other quirky characters that tag along. This includes but is not limited to, a Louisiana voodoo witch; a vengeance-driven leader of a Mexican bandit clan; and a Native American archer.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Each gang member produces musical stingers when they perform character-specific actions or make a plot-relevant decision. Cooper’s stinger is an acoustic/electric guitar; McCoy’s is a harmonica; Kate’s is a violin; Isabelle’s is a trumpet; and Hector’s is whistling.
• Stealth Expert: As a small group, they're constantly outnumbered, forcing them to rely on subterfuge to get the job done. Most of them, apart from Sam, have some form of stealth attack to kill or knock out enemies.

The main three characters present in all Desperados games

John Cooper

John Cooper

“One good shot, Frank. One. Good. Shot.”

Voiced By: John Chancer (WDoA), Doug Gochman (III)

Cooper as he appears in Wanted Dead or Alive

The protagonist of the games. He’s an adventurous and charismatic if a bit hot-headed bounty hunter who, in Desperados III, is trying to settle an old grudge with Frank, a notorious outlaw.

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• Artistic License – Gun Safety: Being a rooting-tooting cowboy archetype, John indulges in a mind-boggling amount of Gun Twirling across all the games, but the first post-tutorial mission of Cooper’s Revenge that has him ‘greet’ McCoy by very casually pointing his revolver at him lands him squarely in this trope.
• Audience Surrogate: He’s one of the least fleshed-out members of the team as among his most prevalent characteristics are his magnetism, his line of work, his deceased father/brother, and not much else.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears a duster coat and is a skilled gunslinger.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Kate plants one on John’s lips just before he leaves to finally and definitively confront Frank in the finale of Desperados III.
• The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: In-game, a throw from his Bowie Knife is always lethal. Justified, as in the tutorial, it's shown that he had to practice a lot to get this right. This is zigzagged in Wanted Dead or Alive where a mistimed throw will merely scratch an opponent.
• Bond One-Liner: It’s the first thing that comes out of Cooper’s now-adult mouth in Desperados III.
  Cooper: (to the over-curious fellow whose throat he just skewered) Something tells me you ain't here punchin' tickets.
• Bounty Hunter: His father trains him to be one in the tutorial mission. In Desperados III, apart from DeVitt, he doesn't track down any bounties as the game's central plot is near and dear to his own heart. Wanted Dead or Alive, however, is all about him rounding up his motley crew to claim the bounty placed on a bandit that’s been terrorizing the Deep South.
• Call-Forward: In the “Late to the Party” DLC, Hector impishly states that if John ever wants to shoot at least three people simultaneously, he needs to trade his revolvers in for a shotgun. Cooper simply answers that in a couple of months, Hector is going to eat those words, referencing the former’s Wanted Dead or Alive ability to Quick Shoot three times, very potentially killing three enemies at once.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: He’s the knightly and intrepid counterpart to the cynical and acerbic McCoy, his Number Two.
• Destructive Savior: Downplayed in that he has no qualms about blowing up McCoy’s Mobile Kiosk if it means saving him from the gallows. McCoy himself, all things considered, is pretty okay with it too.
• Easily Forgiven: After he messes everything up, Hector is the first to forgive him – he had his reasons. Downplayed with the rest of the party who need an explanation and/or time to let bygones be bygones.
• Fauxshadow: Tells Hector and Kate during the second New Orleans mission that they “will meet at the gate; no one goes in alone.” He goes back on his word. Kate later borrows the phrase as her Meaningful Echo.
• Fighting the Lancer: While it’s not an actual physical fight, McCoy ditching the gang at the start of Chapter 3 is framed like one.
• Foreshadowing: The game spends quite some time hinting that Cooper really, really wants to face Frank one-on-one. In Kate’s intro mission John orders Hector to stay behind just before he sneaks into Higgins's estate, spaces out whenever Frank is mentioned, and during the second New Orleans mission he substitutes his entire normally chipper soundset with gruff, curt barks.
• Good Is Not Nice: Despite his Audience Surrogate status, Cooper’s the most bullheadedly stoic and ruthless member of the gang as evidenced by his treatment of Hector and Kate at the end of Chapter 2; the implication that he’d been thinking of turning on his companions before Hector ultimately confronted him makes it clear their falling out wasn’t A Tragedy of Impulsiveness. He’s still the hero of the story that fights the morally repugnant.
• Guns Akimbo: In III, he dual-wields a Remington New Model Army and a Colt 1851 Navy, allowing him to simultaneously take out two enemies. Though, according to Doc, he’s got a nasty habit of “losing” the Remington (i.e. giving it away to the enemy so a Showdown at High Noon can occur), and in the following Desperados games, he uses only the Colt.
• The Gunslinger: Cooper is skilled at a Quick Draw with Guns Akimbo. In that regard, he's able to shoot at two different targets simultaneously.
• Harmful to Minors: As a teen, he lost a duel to Frank which led to his father, James, being executed right in front of him.
• Hat of Authority: He’s the gang's leader and is rarely seen without his classic notched cowboy hat.
• Honor Before Reason: Is a firm believer of this in the first half of III where he’s so profoundly hung up on the idea of dealing with Frank in a Showdown at High Noon duel that he sabotages himself and his friends. This kicks off the gang’s Darkest Hour.
• I Call It "Vera": Cooper’s nicknames for his guns (‘Old’ for the Colt Navy 1851 and ‘New’ for the Remington New Model Army) derive from the guns’ factory names and their overall condition.
• Informed Loner: All of the games’ supplemental material describes Cooper as the great recluse who works alone and only assembles a team when he wants to go after targets with unusually large bounties on their heads, but this quirk doesn’t prevent him from effortlessly forming beneficial friendships.
• Instant Death Stab: The result is always fatal when Cooper uses his Bowie knife in melee.
• Intergenerational Friendship: The twenty-nine-year-old Cooper had formed one with Hector – who’s in his late forties.
• Jerkass Realization: Cooper may not be the nicest person to be around in Desperados III but he does learn to be better after Doc walks out and Kate gives him the dressing down of his life.
• Last-Name Basis: The game’s UI and his companions in III address him as Cooper. Subverted in WDoA where everyone from his main gang calls him John.
• Magnetic Hero: He’s more or less the glue that holds the band together – yet downplayed in that his gang will take care of business well enough while he’s away. Subverted as John’s single-minded, bullheaded nature does cause Doc to walk out on them after they blast their way out of DeVitt’s gold mine. Double subverted when Doc comes back two weeks later to help Cooper see things with Frank through.
• Mission Briefing: Almost every mission in Wanted Dead or Alive opens with Cooper briefing his friends (and subsequently the player) on what they’re supposed to do.
• Morality Chain: Serves as one to McCoy in WDoA in that he, on a regular basis, has to pacify the trigger-happy doctor and stop him from shooting the first (boorish) person the gang comes across.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: The fourteen-year-old John barks this trope, complete with a Prepare to Die boast, into Frank’s face just as he is about to execute John’s father. Frank is most amused.
• Official Couple: He and the Fiery Redhead Kate hook up late in Desperados III and every subsequent game onward treats them as a couple.
• Revenge Before Reason: John has a very personal reason for wanting Frank dead as he was the one who murdered his father right in front of the then fourteen-year-old John, to the point that he wants to be the one who does away with Frank. This has disastrous consequences at the conclusion of Chapter 2, where his misguided attempt to take on Frank alone — almost — gets him killed and his companions — inevitably — captured. He learns to get over this by the final mission, though, where he doesn't turn away his companions' help in taking Frank and his men down.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: His revolvers are loud, but have a decent range and, by pairing them up, allow him to take down two enemies at once.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Goes on three consecutive ones early in Wanted Dead or Alive after he learns that all of his former associates had landed themselves in trouble. He rescues Sam from getting his skull caved in by his employer, Doc from being publicly lynched, and Kate from being thrown overboard for cheating at cards, every time arriving Just in Time. Sam and McCoy even lampshade Cooper’s all-too-timely intervention.
  • Though, with Doc, this can be subverted if John does not dispatch the priest riding over to the gallows to give McCoy the last sacrament, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Share the Male Pain: His response when he sees that Kate’s way of getting past enemy guards is a Groin Attack.
• Throwing the Distraction: He carries an unlimited number of (fake) coins that, when thrown, cause enemies to look in the direction of the noise they make.
• Tragic Keepsake: Implied with his old and battered Colt Navy, likely belonging to his father, if his talk with Marshal Wayne is any indication.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Quotes the trope almost verbatim (“Oh, please, no snakes…”) when he finds himself deep in the Louisiana bayous.
• Young Gun: Tries to invoke this trope on his father in the prologue. James doesn’t fall for it but does let John have his knife, telling the boy that he can have a firearm once he learns how to handle the knife.

Arthur “Doc” McCoy

Arthur “Doc” McCoy

“When things get personal, the wrong people usually end up dead. That's why I keep it simple.”

Voiced By: Garrick Hagon (WDoA), Todd Haberkorn (III)

McCoy as he appears in Wanted Dead or Alive

Cooper’s closest friend and his Lancer. An unwilling Civil War soldier and a Scottish doctor, McCoy is also a shady hitman, a professional safe-cracker, and generally a mercenary. He joins the team temporarily at first but decides to stay after the partnership proves to be fruitful.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: Desperados III retconned him into keeping both his eyes.
• The Ace: Everything he specializes in i.e. sharpshooting, lockpicking, alchemy, first aid? He’s pretty damn good at all of it and he’s got the ego to prove it. This is further integrated into his his ability kit, and it likewise bleeds into his characterization by making him believe the crew would get themselves killed without him. He’s right.
• Ace Custom: His personalized scoped Colt Buntline Special has three times the range and is four times quieter than Cooper’s standard-issue Colt Navy 51/the New Model Army and, in Wanted Dead or Alive, can chamber two types of ammo at the same time.
• Actually Not a Vampire: He’s a Scotsman of refined taste and delicate sensibilities who has the appearance of both a Theatre Phantom and Classical Movie Vampire (pallor, widow’s peak, an eyepatch hiding an Informed Deformity, a Classy Cravat, black garb complete with an Ominous Opera Cape). He’s also a killer-for-hire who relishes his role and at least on one occasion is seen whiling away the time in a graveyard. But since Desperados is a (fairly) grounded series, it’s unlikely he’s a vampire.
• Adaptational Badass: In Wanted Dead or Alive, he made his debut as a harmless if vicious-looking salesman whom the townsfolk of a small town are attempting to lynch, and his knack for lockpicking, sharpshooting, and alchemy is presented as more of a side gig than anything serious. Desperados III, being the soft reboot for the series, remade him into a strait-laced, arrogant, no-nonsense, and extremely competent hitman who’s as single-minded and professional as one can get.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: His eye was a washed-out shade of blue in the original games. Desperados III changed the color to hazel.
• All There in the Script: Overlaps with Named by the Adaptation. The ending credits to III gave us his name for the first time since the series’ inception: Arthur. Before III, it was a case of His Name Really Is "Barkeep" to many if not all.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • See the Talking in Your Sleep entry below. It’s not quite clear how or when McCoy became aware of the fact Rosie was the true culprit behind the Baton Rouge bank job, but bearing in mind the fact he was left on the floor of said bank, it’s heavily implied it was before the rest of the group passed out – after which McCoy himself was strategically incapacitated to prevent him from intervening.
  • He, a Debt Detester, supposedly owes the enigmatic Baron something and has to repay that debt by running murderous errands for him, but no one knows what it is.
• Animal Motifs:
  • Vultures, so much so that he keeps referencing them in every game he’s been in. Him constantly waxing lyrical about death, dressing in all black, and having a crooked, beak-like nose also helps.
  • Reptiles. Kate compares him to a rattlesnake early in III, and WDoA has him sharing a swamp with oodles of alligators.
• Animals Hate Him: Downplayed in that Isabelle’s cat, Stella, doesn’t like him and in her own Baron’s Challenge level, refers to him exclusively as “the grumpy man”. The feeling is mutual as he, in his own words, doesn’t “need gaff from a cat.”
• Atomic F-Bomb: Upon being told that Hector and Rosie pocketed all of the heist money right from under the gang’s noses causes McCoy to have a truly explosive meltdown. Seeing as Hector had the nerve to end his farewell faux-apology letter with a sassy postscript “shame I can't see Doc's face right now,” his reaction is justified.
  McCoy: (smacks his bag against the ground with force, loudly) Son of a BITCH!
• Armed Altruism: Defied. Marshal Wayne, upon his rescue, attempts to invoke this trope by asking McCoy to lend him his Buntline to which McCoy replies that that’ll occur only if “he takes a bullet to the head.”
• The Artifact: Becomes a temporary one for the Flagstone mission. He’s right there in the middle of the map and can be somewhat interacted with, but he won’t join Cooper and Hector in their little escapade to eliminate the local representatives of the DeVitt Company.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Subverted. He’s a doctor and likes to remind everyone he’s a doctor, but his Vile Vulture motif and fondness for black clothing make him look more like an undertaker instead. This is something the manual to Helldorado calls relentlessly out.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: He’s got quite a Gold Fever and will repeatedly pester his teammates on the matter of the Devil’s Canyon mine containing any gold. Isabelle has to continuously remind him that they’ve got a job to do.
• Badass in Distress: Helldorado puts him out of action for a chunk of its runtime when Lester Goodman’s widow poisons him. Subverted in that the poison that is killing him does little to stop him from aiding his friends. Double subverted when the poison ultimately overwhelms him – but by that time Cooper has the antidote on his person.
• Badass Longcoat: Wears a flowing black trenchcoat with a detachable cape and is a ruthless soldier-for-hire.
• Bag of Holding: His doctor's bag almost acts as one as he’s able to hold his own possessions (gas flasks, syringe + different poisons for it, lockpicks), Cooper’s possessions (hat, knife, two revolvers), and Kate’s possessions (perfume bottles, Derringer) in it at the same time for the DeVitt gold mine mission.
• Blasé Boast: Oh, he’s chock full of them.
  • In III:
    McCoy: (referencing the thief who’s trying to break into DeVitt’s safe) I doubt they'll get that thing open anytime soon.
    Kate: Can you crack it?
    McCoy: (snorts) Why do you even ask?
  • In Helldorado:
    Cooper: (holds up his hand in front of Doc’s face) How many fingers do you see?
    McCoy: (with his consciousness coming and going) Too many… but I can still hit ‘em.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Isabelle. He distinctly relishes in getting on her nerves and probing for weak spots, but at the same does seem to care more for her than any other member of Cooper's gang and repeatedly preens when near her.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: He’s full of himself — and has every right to be, especially after he comes to the gang’s rescue — but beneath his frosty shell he hides quite a pleasant and charming personality.
  • You wouldn’t think a doctor with a knack for killing things with sniper fire and poison could turn out to be a a competent cook with the appropriate vocabulary to describe a variety of tastes? And who also specializes in sweet pastries? This is something that categorically stupefies Cooper who (understandably, this is an uncompromising assassin) did not anticipate this. Or expected Doc to be a Cordon Bleugh Chef at best or a Lethal Chef at worst.
    Cooper: Damn, a regular cupcake connoisseur.
  • Should Isabelle put him under her Mind Control (see the Developer's Foresight entry on the main page) in the finale of the game, Doc will reveal that he loathed letting Cooper’s task go unfinished so much he had to come back. That, and he muses over whether Isabelle missed him.
  • The “Money for the Vultures” DLC also very strongly implies he can’t swim, suffers from sea sickness, or both.
• Bringing in the Expert: He’s this to the DeVitt Company in the first mission of III — Vincent DeVitt grew irritated with a series of raids on his trains, so he subcontracted McCoy to safeguard one. Too bad Vincent then decided not to pay him…
• Call-Back: In his Wanted Dead or Alive tutorial mission threatens to give Sam a “shot of something that’ll shut [him] up forever” referencing his poison syringe melee attack from III.
• Call-Forward: When they first meet, ^note properly meet; Hector and Cooper can bump into Doc during the Flagstone mission and he’ll recognize Cooper Hector will playfully call McCoy a “scarecrow” straightforwardly referencing Doc’s Wanted Dead or Alive ability to improvise a decoy scarecrow out of his overcoat and hat.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: He’s Cooper’s moody and less charismatic counterpart and his closest friend and confidant.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Abandons the group to their fates shortly after breaking out of DeVitt’s gold mine and does not participate in the next two missions. Later on, just as the kidnapped DeVitt outsmarts the gang and holds them all at gunpoint, he is without warning dealt with from off-screen (shot in the arm), telegraphing Doc’s timely return.
• Clint Squint: Nearly all of his promotional artworks for Desperados III portray him squinting so harshly his actual eyes nearly disappear underneath the wrinkles.
• Cold Sniper: His main motivation is money and he is generally more snarky and aloof when compared to the other playable characters. By the “Money for the Vultures” DLC, however, he’s defrosted into a Friendly Sniper — at least when around his friends.
• Conspicuous Gloves: Is yet to be seen without his leather gloves, regardless of the game. They stay on even when he’s been otherwise stripped of his trademark coat and hat in the DeVitt goldmine mission.
• The Comically Serious: Given his dour and taciturn personality, McCoy habitually finds himself on the receiving end of the gang’s quips – though he, to his credit, takes almost all of them all in stride. Nonetheless, some of his would-be snappy comebacks cross straight into hilarious Self-Deprecation.
  Kate: Oh, come on, McCoy. I think a little investigation could be fun.
  McCoy: I wasn’t put on this earth to have fun.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: His artwork in Desperados III bears more than a passing resemblance to Lee Van Cleef.
• Cool Old Guy: Is the oldest member of the gang in WDoA, lost an eye, can snipe, can pick almost any lock, has developed his own special knock-out gas, crafts his own bullets, is a professional hitman, doctor and a former soldier. You cannot be more badass than that.
• Consummate Professional: Prioritizes getting the job done over pretty much everything else.
• Cracks in the Icy Façade: Starts as utterly disinterested in anything but his own advancement and personal gain (he even urges Cooper to commit a Murder by Inaction when they first meet), but as early as in his first full mission, the defense of the O’Hara Ranch, he shows a certain amount of care and interest in regards to his companions – which, eventually, culminates in him saving their lives and becoming one of the main three gang members.
• Crisis Catch And Carry: The Baton Rouge mission of III has him drugged and knocked out cold for its entirety, forcing others to not-so-gracefully carry him to the level exit.
• Dangerous Deserter: He’s a Civil War deserter who started to indulge in killing for hire shortly afterward.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Played straight in WDoA, Cooper’s Revenge and Helldorado and downplayed in III as there his outfit was reworked to incorporate more grey/purple tones into it.
• Deadly Doctor: In addition to being a skilled sniper, Doc can also use chloroform and a poison syringe to take out enemies at close range.
• Debt Detester: Really, really hates letting debts go unpaid, despite Isabelle’s insistence that her saving the gang from their little Mississippi predicament was “on the house.” The sheer number of times he cites and recites that him helping Isabelle and Kate find Marshal Wayne is going to make them even staggers both women.
• Depending on the Artist: His Buntline, the length of its barrel, its scope, and its custom shoulder stock have changed wildly between the games.
  • In WDoA, the telescopic scope took around two-thirds of the barrel’s length and the stock is visible in the ability’s icon.
  • In Cooper’s Revenge and Helldorado, the scope became bulkier, and as long as the - much shorter - barrel.
  • III transformed the gun into an honest-to-god Sniper Pistol — and the now pint-sized scope got permanently attached to the barrel. III likewise deleted the stock (despite McCoy making an explicit remark that it’s still there).
• Dissonant Laughter: He doesn’t laugh much, if at all, but he cannot help but let out a sinister chuckle when he’s about to execute an unconscious opponent.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Loudly complains about the swamp in the bayou mission without yet knowing he will have ended up living in a swamp by the time WDoA rolled around. ^note Though, he very pointedly says “this swamp” which can be interpreted as him complaining about that particular swamp, and not swamps in general.
  • Helldorado opens with him being poisoned in the very same fashion he eliminates his enemies in III: a syringe to the neck. It doesn’t kill him, however.
• Dr. Jerk: Zigzagged. McCoy’s actual bedside manner is close to being impeccable and he’ll offer assistance without any snark or vitriol, but in the eyes of the public, his infamy seems to precede him.
  A random mook: (upon spotting McCoy) It's that asshole doctor!
• Eyepatch of Power: Sports one in WDoA and onward over his missing eye and his scar.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: While the vast majority of snipers – both fictional and real-life – go with Sniper Rifles, Doc’s weapon of choice is a custom single-action revolver that, unlike its bulky conventional competitor, also excels at No Scope medium-to-close range kills.
• Exposed to the Elements: Inverted. Despite all the games being set in the Deep South i.e. the states where temperatures, especially in the desert areas, can reach over 100°F, Doc won’t ever be seen without his black hat, gloves, and overcoat. Sam calls this out in Wanted Dead or Alive and McCoy justifies this (he wears all that so he could put up a “double” and claims this trick had saved his life more than once) but no one ever questions his fashion choices in Desperados III.
• Everyone Has Standards: An amoral mercenary who'd be willing to do almost anything for the right price though he may be, Doc is disgusted at the very notion of slavery and human trafficking.
• Fantastically Indifferent: His reaction to Isabelle using what amounts to unadulterated Blood Magic to take control of an enemy? Hyperfocus on the fact she sliced her palm open in order to do that. Justified in that he’s a doctor.
• Fatal Flaw: Unsurprisingly, greed, or, more specifically, it’s the Mood Whiplash he experiences upon seeing vast amounts of money within his reach. The Mood Whiplash in question consistently involves him letting his guard down and this is something Rosie and Hector exploit in the finale of “Money for the Vultures” DLC.
• Fighting the Lancer: While not an all-out physical fight, McCoy makes it transparently clear that he’s leaving the party because of Cooper’s frivolous decisions that’d led to everyone’s capture.
• Firing One-Handed: Played straight in III, Cooper’s Revenge, and Helldorado and subverted in WDoA.
  • In III, his bracing-to-shoot animation has him kneel and lay the barrel of his Buntline on the forearm of his other arm, without anything supporting that forearm at all, although he can still fire the gun with his arm fully extended. III justifies this by correspondingly including a tremendous recoil that sends his firing arm in an arc.
  • WDoA subverts this by making both his standard and scoped high-precision fire use both his hands.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Spends the entire DeVitt goldmine mission being even more sullen, bitter, and bloodthirsty than usual and literally Pressure Points a mook (instead of sedating them like he always does) seconds after breaking out of there.
• Frontier Doctor: Served as one prior to becoming a professional hitman. In the games, he fulfills this role by always having first aid kits on him to treat his injured companions.
• Gentleman Snarker: Suave, sophisticated, snarky, and shuts down Isabelle in a positively spectacular way as he’s about to (temporarily) “cut his losses” with the gang.
  Isabelle: Well well… And here I thought you had a shred of decency in you, McCoy.
  McCoy: I thought you'd know better by now.
• Genius Sweet Tooth: He’s a pastry chef who likes to bake cupcakes in his spare time and is the most academically inclined of the group.
• Genre Refugee: His exceedingly gothic/vampiric looks stick out like a sore thumb in the sea of classic Old Western characters and archetypes. Nonetheless, the games do attempt to take the bite out of this by making him the Quack Doctor Traveling Salesman type that gallivanted around the countryside during those decades.
• Gonk: For the first game only. In comparison to the rest of the cast, McCoy stands out by having exaggerated features e.g. a disproportionately large chin, underbite, and cartoonishly hooked nose.
• Good Feels Good: After stopping DeVitt from smearing Cooper’s gang across a wall with buckshot, openly admits that had put him in a good mood. Until then, you can tell he takes great pleasure in liberating slaves from DeVitt’s clutches in the bayou mission — even if he tries not to show it.
• Good Pays Better: DeVitt refused to pay him, forcing him to switch sides and join the heroes. In the game's finale, he also hints at Marshal Wayne having made good on his promise and paying quite a handsome sum. Not that it stops him from sizing up the derelict gold mine that’s in the Devil’s Canyon…
• Grumpy Old Man: He’s in his mere forties and is easily the most multitalented member of Cooper’s gang, but he fits into the blatant stereotype of one. He’s so notoriously foul-tempered in fact that enemy mooks, at one point, characterize him as “tall, long coat, mean as sin.”
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: His Buntline in Wanted Dead or Alive, and, more precisely, his elongated precision bullets. Said bullets resemble full-on carbine/rifle rounds which he then somehow crams into a cylinder that ordinarily chambers hollow-point .45 caliber cartridges. Although, taking into account Buntline’s easily modifiable design — it was its main selling point — it is likely Doc traded the factory-issued cylinder in for something that could chamber both .45 caliber cartridges and rifle cartridges. III averts this by making him use one type of (custom) ammo for everything.
• Hammerspace: In WDoA, he is seen having something on his person full of lighter-than-air gas that allows him to inflate balloons as well as a life-sized dummy onto which he mounts his Outfit Decoy.
• Hand Cannon: His Colt Buntline Special fitted with a custom sniper’s scope and stock fits the bill.
• Handicapped Badass: In that he’s a one-eyed sniper. He lampshades this trope in the manual to WDoA. Subverted in III.
• Hanging Around: Happens to him twice in WDoA and in both cases, Cooper has to bail him out. Doc even lodges a complaint regarding the frequency with which these would-be hangings have taken place.
  McCoy: (half-heartedly) I dunno why this always happens to me. (beat) My neck seems to have a special affinity with raw hemp…
• The Hermit: Downplayed. When he’s not up and about being a mercenary/doctor/traveling salesman, he will retreat to a shack deep in the Louisiana bayous.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Outwardly, McCoy is prickly and disdainful of anything that does not suggest monetary compensation, but at the same time he decides to tag along Cooper and Co. long after his contract has expired, drinks and jokes with them, and downright abhors when someone calls him out on being “unprofessional” i.e. not his usual materialistic and bad-tempered self.
• Hired Guns: A mercenary through and through, he is introduced in III as having been contracted by the DeVitt company to protect a train, then joins forces with Cooper and Kate because they're paying him now (and because the cheapskate company refused to pay him).
• Hollywood Silencer: His Colt Buntline Special uses custom ammo of his own creation to make it quieter.
• Hot-Blooded Sideburns: Downplayed. His sideburns are a thin strip of finely groomed hair going down his jowls and he only seldomly gets really passionate about something. But when he does…
• Hypocritical Humor: In the “Late to the Party” DLC.
  McCoy: (as someone who lugs around his bag everywhere he goes, to Hector) Don't you ever get tired of hauling [Bianca] around?
• Improbable Age: He’s 39 in Desperados III, but has already obtained a medical license, got drafted into the Civil War against his will, deserted, became an extremely deadly assassin in addition to mastering one of the most unwieldy revolvers in history, learning how to pick locks, inventing his own (alchemical) knockout gas and bullets, and becoming a pastry chef.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Can hit a fuse on a bundle of dynamite from up to 55 yards away, and the manual to WDoA even quotes him saying he can “shoot a fly off a wall from 100 feet” despite lacking an eye.
• Informed Deformity: Zigzagged.
  • The games do not elaborate on how McCoy had lost his eye, but promotional material for Cooper’s Revenge stated that, whatever that was, had left a hideous scar on the left side of his face. In spite of that, the one time we get to peek behind his eyepatch in a gag with Goodman’s widow’s son, said disfiguring scar is nowhere to be seen.
  • But at the same time, said scar can be seen in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment of McCoy's mission intro cinematic of WDoA: it's a large x-shaped Rugged Scar that goes across both his left eyebrow and over his eye. The scar is not present on McCoy's actual render due to the early and low-fidelity 3D graphics of WDoA.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Doc. Desperados III reveals that it was Hector who first came up with it, and the rest of the crew went along with it.
  • Also, Pops, courtesy of Sam.
• Instant Death Bullet: His high-precision rounds in Wanted Dead or Alive are this i.e. one bullet is enough to vaporize anyone and anything. Yes, that includes the Final Boss who can be (via Sequence Breaking) sniped for ludicrous 10000 damage^*an average mook has 50 – 150 hit points.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Doc endures the most physical abuse – but always manages to emerge none worse for wear. The most notable example of this is when a horse hoofs him across the face in III; realistically, a horse kick to the head can kill on the spot. McCoy, in spite of that, simply blacks out and wakes up the next day with only a headache.
• Ironic Nickname: Isabelle almost exclusively calls this sourpuss of an assassin “Sunshine.” He doesn’t seem to mind it.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Was a starry-eyed and adventurous young man before he came to the United States, but the war broke him after just one year in the trenches.
• Just One Man: The main story of Cooper’s Revenge kicks off with Cooper requesting McCoy to fetch Sam and Sanchez from Eagle’s Nest. After Doc discovers from a bandit that the fortress has been overrun by a rival gang, he decides to stay and, alone — much to the bandit’s disbelief — eliminate all the bandits.
• Knockout Gas: His signature skill across all games; he can chuck a vial of his special swamp gas that sends everyone reeling within the area of effect.
• Last-Name Basis: Justified. No one knows his first name.
• Literalist Snarking: Doc is the most prone to scathing remarks out of the entire group, but his very first mission with Cooper in Desperados III gives us this gem.
  Cooper: (after he and Doc save some civilians from the train robbers) See? I knew you had a heart in there somewhere.
  McCoy: (glumly) Anatomically maybe.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: Intersects with Loony Friends Improve Your Personality. Prior to meeting John and Kate, he worked solo as a high-profile, unscrupulous mercenary. All of his snark aside, it’s obvious that the two (as well as Hector and Isabelle later) had rubbed off on him, to the point of him choosing his friends over his selfish desires and rescuing them all from certain death. In the finale, he even expresses a desire to stay grouped together should Isabelle try to go where he can’t follow.
• Made of Iron: For one, see Major Injury Underreaction just below. Other than that, there’s also the Baton Rouge mission of III where the player can fling Doc’s unconscious body to their heart’s content and even use him as a weapon.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Exaggerated to the point of it becoming Major Injury No Reaction. Late into WDoA, Doc is taken hostage. His captors try to impromptu hang him (again) from a dead tree, but the branch snaps before anyone does anything worthwhile. His captors’ response? To beat the living daylights out of him and continue to beat him senseless until Cooper interferes by killing everyone around him. McCoy’s reaction to the beating of mythic proportions he just endured? Nothing. Not even a disinterested “ow.”
• A Master Makes Their Own Tools: Makes his own bullets and his own Knockout Gas vials.
• Master of Unlocking: Can crack pretty much any type of lock in mere seconds. Only doors that are barred or bolted from the other side will defeat him.
• Master Poisoner: Uses a syringe with a poison that instantly kills the opponent. Also carries other Perfect Poisons in his bag such as water hemlock (“seizures until respiratory failure”), deadly nightshade (“a classic since Ancient Rome”), white snakeroot (“painful, slow and steady”), oleander (“first your heart races, then it slows, then it stops”), and rosary pea (“a small dose is enough”).
• Mind over Matter: Well, yes, as part of his Star Wars Easter Egg in Wanted Dead or Alive.
• Morph Weapon: A non-magical instance in the first game. Outside of the dedicated, resource-restricted sniper mode, his Buntline is only marginally better than Cooper’s standard Single Action Army (the difference in two guns’ effective range is non-existent). But should he attach his custom sniper stock and load the Buntline with special cartridges, it abruptly and vastly increases the gun’s range and accuracy, and allows him to take down human-sized targets from hundreds of yards away.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: A non-canonical example. In the announcement trailer for Desperados III, for Cooper’s second “savegame,” Doc gets shredded into a bloody pulp by enemy Gatling fire. The trailer then promptly reloads.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Loathes puzzles and wild goose chases so much that he, in the first New Orleans mission, suggests Cutting the Knot on the whole by murdering all three potential marks. All of them are bad people, but Kate is disappointed he doesn’t want to play the detective nonetheless.
• Neat Freak: Exaggerated. Simply stepping into water prompts him to let out a frustrated growl and hunker down to wipe his boot dry. Later on, he likewise expresses an intense distaste when handling an infant citing that should “[the baby] wet itself,” he’ll not hesitate to drop it.
• No Full Name Given: Double subverted. Before Desperados III, McCoy was known simply as “Doc” – even to Cooper with whom he’d forged a lasting friendship. The credit roll of Desperados III acquainted us with his first name, but in the game itself, it’s never acknowledged or spoken out loud.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Played for Laughs. In the “Once More With Feeling” DLC, at long last, getting his hands on DeVitt’s great wealth fills him with so much wholesome joy that he offers to buy everyone involved a round of drinks. This enables Hector and Rosie to vanish into the night along with all the money while the gang slept off their drinks. Doc’s morning-after reaction is… something to behold.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Despite hailing from Scotland and coming to the United States only in his mid-twenties, McCoy speaks with a sort-of Southern U.S. accent in all four games. Though his military background — breaking recruits of their accents as a safety measure was common back then — might explain that.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: To the late Lee Van Cleef. He was one already when he debuted, but III made the resemblance even more blatant by touching up his facial features and adjusting his eye color.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: With McCoy’s In-Series Nickname and standing as a cold-blooded doctor-slash-killer, he shares more than a passing similarity with the real-life Doc Holliday. The fact Holliday’s best friend, the renowned lawman Wyatt Earp, carries a (personalized) Colt Buntline (and Val Kilmer’s terrific portrayal of Holliday) in Tombstone only makes the homage all so obvious.
• Nothing Personal: One of his melee kill voice lines. Also has a few words of wisdom on the topic; see his quote. He shares his thoughts with Cooper to boot, foreshadowing Cooper’s true motives.
• Not So Above It All: All of his humorous quips are conveyed without a single pause, laugh, or change of inflection.
  McCoy: (moments after killing a mook by putting him through an industrial saw, voice flat and emotionless) He never saw that coming.
• Ominous Opera Cape: Wears a flowing, burgundy-red one in WDoA.
• Only in It for the Money: At least for the first half of the game, McCoy is only there to get paid. And even after his Character Development, he’s still very much allured by the would-be chime of profit.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Given his love for money and all sorts of financial arrangements, he utterly disregards the fact he’s in a gold mine at the beginning of Chapter 3, instead opting to plot their escape with implacable determination. Even Isabelle – who’s a reformed former mercenary – remarks that she “should’ve packed a few [gold] nuggets” in her voicelines.
• Outfit Decoy: In the first game, he can mount his coat, hat, and the aforementioned cape onto a dummy. The enemies treat the resulting scarecrow as one of your party members and either open fire or try to approach it to knock it out.
• Perpetual Frowner: All of his in-game portraits in all of the games feature him putting on a menacing scowl in contrast to the rest of the gang and their easygoing smiles.
• Psycho for Hire: Downplayed. He a Consummate Professional who works only when he’s been paid (or when there’s a guarantee of compensation), but he makes the fact he genuinely enjoys murdering people abundantly clear.
• Quick Draw: Yes, really. At least in III, not so much in WDoA.
• Real Men Cook: And how! He even finds time to share a new cupcake recipe with Cooper all while the train he was contracted to protect is being looted in a side-splitting Easter Egg.
• Required Party Member:
  • Two of the fourteen main-story missions would be downright impossible to complete without McCoy’s sharpshooting. The game is well aware of this and will give him a “golden bullet” during those segments so the player would not soft-lock themselves by running out of ammo for his Buntline.
  • The same goes for missions where you are required to crack locks to proceed as Doc is the only one with the lockpicks.
• Retcon: Desperados III intentionally reworked much of his backstory.
  • Cooper’s Revenge asserts Doc never finished medical school — he was kicked out of the program for unruly and destructive behavior. III made him a full, licensed doctor.
  • In the manual to Wanted Dead or Alive, it’s stated Doc fought in the Civil War and lost his left eye during the Battle of Gettysburg (1863). III, on the other hand, made him desert the army altogether after just one year, therefore preserving his eye.
  • Cooper’s Revenge and Helldorado both established that the only reason McCoy joined Cooper’s gang was that he, out of the blue, fell in love with Kate (who, in turn, viewed him as an Abhorrent Admirer). This part of his backstory squicked the developers of III out so much that they promptly blasted it from existence.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: His Buntline Special has vastly superior range and is nigh-silent, meaning he can pick off enemies at a distance without being detected.
• "Rise and Fall" Gangster Arc: Invoked deliberately in III where Doc’s depicted in “his glory days” and is his most skilled and most egotistical incarnation. Those days, naturally, fade in the Time Skip between III and WDoA though the reason behind it is left ambiguous.
• Running Gag: Not one in Cooper’s gang, including Cooper himself at first, not believing McCoy’s a real doctor. This repeats every mission where Doc has to work with a new companion and this even carries over into Wanted Dead or Alive.
• Science Foils: To Isabelle. Both are the party’s resident medics, but he’s, what one would call, a conventional doctor who renders conventional aid to the wounded (disinfectant, bandages, surgical intervention), while Isabelle is a voodoo shaman who uses herbs and Blood Magic to help the injured. Unsurprisingly, both are leery of each other methods, but that mutual dislike will not stop them from using their skills on each other should the need arise.
  McCoy: (if healed by Isabelle) You seem too fond of these [herbs].
  Isabelle: (if healed by McCoy) Thanks… I guess.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Subverted. He muses about the war in his idle voice lines, and the war is explicitly stated to have been his Cynicism Catalyst, but, if anything, the war had turned him into a Trigger-Happy Psycho for Hire.
• Shoe Phone: There’s a gas trap inside his doctor’s bag, and it is sprung as soon as the bag is opened.
• Signature Headgear: His wide-brimmed felt fedora that leaves his head only under the direst of circumstances, e.g. being arrested and shipped off to work at a gold mine or when he’s about to be strung up. Even a horse kicking him across the face doesn’t knock it off. Somehow.
• Snake Oil Salesman: Playing with. Quit being a mercenary and became a mundane traveling merchant (complete with his own Medicine Show) sometime after III, though the genuineness of his “goods” has remained ambiguous. All one knows is that the local populace tries to lynch him for the alleged fraud and that all his merchandise was highly combustible.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat:
  • With Isabelle whose tongue is sharp enough to put him in his place.
  • With Sam in the first game, especially during Doc’s tutorial mission which culminates in Sam being bit by an alligator and McCoy having a laugh at his expense.
• Sniper Pistol: A literal example of the trope. His Buntline Special is a long-barreled Single Action Army that functions as a Sniper Rifle.
• Sour Supporter: Is by far the most pessimistic member of Cooper’s gang in all games, and practically every mission in Wanted Dead or Alive opens with him voicing how what they’re about to do is a fool's endeavor.
  Cooper: (cheerfully) Keep smilin’, Doc.
• Stab the Scorpion: How he and Cooper first meet. Cooper eliminates the two bandits holding McCoy at gunpoint, to which McCoy responds by aiming his Buntline at Cooper. John has a fleeting incredulous reaction and McCoy pulls the trigger, killing the third bandit who was about to jump John from behind.
• The Stoic: Zigzagged. He’s down-to-earth and is the frank killjoy of Cooper’s gang, but from time to time he lets his mask slip. WDoA upgrades him to a conclusive Not So Stoic.
  McCoy: (in a suspiciously perky tone) Let's get this going. I don't wanna be late.
  Isabelle: Huh, you're in a good mood today.
  McCoy: (instantly bristles, menacingly) What's that supposed to mean?
  Isabelle: Ah, there's the McCoy I know.
• Supporting Leader: He is Cooper’s right-hand man and will take command of the gang when Cooper is otherwise indisposed e.g. jailed or about to be executed.
• Talking in Your Sleep: While knocked unconscious during the Baton Rouge mission, McCoy keeps murmuring about ‘roses’ and ‘drinks.’ His associates brush these comments off as inebriated Non Sequiturs, but in reality, this is Doc’s way of saying that it was Rosie who spiked the group’s drinks the other night which, in turn, led to the all-out ransacking of the town the following morning. How exactly did he come to that conclusion is left ambiguous.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: McCoy’s black-haired, astonishingly lanky (according to the developers, he’s somewhere around 6’3” – 6’7” tall), and, given half a chance, will snark all day long.
• Team Chef: Is implied to share the responsibilities of keeping the team fed with Hector seeing as they sometimes go out to “stock up on their provisions.”
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Is very quick to correct anyone who tries to address him as “Mr. McCoy” instead of “Dr. McCoy.” Only Kate’s (Irish) uncle, the Baron, and the President of the United States get away with calling him “Mister.”
• Throwing the Distraction: He can throw his doctor's bag as a distraction. The trap inside will also briefly blind anyone who opens it. In Wanted Dead or Alive it’s more like Placing a Distraction.
• Token Evil Teammate: The most cynical, cantankerous, and downright creepy member of Cooper’s gang, and a true soldier of fortune, too. That is, at least in the public eye.
• Too Much Information: His reaction when Hector starts eulogizing about Bianca during the O’Hara Ranch mission.
  Hector: <...> You should have seen her. All battered and rusted up. I had to polish her, clean her, oil her—
  McCoy: (bluntly) I think I’ve heard enough, thank you.
• Tranquil Fury: Justified. Under calmer circumstances, he is impassive and grim, but that changes after Cooper gets the entire gang captured and sent to the gold mines to be worked to death. One can tell from McCoy’s tone alone that he’d rather wholesale slaughter absolutely everyone there – and John in particular – but reins it in. Unsurprisingly, he decides to leave the gang scant minutes later, and is absent for roughly two in-game weeks.
• Trigger-Happy: Does not take kindly to threats, and will, with little hesitation — if Cooper isn’t there to cool him off, that is — answer anything he perceives as a slight with lethal force. Justified as he’s a Professional Killer.
• Troll: Allows Sam to be bit by a (from Sam’s point-of-view, tranquilized) alligator and only patches him up when Cooper calls him out.
  McCoy: (in a matter-of-fact yet snarky tone) Did I forget to mention that the gas only works on people? Animals don't react to it. Ain't that just too bad – I just clean forgot.
• Trouble Entendre:
  • Parodied. During the Easter Egg picnic scene, McCoy will (nonchalantly but in his signature sinister tone) notify Cooper that he’s looking for “volunteers to try out [his] newest (cupcake) recipe”. Cooper treats the invitation with skepticism and answers that he’d rather stick to his rations to which McCoy, without skipping a beat, tells him that the aforementioned cupcake is perfectly safe… before eating it right in front of John. John’s reaction is a gloomy hum.
  • Played straight with his Stop Poking Me! quotes where he casually lists off all the poisons he has in his bag.
• Trust Me, I'm an X: Establishes that he’s, in fact, aromantic by invoking this trope.
• Villainous Widow's Peak: Hides a truly magnificent one beneath his hat.
• Violent Glaswegian: Downplayed. McCoy is Scottish and is a tad too callous and bloodthirsty for a doctor, but is more on the Tranquil Fury side of things than the Unstoppable Rage other examples of this trope like to demonstrate. He has a few Rage Breaking Points of his own, however, with “stupid puzzles” and “not getting paid” being pretty high on his list.
  McCoy: (grits through his teeth) Now, if there's another letter, or map piece, or any more damn nonsense in [there], I swear I'm gonna kill someone.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • In Desperados III, he butts heads with Isabelle the most and frequently disagrees with her on matters of principles and morality. See also the Belligerent Sexual Tension entry.
  • Downplayed in Wanted Dead or Alive, where he and Sam do not get along and will spit venom in each other’s direction, but never do anything that’d compromise the other.
• The Watson: While the group as a whole could qualify for this trope in Wanted Dead or Alive, Doc asks the most questions in all of the mission briefings Cooper exposes.
• Weak, but Skilled: Is physically the weakest and second-to-last least mobile of all the playable characters but he makes up for it with a well-rounded ability kit that lets him solo entire missions.
• Whole Costume Reference: His appearance, especially in Wanted Dead or Alive, is reminiscent of Colonel Douglas Mortimer. They even use the same Colt Buntline Special, albeit with a few key differences^*Doc uses his Buntline with a custom sniper’s stock and Mortimer uses a detachable shoulder stock, morphing it into a mini-rifle.
• Younger Than They Look: Desperados III gave him a fair smattering of wrinkles that’d fit a man in his sixties, but in reality, he’s only 39.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: Implied. He seems to purposefully be maintaining a facade of a total unrepentant jerkwad to appear more sinister and intimidating. But taking into consideration he’s a killer-for-hire, it makes sense for him not to want to show off his Hidden Heart of Gold to his potential employers.

Kate O'Hara

Kate O'Hara

“Oh, they tried [to mistreat me]. I gave 'em a good reason to put bars between us.”

Voiced By: Elly Fairman (WDoA), Erica Lindbeck (III)

Kate as she appears in Wanted Dead or Alive

A young, intrepid, and strong-willed woman trying to save her uncle's ranch from the DeVitt Company's hostile takeover. After she succeeds in her mission, she joins the gang on a permanent basis, citing her thirst for adventure.

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• Action Girlfriend: She and John are an item and she is not afraid to get her hands dirty, that’s for sure.
• Affectionate Pickpocket: May very well become one if she first flirts with her target and then filches something from their pockets.
• Ancestral Weapon: As she notes in her dialogue, her Derringer was passed down from her mother.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: One of her idle animations in III has her take out her Derringer and attempt to twirl it… only to drop it soundly on the ground and then sheepishly pick it up again.
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Her default cowgirl outfit in Wanted Dead or Alive places an emphasis on her role as the seductress of the group.
• Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: In her debut mission, as a result of blasting Mayor Higgins with a shotgun at point-blank range, Kate must find a new disguise to replace her blood-spattered wedding dress as it will immediately give her away to guards.
• Brain Bleach: Obtaining and reading the fake letter from the Chez Manu Café during the New Orleans mission will make all three heroes (Kate, Isabelle, and McCoy) positively dry heave with disgust. Soon after, Kate also suggests burning said letter and washing their eyes with soap.
• Card Sharp: By Wanted Dead or Alive, she’s become a Professional Gambler who always has an extra Queen of Hearts card on her person. She then cheats at poker by covering the lowest-ranking card on her hand with it.
• Dirty Harriet: She can impersonate a prostitute by taking the appropriate outfit.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Has a peek or two at Cooper’s ass should he go up a ladder during the Eagle Falls mission.
• Fiery Redhead: Has lustrous red hair and, following her uncle’s death at the hands of the DeVitt Company's thugs, chooses to hire a bounty hunter and a professional killer to help her demolish a bridge so DeVitt would never threaten the people of Flagstone (and her ranch) ever again.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Kate repeatedly puts her feminine wiles to good use, but likewise knows how to handle firearms, drinks, swears, and largely can act like a man.
• Groin Attack: In contrast to everyone else, her melee attack involves kneeing an enemy in the crotch. This is just as effective on female mooks.
• Head-Turning Beauty: When she uses her Entice ability, not one simple male guard can resist her.
• Heroic Seductress: Her Establishing Character Moment has her pretending to marry the Mayor of Flagstone in order to sneak into his study and find the documents she's looking for. This is her main role in the game as well, being able to dress in disguises she can take from courtesans and distract all male enemies (bar Long Coats) with her charms.
• Hidden Weapons: Because her Derringer is small, it's easy to conceal, allowing her to bring it with her to the DeVitt mansion party – a mission where Cooper’s bulky guns get confiscated.
• Immigrant Parents: Her Irish parents brought her to the States when she was nine.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Her disguise options often involve stunning Pimped Out Dresses that do not hinder her movement or attack speed in the slightest.
• Little Useless Gun: Subverted with her Derringer. While it overheats quickly and has a slow firing rate compared to the gang's WDoA arsenal of guns, it can still instantly kill foes at close-to-medium ranges. In III, its low caliber is a clear advantage as the noise from the gunshot doesn't travel far, and that allows Kate to gun down her foes without alerting the guards in the vicinity.
• Makeup Weapon:
  • In Cooper’s Revenge and Helldorado, she can use a special compact powder laced with a sedative to put her enemies into a catatonic state.
  • In III, she’s got (unlimited) vials of eye-watering perfume she can toss to briefly blind her enemies.
• Master of Disguise: With the proper outfit, Kate can impersonate anyone from a common servant girl to a beguiling courtesan.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • Starts to reuse some of McCoy’s select/confirm barks in the Las Piedras mission, highlighting her desire to cut her losses as he did.
  • Throws Cooper’s own “nobody goes in alone” phrase from Chapter 2 back at him in the finale of the game. The proud John is humbled.
• One of the Boys: After the Eagle Falls mission, decides to keep Cooper, Doc, and Hector company on their bounty-hunting adventures. She also doesn’t shy away from swearing and heavy drinking.
• Playing Card Motifs: The Queen of Hearts. In Wanted Dead or Alive, she can use a standard 52-card deck of playing cards to breadcrumb-lure unsuspecting enemies.
• Restrained Revenge: Her uncle’s death at the hands of DeVitt’s mooks motivates Kate to exact vengeance against the man himself, though she ultimately settles on taking him into custody for the crimes he’s committed.
• Runaway Bride: Her plan was always to skip out on the wedding to Flagstone's mayor once she got the deed to her family's ranch back. Circumstances force her hand, resulting in her blasting the groom with a shotgun.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Defied. Kate toys with the notion of leaving the gang altogether after John screws everyone over, parroting Doc, but Hector manages to convince her to stay after a soulful banter.
• Show Some Leg: When disguised, she can distract any male enemy except for Long Coats.
• The Smurfette Principle: Played straight in Cooper’s Revenge and Helldorado but downplayed in WDoA and III where she has Mia and Isabelle to keep her company, respectively.
• Strip Poker: Admits she managed to lose her previous courtesan dress in a poker game in between the two New Orleans missions.
• Utility Party Member: She’s the only member of the gang with no lethal melee takedown or means of hog-tying anyone up, but she can navigate enemy territory with the right disguise, has an incredibly powerful Area of Effect blind ability, and, like McCoy, can drag bodies within the striped segment of the vision cone.
• Woman Scorned: When she learns that her 'groom' Mayor Higgins intends to sell her family's ranch to DeVitt company and tries to blackmail her into going along with the threat of death, she doesn't hesitate to blast the greedy bastard away with a sawed-off shotgun. She also doesn't take it well when Cooper's misguided attempt to take on Frank alone gets everybody captured, and spends two whole missions calling him out for his foolishness.

Gang members introduced in III

Hector Mendoza

Hector Mendoza

“You know, I did some real bad things too. And [Cooper] still trusts me.”

Voiced By: Lucas Schuneman

A jovial ex-thug and an experienced trapper, Hector is Cooper's best friend, and who’s known him for many years. The two used to go on jobs together before the start of the game.

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• A Day in the Limelight: The entire “Money for the Vultures” DLC is all about him and Rosie.
• Animal Motifs: Bears, befitting his savage yet mellow nature.
• The Atoner: It's implied that the reason Hector is so loyal to Cooper is to atone for his role in James Cooper's death. That said, after Frank is dealt with, he no longer feels chained to Cooper and will leave the gang after the DLC missions.
• The Big Guy: The only one in the team who can take on Long Coats in straight-up physical combat, has the most health, and can carry two bodies at once.
• Bear Trap: Uses one he named “Bianca”. One of the Baron’s Challenges even awards him two additional traps called “Camilla” and “Lucia.”
• Brick Joke:
  • Defied with the Deadwood joke. During their Flagstone escapade, Hector will playfully state that the town’s whorehouse “reminds him of the one in Deadwood” to which Cooper humors him. Later, during the second New Orleans mission, Hector tries to crack the same joke in regards to the Red Lantern brothel, but this time around, Cooper shuts him down before Hector can get to the punchline.
  • Played for Drama in the DLC. Should McCoy snipe someone during the first mission, Kate will laugh and say that Hector now owes her half of his cut – they’d bet on whether Doc would hit his shot. Come the DLC's epilogue, and Hector has made off with the entirety of DeVitt hoard.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He’s a barbarian-esque character who fights with a simple yet deadly woodcutter’s axe.
• But Now I Must Go: The ending of the entire DLC has Hector swipe the money from the successful Eagle’s Nest heist and settle down with Rosie somewhere. He leaves a letter for Cooper, telling him he loved the time he spent together, but wants to quit while he's ahead. This also retroactively explains why he's not around for the first game.
• Camp Cook: In the aftermath of the team bombing the Eagle Falls bridge, cooks everyone a meal which even the Hidden Depths Supreme Chef McCoy doesn’t pass up.
• Comically Missing the Point: In the “Late to the Party” DLC, Hector — much to the irritation of McCoy and Kate — starts going on and on about Rosie which culminates with him declaring that she is “just as adorable as when [all of them] had drinks together [in Baton Rouge].” In response to Doc’s acidic remark (in Baton Rouge, Rosie had drugged and framed them all), Hector simply lets out a fond sigh.
• Companion Cube: He talks to Bianca as if she were a living, breathing person. The rest of the team rightfully thinks he’s a bit cuckoo.
• Defector from Decadence: Used to be one of Frank’s right-hand Long Coats but left all that behind after Frank ordered him to kill a child.
• Dumb Muscle: Is the strongman of the team but is, to quote McCoy, a neanderthal. Justified in that he can’t read, has some problems counting, and is “not good with French names”.
• First-Name Basis: Officially, he’s got a last name, but the rest of the cast refers to him as just ‘Hector’ (or as ‘Mr. Hector’ in fancier cases).
• Forgotten First Meeting: Played for Laughs. The Baton Rouge episode opens with Hector waking up from a night of heavy binging next to the sheriff’s wife, Rosie, and forgetting how they’d met. Rosie, on the other hand, remembers everything as she’s the one who spiked the team’s drinks the other night.
• Foreshadowing: The game provides plenty of subtle warnings that Hector is about to take off with the gang’s hard-earned heist cash at the conclusion of the DLC as well as his general infatuation with Rosie.
  • Back in the main game, if the gang fails to stop Rosie and then reads her farewell letter, Hector will sigh longingly and call her a “woman after [his] own heart.”
  • In the second DLC mission, Hector muses about settling down and opening a quaint little saloon.
  • In the third DLC mission, Hector outlines his multi-step plan as “free Doc, open the lock, say hello to retirement”. When the annoyed Cooper reminds him that they’re also supposed to free Kate and Isabelle who likewise were taken captive because of him, Hector brushes that comment off.
• The Friendly Texan: He’s from Texas, and is the most amicable member of the team.
• Heal It with Booze: He carries a flask of high proof whiskey that heals him and him alone. It's too strong for anyone else to drink, something that can be taken advantage of using Isabelle's Connect.
• Honorary True Companion: Ultimately, he is this after it's revealed he and Rosie had manipulated the rest of the gang so they alone would get their hands on DeVitt’s money.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With the much younger Cooper whose life he spared fifteen years ago.
• LOL, 69: Doesn’t fight back an immature chuckle when he kills his sixty-ninth enemy during the O’Hara ranch mission.
• Manly Facial Hair: Hector's full beard isn't just for show; he's a capable hunter who can use traps to his advantage and swiftly kill enemies with his axe, including the Long Coats.
• Never Gets Drunk: He can quaff and quaff from his flask to the player’s heart's desire, but that’ll never affect Hector in any negative way.
• Never Learned to Read: Downplayed. He’s illiterate, but the rest of the party never calls him out on it.
• Pelts of the Barbarian: Is clad in cured furs and is the most savage member of the gang. Justified in that said pelt prevents the chain slinging Bianca over his shoulder from chafing.
• The Pig-Pen: According to several characters, Hector emanates an unsavory stench as a result of his rudimentary personal hygiene.
• Sex Is Violence: Judging from the tone of his voice, he gets progressively more hot and bothered the more kills he gets under his belt during the O’Hara ranch mission – in contrast to the ever-professional McCoy who counts his kills with muted, delighted viciousness.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: His lovey-dovey romance with Rosie is enough to fill the rest of the gang with more than a little revulsion.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: While relatively short-ranged, Hector can kill multiple enemies with a single blast as long as they're within his arc of fire.
• Still Wearing the Old Colors: If you look closely, his outfit is a ragged, modified version of the Long Coats' uniform, hinting at the fact he used to be one.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Fills almost the same role as Sanchez from the previous three games — a hard-drinking Big Guy who can haul two bodies at the same time and uses a sawed-off.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Refused to hurt the fourteen-year-old John which set him up on a path to redemption.

Isabelle Moreau

Isabelle Moreau

“I can give you some jimson to soothe the pain.”

Voiced By: Debra Wilson

Stella

A voodoo witch working with Marshal Wayne to try and put an end to the DeVitt's criminal activities. She gets captured during one such excursion, escapes, and subsequently joins Cooper’s gang after likewise freeing them from DeVitt goons’ clutches.

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• All Witches Have Cats: She’s a voodoo witch with a pet cat – one that also acts as her familiar.
• Ambiguously Bi: In addition to the Belligerent Sexual Tension entry below, she low-key flirts with Kate, knows which one is the “fanciest whorehouse” in the [French] Quarter, and is not embarrassed to point out the “curves” and the “colors” of a raunchy illustration you can potentially acquire during the first New Orleans mission.
• Apron Matron: She’s petite, middle-aged, maintains constant discipline, and even when troubled, shows wisdom.
• Artistic License – Religion: She explicitly practices the Louisiana branch of Voodoo (her debut mission is called that), but her backstory, her appreciation for Blood Magic, her offering the souls of her enemies up to the Ghede nation/family of loa, said loa existing in the universe of Desperados, and the fact the loa were incorporated into some revivalist forms of Louisiana Voodoo only in the 20th century, indicates that she’s practicing Haitian Voudoun instead.
• Ascended Extra: Stella, alongside Agent Floofs (a dog) and Sergeant Cluckers (a chicken), get their own Baron’s Challenge level.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With McCoy. They spend plenty of time arguing and generally being unpleasant towards one another (or even about each other when they’re stranded on opposite sides of a map) but after Doc walks out on the gang, Isabelle – begrudgingly and not-so-begrudgingly via the mind-controlled Hector – confesses that she misses “the old grump”.
  Hector: (while being under Belle’s control, dreamily) Oh, she misses him. Heh... Doc, you idiot.
• Blow Gun: She uses one to fire darts that enable the usage of her Connect and Mind Control abilities.
• Cast from Hit Points: Her Mind Control is a channeling ability that costs one point of health per use.
• Clandestine Chemist: Back in New Orleans, before her and the gang’s paths crossed, Isabelle was a vendor of all sorts of herbs, potions, and drugs. One of her clients was Rosie Adams.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: In Doc’s absence, heals the gunshot wound in Cooper’s leg by invoking some complex Blood Magic spell. This ability is not available to her in regular gameplay, and she collapses from exhaustion right after wiping away Cooper’s injury.
• Familiar: Her seal-point cat, Stella, is intelligent enough to understand human speech, can faultlessly distract almost any enemy, and even leads her fellow pets in a Baron Challenge to rescue Doc.
• Foreshadowing: At one point in the DLC missions, Isabelle confesses to having been Rosie’s “supplier” — Rosie had used the narcotic she’d gotten off Isabelle to drug the gang back in Baton Rouge. When Cooper wisely asks whether Rosie has any more of that drug on her, Isabelle replies with a cautious ‘maybe.’ It’s implied that Rosie with Hector slipped everyone a mickey again at the end of the DLC, albeit this dose was a lot smaller — it knocked the gang unconscious but they woke up with no ill aftereffects.
• Foot Popping: Does a variation of this trope when offering to chaperone her new friends to New Orleans. Doc, at whom the Foot Popping is aimed, is not amused.
• The Gadfly: To Doc and Doc only, as part of their Belligerent Sexual Tension gimmick.
  Isabelle: (slyly) I just wanna see the look on McCoy’s face.
• Genre Shift: Until she appears, the setting seems firmly grounded; she suddenly introduces actual magical abilities that nobody else uses.
• Hidden Depths: In the “Five Steps Ahead” DLC mission when Kate swipes a housemaid’s dress to disguise herself, Isabelle comments on her familiarity with how tight those uniforms are implying she once was a house slave. The fact that this mission takes place on a Louisiana cotton plantation only heightens this theory.
• Hollywood Voodoo: Downplayed. While her Connect and Mind Control abilities are magical in nature in contrast to the grounded nature of everyone else's skills, the information found in Desperados: A Pen & Paper Roleplaying Game reveals that her powers have been bestowed upon her by the loa, the key supernatural figures in Voudoun.
• Loophole Abuse: Tries to invoke one on McCoy by saying he still owes her since they haven’t found Wayne yet; they only found out where he’s being held. It doesn’t work, and she has to cough up the money to ensure he comes along on the actual rescue mission.
• The Medic: Her jimson herbs heal up characters when ingested.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The cinematic trailer for III shows Isabelle siccing Stella to tear and claw at a guy’s head. In the game itself, Stella can only be used to distract oblivious enemies; sending her to take out one that’s been alerted to the team’s whereabouts will result in Stella ping-ponging back to Isabelle.
• Older and Wiser: She’s been active for many years – first as a mercenary, then as Marshal Wayne’s top enforcer – and superbly chews Cooper out in the aftermath of him attempting to take Frank on alone and refusing to drag others into his problems.
  Isabelle: You know, no matter how many times I've heard that kinda bullshit, it never turned out right.
• Only in It for the Money: Subverted and lampshaded. Isabelle openly admits there was once a time when she’d do anything — emphasis on anything — for money before Marshal Wayne pulled her out of that pit. She then lampshades the trope in relation to Doc and says she cannot tolerate people like him. The fact McCoy, at this very moment, is establishing that he wouldn’t do some things even if he was paid to do them is lost on her due to them not being within each’s other earshot.
• Our Spirits Are Different: Desperados: A Pen & Paper Roleplaying Game states that Stella is a Voudoun loa in the shape of a cat that’s bound to Isabelle. In the game, this manifests as Stella, whenever she is called, popping into existence by Isabelle’s side in a poof of magic.
• People Puppets: Her Control ability seems to work like this; enemies she puppeteers shamble around with occasional hints that they're struggling.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Wayne, the Marshal of New Orleans.
• Primal Stance: Her default idle/walking animation has her bend and slouch. Subverted whenever she enters a Public Zone — there, she walks and runs with her spine straight as a new pencil.
• Psychic Link: Her Mind Control functions like this as, from time to time, her possessed victims can be heard exclaiming information only Isabelle would know.
• Ragin' Cajun: She’s a hard-as-nails voodoo witch from New Orleans, so she obviously qualifies.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Whenever she and Doc wind up on a stint together, expect them to fling snide comments at each other almost non-stop.
  McCoy: You're going to a lot of trouble to find this Wayne.
  Isabelle: (seething) What part of “friend” don't you understand, Sunshine?
  McCoy: <...> (with polite disregard) He got caught and you're risking your neck to drag him out.
  Isabelle: Hard for you to understand, I'm sure.
• Support Party Member: Isabelle, by far, is the most melee-oriented member of the group; lacking a gun, she is required to get close to each of her foes. Because of this, even with her magic, any gunfight with her on the front lines results in an increased risk to her.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Fills almost the same role as Mia from the first game — a Sixth Ranger who joins the gang last, who has a pet that can draw the enemies’ attention, and who uses darts to make enemies attack each other.
• Synchronization: Her Connect ability weaponizes this; you link two people, and whatever happens to them happens to the other. You can even link your own party members and Isabelle herself for some advanced synergies.
• That Old-Time Prescription: Her Healing Herb of choice is jimsonweed, a plant known for its delirium-inducing and hallucinogenic properties. She does make an explicit remark that she ‘prepares’ fresh leaves, though.
• Token Wizard: She’s the only party member in all the games who freely uses magic.
• Unhappy Medium: She frequently has nightmares after using Mind Control if her select voicelines are anything to go by.
• Voodoo Doll: Subverted. She carries a straw one with her at all times, but all of her abilities require her own blood.
• Weirdness Censor: Hector doesn’t notice that she is blatantly using magic. At one point, if you have her mind-control one enemy into shooting another, he comments that he must have been piss-drunk, and Isabelle responds with "Yessss... drunk..."
• Where's the Fun in That?: In the “Five Steps Ahead” DLC, this is her reasoning for when Cooper asks her why she sidelined Doc (the party’s resident Master of Unlocking) when they were explicitly told they’d be required to bust a lock.
• "You!" Exclamation: Her response to McCoy almost lazily strolling into view seconds after subduing DeVitt and saving them all. She promptly cools off.

Gang members introduced in Wanted Dead or Alive and Cooper’s Revenge

Samuel Williams

Samuel Williams

Voiced By: Dean Hill (WDoA)

Cooper’s trusted friend, one of the best demolitionists in the western United States, and generally a man who enjoys the company of a fair lady.

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• The Caretaker: After Mia’s father is executed by Marshal Jackson’s men, Sam comforts the newly orphaned girl and convinces the rest of the team to take her in.
• Demolitions Expert: He handles most of the explosives, such as TNT and nitroglycerine.
• Noodle Incident: A Santa Fe job he went on with Cooper – heavily implied to be the bank job that Kate references in the DLC to Desperados III – during which half of the town was “blown to hell and back.” We never learn what really happened.
• Perpetual Smiler: Sam positively brims with joy and with a desire to live and thrive – in contrast to the ever-surly McCoy in whom Sam’s joie de vivre induces vomiting.

Pablo Sanchez

Pablo Sanchez

Voiced By: John Guerrasario (WDoA)

A gang leader known for his monstrous strength, he crosses paths with Cooper first as his bounty target, but later becomes one of his most steadfast allies.

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• Bear Trap: In Cooper's Revenge, he's able to set up bear traps to catch his targets.
• The Big Guy: He's able to carry two bodies at once and even lift a Gatling gun, carrying it around.
• Boulder Bludgeon: He's able to pick up medium-sized rocks and toss them at the hostiles to knock them unconscious.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the first half of Wanted Dead or Alive he's the primary antagonist, but after being double-crossed by El Diablo he joins the heroes.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: He carries a double-barreled sawed-off as his main weapon, even managing to fire it one-handed.
• Throwing the Distraction: Sanchez carries around flasks of tequila he can toss on the ground to make enemies approach them and pick them up, distracting them from their usual routine.

Mia Yung

Mia Yung

Voiced By: Elly Fairman

An orphaned Chinese girl who joins Cooper's posse to avenge her father's death at the hands of Marshal Jackson's deputies. She's young, but has a lot of experience with a blowgun and can use her pet monkey to cause ruckus among the enemy's ranks.

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• Blow Gun: Her main weapon that she uses with poisoned darts.
• Mischief-Making Monkey: Her pet monkey, Mr. Leone, can be used to confuse the enemies.
• Put on a Bus: Doesn't appear in Cooper's Revenge, with her goal of avenging her father being achieved in the previous game.
• Sixth Ranger: She's literally the sixth member to join Cooper's team in the second part of the game.
• The Sneaky Gal: She's able to hide inside empty barrels to avoid being seen by enemies.

Hawkeye

Hawkeye

A wounded Native American archer who is patched up by the gang at Fort Wingate. In gratitude, he chooses to aid them in exposing the cloak-and-dagger conspiracy surrounding Angelface.

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• Domino Mask: His face is painted to resemble one.
• Innocently Insensitive: Late-Cooper’s Revenge, forgets the fact McCoy’s missing an eye when asking what Doc can see which prompts an exasperated grunt from him.
• Third-Person Person: Refers to himself almost exclusively as “Hawkeye.”
• Tonto Talk: Speaks understandable English but has a propensity to skip over prepositions. Adding to that, he never addresses other gang members by their names instead preferring to use epithets (i.e. “white medicine man” for McCoy).

Non-playable characters introduced in Desperados III

Vincent Montgomery DeVitt

Vincent Montgomery DeVitt

Voiced By: Joe Zieja

The owner of a powerful railroad company. This corrupt businessman is responsible for some of the most heinous crimes in the game.

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• 0% Approval Rating: Despite his more or less spotless public image, his Control Freak tendencies make him loathed in the eyes of even his underlings as evidenced by their under-the-breath mutterings if he tries to speak with them.
• Bathroom Breakout: How he outwits the gang in the end: while bound, he asks for a chance to relieve himself, forcing Cooper to accommodate his request and unknowingly divide the oblivious group. This then allows DeVitt to get the drop on Hector. He would’ve succeeded in shooting at least someone too if it was not for the returning McCoy incapacitating him from afar.
• Big Bad: While Cooper's main beef is with Frank, DeVitt's top enforcer, Vincent DeVitt and his cronies are still responsible for most of the gang’s troubles.
• Bond Villain Stupidity:
  • For some undisclosed reason, Vincent refused McCoy payment for services rendered in the first mission of the game which, more or less, jumpstarts the plot.
  • Dedicates himself to gloating into the protagonists’ faces while holding them at gunpoint which leads to McCoy taking a shot at him. Justified in that he had no way of knowing McCoy was even there.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He uses political connections to boot people out of their homes, take control of the O'Hara ranch, and, thanks to Loophole Abuse, make use of slave labor.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: He employs women and people of color as Hired Guns in nearly equal numbers to men and white people.
• Foreshadowing: Raising an alarm that reaches Vincent’s ears in his mission will force him to whip out a double-barreled shotgun, indicating he can (and will) use one.
• Malevolent Mugshot: Has two massive statues of himself within his manor grounds. Hector can topple one and potentially kill one or two mooks with it and the second one has a hidden switch somewhere on it that reveals a hidden safe with all his vast riches.
• Near-Villain Victory: Cooper very nearly causes one when he decides to face Frank alone.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: He may be wimpy-looking, but as some of his underlings comment, he's got quite an evil eye, and will readily bully almost anyone into submission. The heroes learn this far too late.
• Pragmatic Villainy: After he captures Cooper and his friends, instead of taking retribution against them for their meddling, he hauls them to be worked to death in his gold mine as he, in his own words, doesn’t want “good material to go to waste”. While not glamorous, this does allow the heroes to escape after a while.
• Railroad Baron: His railroad company is so powerful he's able to get houses in Flagstone demolished to run tracks through the town.
• Southern Gentleman: He wears magenta-red instead of the white more typically associated with this trope but he still qualifies as a gallant and distinguished gentleman with a railroad empire and an opulent mansion in New Mexico.
• Uncertain Doom: No one is sure what to make of him following his arrest. Even his brother simply comments that Vincent ‘disappeared’ without a trace.

Frank

Frank

Voiced By: Daniel Riordan

An infamous outlaw who’s the head of a powerful gang. Currently, he's working as the top enforcer of the corrupt DeVitt Company.

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• Bad Boss: His men fear him as he's perfectly willing to maim and even murder those who tick him off.
• Blood Knight: He's an Old West version of this; he loves showdowns at high noon to the point where he'll set them up intentionally even when he could kill someone without giving them a chance to fight back.
• The Dragon: He's Vincent DeVitt’s top enforcer.
• Dragon Their Feet: He quits DeVitt's employ just before the main characters enact their plan to stop the corrupt businessman. Therefore, after DeVitt has been taken into custody, the final mission involves tracking and taking Frank down.
• Noble Demon: To an extent, at least compared to the utterly amoral DeVitt: Frank has a code, is nostalgic for the good old days, and would prefer to kill man in head-on duels rather than from behind. However, his code only extends to respecting people who can fight back; he has no qualms about murdering children in cold blood.
• Retired Gunfighter: What he fancies himself as, but he’s still absurdly quick on the draw as Cooper finds out.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Has enough of DeVitt’s snobbery in the penultimate mission and leaves him just before Cooper infiltrates Casa DeVitt.
• Would Hurt a Child: He ordered Hector to kill Cooper when the latter was just a child, sparking Hector's defection from decadence.

Marshal Wayne

Marshal Wayne

Voiced By: Ted Barton

A U.S. Marshal who is investigating the DeVitt Company's dealings. He is also Isabelle's old friend whom she cares about a lot.

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• Badass in Distress: He's implied to be a good shot, but he's just too outnumbered and outgunned to take on Frank and his goons at once which gets him captured and requires Isabelle to enlist Cooper and his friends' help to save him.
• Big Good: The closest person to one in the game. He's a Reasonable Authority Figure who directly opposes the villains of the game.
• Guest-Star Party Member: He joins your party in the bayou mission, taking Kate’s slot, which makes escorting him to the level exit much easier.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: In the aftermath of his rescue, Wayne goes on to say that he “owes [the gang] a great deal” and hopes to “repay the favor someday.” Cue McCoy cashing in all of his goody-two-shoes points and Isabelle letting out a long-suffering sigh.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Managed to avoid (re)capture by the DeVitt goons when the rest of the gang was taken captive and brought to the gold mines.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Isabelle, a reformed mercenary and a voodoo witch.
• Positive Friend Influence: When asked why she would go to such great lengths to save Wayne, Isabelle explains that there was a time that she'd do anything for money, and Wayne was the one who helped Isabelle out of that situation. Gameplay-wise, his instructions in the Casa DeVitt mission prevent the heroes from killing innocent civilians.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's the only known figure of authority in New Orleans who isn't corrupt or blind to the DeVitt's company's unethical practices.
• Shipper on Deck: Seems to quite approve of Cooper and Kate as a couple as he sees them off on an infiltration mission into Casa DeVitt.
• U.S. Marshal: Natch.

The Baron

The Baron

Voiced By: Doug Cockle

An enigmatic figure that follows our heroes, often offering them a chance to participate in his exclusive challenges for the benefit of his clients’ entertainment.

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• Brutal Bonus Level: Zigzagged. At times, his Challenges can become these as more often than not he will throw in a new rule or two (e.g. he takes away all of your weapons, your ability to carry corpses, or limits you to one corner of the map) to make things more interesting. At other times, his missions are unadulterated adrenaline rushes (e.g. he orders you to kill everyone on the map in the bloodiest fashion possible).
• Character Catchphrase: “My clients are watching.”
• Mysterious Backer: Supplies the heroes with various inventive gadgets and/or ammo so they can perform the great feats he’s expecting them to.
• Odd Friendship: With McCoy whom he candidly calls “[his] friend” in “Bird Hunting.” On the other hand, it’s not known what Doc thinks about the Baron, but it’s implied the feeling is mutual despite him owing the Baron a debt.
• Public Domain Character: Given his title, the grisly nature of his tasks, his apparent supernatural abilities, how much he knows about the protagonists, and him being surrounded by his ‘clients,’ it is strongly implied he’s Baron Samedi himself, the Voudoun loa of death.
• Second-Person Narration: Every Challenge begins with a briefing that summarizes how, well, you came to be in his employment, with the exception of two levels (“One Woman Army” and “Bird Hunting”) which address Isabelle and McCoy respectively, informing the player that the Baron knows them already.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: His looks are described only a handful of times, but all of them establish that he’s a dark-skinned man in a dapper suit.
• Smoky Voice: Courtesy of Doug Cockle. His voice is stated to be smoky in the briefings too.
• The Spook: No one knows anything about him as he only appears in bonus missions to Desperados III.
• The Voice: You will only hear him but never face him.