Characters / Spec Ops: The Line

The central cast of Spec Ops: The Line.

Warning! Due to the nature of the game, there are many, many spoilers on this page, all of which are unmarked. Tread carefully.

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Delta Force Team

Walker

Cpt. Martin Walker

"Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai."

I don't want to say being a soldier is a way of life, because honestly, that's the kind of bullshit recruiters sling at high-school kids. But there is something to it… You gotta understand, being soldier isn't like having a job. You're just one gear in a much larger machine. It's not a way of life, it's how we're built. We're just not wired for the day-to-day civilian world. We go in, we do what's necessary, then we die.

Voiced By: Nolan North (English), Vadim Medvedev (Russian)

The player character and the main protagonist/true villain of the game. Walker is a captain of the US Army's Delta Force who is tasked with leading his squad into the now-devastated Dubai on a recon mission to find survivors. Upon finding dead American soldiers and fending off armed survivors, however, Walker chooses to go against orders and travel further into the city with his team to investigate. Upon discovering the 33rd having declared martial law and committing acts of brutality to keep refugees in line, Walker resolves to find Konrad for answers and save the refugees.

However, as he and his team is faced with increasingly horrifying situations and begin to mentally deteriorate, Walker is faced with the consequences of his actions and his damaged mentality as the team descends further and further into violence and madness.

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• Action Genre Hero Guy: Subverted, if not outright deconstructed. While he would likely wish to be this, Walker is anything but.
• All for Nothing: Walker's entire journey. After spending hours killing fellow American soldiers, dooming the citizens of Dubai to a slow, agonizing death, ensuring the truth will die with the city, and irreparably destroying his team, Walker had hoped that the final confrontation with Konrad would be his redemption. It was all rendered moot upon finding Konrad's corpse.
• All Just a Dream: Implied. invoked Word of God indicates that when the screen fades to black, it's a normal scene transition, but the screen fading to white is Walker having an Imagine Spot transition. Since there are few black fades and it's mostly white fades, even without the game's more trippy moments, this indicates much of the game is in Walker's head, be it a dream, self-delusion, or flashbacks of his damaged psyche.
• Ambiguous Situation: As mentioned in All Just a Dream, a white transition means hallucination and a black transition means reality. However, in The Road Back ending, the scene of him being rescued fades to white, but the scene of him talking to his rescuers fades to black. Does this mean that even though his rescue doesn't happen as depicted onscreen, he's still ultimately rescued? Or does it mean that he's never rescued and the subsequent scene is only true in a weird metaphorical sense?
• Anti-Hero: Falls all the way from a Classical Anti-Hero to Villain Protagonist - and what a hard fall it is. Very ironic, in a horribly tragic way, since it all happened because he wanted to evolve into a straight-up hero.
• Anti-Villain: Since anti-heroics wasn't enough, he goes from a Type 3 to potentially a full-blown villain if the player decides to shoot the rescue team if they make it to the epilogue.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: By the end, he has killed so many 33rd soldiers that the remaining survivors just hand Dubai over to him. In his head, at least.
• The Atoner:
  • Much of the game could be interpreted as him trying to atone for the "white phosphorus incident," but his being hopelessly misguided only succeeds in making things worse.
  • In one ending, where he chooses not to cross the line and decides to be punished by law for what he's done.
• Audience Surrogate: The further the game goes along, the more obvious the parallels between Walker and the player become. This is generally not presented as a good thing.
• Ax-Crazy: Progressively, he becomes a more violent person. Case in point, the sequence that leads directly into figuring just How We Got Here:
  (Walker and co. can easily leave the current area.)
  Walker: Circle around by the pool, Adams.
  Adams: What?! Why?!
  Walker: I want to see what this gun can do.
• Bait the Dog: Initially, he appears to be the classic hero before the plot takes a darker turn, and turns out to be much more selfish and cruel than he initially seemed.
• Baritone of Strength: Speaks with a deep, commanding voice, befitting his position as the capable captain of the Delta Force. Falls into Evil Sounds Deep towards the end of the game, due to his progressively decaying moral compass.
• Beard of Evil: By the end of the story. It also grows into a Beard of Sorrow in the epilogue.
• Beard of Sorrow: In the epilogue, if he makes it that far. Judging by how large it is, it's implied he let it grow for a few days by the time another team comes to get him.
• Believing Their Own Lies: He swiftly (read: almost immediately) abandons their actual reasons for being in Dubai in favor of stopping Konrad, so he can be a hero.
• Big Bad: After Konrad is revealed to have been Dead All Along, it becomes clear that Walker himself was the true villain of this story, being almost single-handedly responsible for dooming the citizens of Dubai, whom the 33rd were ultimately trying to protect.
• Big "NO!": When Konrad forces him to choose which of two prisoners should die, he'll let one out if the nearby snipers incapacitate Lugo and Adams in retalliation for him trying to defy this order.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Has shades of this as the game goes on, continually trying to convince himself that the events of the plot fit into a dichotomous moral framework in which he and Delta are the "heroes" and the CIA, Konrad, and the 33rd are the "villains", and any crimes that Delta commit in the course of stopping them were committed because the "villains" forced their hands. This is intended as a commentary on conventional shooter games which employ Black-and-White Morality (whether explicitly or implicitly) and players which were expecting the game's moral framework to unfold as such.
• Blood Knight: Horribly, horribly deconstructed. If he weren't so obsessed with Konrad, maybe he would have realized that he was breaking down. Although, considering the obsession came from his delusions and his inner desire to project his guilt on someone else, this trope is more of a consequence than a cause. Within gameplay, his executions become noticeably and needlessly sadistic as the game goes on, playing into this trope even further.
• Bolivian Army Ending: In the epilogue, Walker can either choose to lay down his gun to the U.S reinforcements or to fire upon them, thus invoking a last stand. Even in the event Walker survives the fight, other reinforcements will eventually come.
• Boom, Headshot!: How he dies if he so chooses.
• Break the Badass: Over the course of the game, his confidence that he will be able to help save the day erodes. This is seen in his rage at the situation, which increases constantly.
• The Captain: He has the rank, and in the earlier parts of the game, the fairness and respectability to go with it. But only in the earlier parts.
• Dark and Troubled Past: It's implied that the mysterious incident in Kabul had previously messed him up.
• Dead All Along: Of the Dying Dream variety. The developer states that one possible interpretation of the game is that Walker died in the helicopter crash in the beginning of the game and everything that came after was either his dying hallucination or his personal purgatory. But they have also stressed that this is not necessarily the only correct interpretation.
• Deadpan Snarker: Less than Lugo, but he does have his moments.
• Death by Irony: Possible. Walker fires on the members of said infantry battalion in self-defence, and later makes it his team's mission to kill the battalion's now-disgraced commanding officer. Should Walker, now the disgraced former leader and sole survivor of an elite Delta team, choose to fire on the rescue force in the epilogue, he can be killed in self-defence.
• Death Seeker: In several of the game's endings, he has effectively become this (the only one in which he's not is the one in which he kills himself). Of course, this could have even been subconsciously a part of his character after the White Phosphorus incident, which would explain why, for example, he instructs Adams to fly the helicopter straight into the sandstorm.
• Dented Iron: As the game goes on, he picks up more and more scarring. His appearance notably matches his mental state.
• Demonization: The further the game progresses, the more he starts reacting far more angrily and spitefully towards enemies instead of being neutral. Compare his behavior near the start, where he coolly and calmly announces targets going down, to near the end, where he snarls out obscenities and belts out a venomous "fuck you" every other kill.
  • A more specific example is his view on Konrad. Initially, he has lots of respect and admiration for the man, but over time, he starts seeing Konrad as the archenemy he desperately needs to blame for everything he's doing. This eventually shatters hard when he finds that Konrad is dead, invalidating literally everything he's felt and done.
• Despair Event Horizon: Upon discovering Konrad's corpse, he comes dangerously close to crossing this line due to the Heel Realization that he has. In three of the game's four endings, he crosses this line completely - either he kills himself, attacks the rescue squad and is killed in the process, or he attacks the rescue squad and dooms himself to die. Even in the ending in which he doesn't cross this (in which he turns himself in), he is evidently and understandably shaken by what he's done, and he even admits to feeling dead inside.
• Destructive Saviour: Subverted in the worst endings, where despite plenty of destruction he doesn't get to save anyone. Played straight in the Bittersweet Ending.
• Detrimental Determination: One of the rare cases in fiction where determination, and the resolve to continue your mission, doesn't make everything alright in the end, and in fact makes it worse. Once Walker actually realizes that their mission is causing disasters one after another, he enters a vicious cycle wherein he presses to complete his mission even harder, likely so that he can feel that all the suffering he inflicted on the way was worth something in the end, and so that he can finally say he saved someone after dooming countless numbers of people, causing yet more death and destruction in his efforts to make it all mean something.
  Konrad: None of this would have happened if you had just stopped.
• Dies Wide Open: In the endings where Walker dies, his corpse is shown with his eyes still open, although they’re different depending on how he dies. If he commits suicide, his eyes are permanently twisted into a heartbroken, tormented grimace. If Walker goes down fighting he looks more shocked than anything else.
• Dissonant Serenity: If you choose to kill the rescue squad in the epilogue, he becomes eerily quiet outside of pained grunts while he's taking damage and his parting words to the rescue forces.
• Driven to Suicide: In one of the endings, if he chooses to let the imaginary Konrad kill him or shoots his own reflection.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: A Delta Force operator. Averted after the "white phosphorus" incident, where he slowly becomes a decidedly unglamorous rage filled shell of a man.
• Empty Shell: The Epilogue shows him becoming into one, he doesn't speak at all when the rescue team finds him, and only produces small hurt sounds, during the optional confrontation against the rescue team.
• Evil Sounds Deep: The further he goes on his journey, and the more reprehensible actions he takes in the name of justice, the more parched and guttural his naturally deep voice gets.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: As the campaign goes on and Walker continues losing his mind, his combat barks become more feral and psychotic and he starts straight growling, throat tearing and all, a lot more. Potentially justified, as all the sand he regularly tumbles into and gets blasted with from grenade explosions or during sandstorms can't be good for his lungs.
  (After getting shot) Ack! God... dammit!!
• Expy: Of Captain Ben Willard from Apocalypse Now, both are shell shocked veterans who have suffered experiences that have left them divorced from reality. Walker seems to see himself this way in universe as well, he created his own "terminate a renegade Colonel" scenario in his head after his psychotic break.
• Fallen Hero: In three of the endings (the first being the suicide, the second the Suicide by Cop, and the last by killing the rescue team).
• Fatal Flaw: Walker's downfall comes about because of his inability to reconcile his desire to be a hero with his growing awareness that he is anything but.
• A Father to His Men: Walker's characterization at the beginning of the game is meant to evoke this trope. Despite the stresses and perhaps psychosis that beleaguers him the further into Dubai they go, some of it can still be seen later on; after the helicopter crash, his hallucination of Lugo crying out for his help seems to imply he worries in particular for Lugo, who would seem to be the youngest and newest Delta operator of the squad.
• Foreshadowing: During one of his hallucinations, Walker sees Lugo begging for help, while a sea of civilian corpses drag him beneath the sand. Not long afterwards, Lugo is murdered by an angry mob of civilians. You can complete the foreshadowing, if you choose to listen to Adams and murder the mob in retaliation afterwards.
• Glory Seeker: He is so focused on succeeding at his mission that he is willing to order his men to accompany him In Harm's Way. However, as the hallucinatory Konrad mockingly reminds him, there was never really any need for him to do so, since his mission was strictly to reconnoitre Dubai for signs of life, then report his findings. This also explains his motivation for perceiving Konrad as the villain of his mission; given his desire to be a great hero, he subconsciously believed that he must attain that desire at the expense of the greatest hero he ever knew.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Collects a number of disfiguring scars over the course of the game, mostly to his head.
• Hallucinations: Both auditory (see Hearing Voices below) and visual, taking form whenever there is a white flash rather than a black one to signify a change in scene. They start becoming more obvious after the white phosphorus incident, but there are signs of it (several times there are several "fade to white" scenes, as well at least one billboard of Konrad, in the first chapter) before then.
• Hearing Voices: Begins by hallucinating Konrad's voice after finding the white phosphorus-incinerated corpses of the Damned 33rd's officers, but it branches out into many other hallucinations over the course of the game, culminating in a hallucinatory Climax Boss in the form of Lugo.
• Heel Realization: Upon learning that Konrad is dead.
• The Hero: Tries to be one. And boy, you can stress that word plenty, especially after he crosses the point of no return. One of the loading screens calls this out, asking “Do you feel like a hero yet?”
• Heroic BSoD:
  • He goes through one when he finally realizes what he became after seeing Konrad's corpse. Although, at this point, it's hard to tell if this trope applies or if we're witnessing a Villainous Breakdown.
  • It's then up to the player to choose how Walker reacts to this: will he be Driven to Suicide? Is he going to give into his delusions entirely? Or will he finally make a good choice and try to Atone?. According to Steam's achievements, it's the last solution that is preferred.
• Heroic Wannabe: Part of what drove him to the extremes he takes in the first place is because of this persona. It does not end well, at all.
  Konrad: You're no savior. Your talents lie elsewhere.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Complete with a loading screen that depicts him gazing into an abyss...not coincidentally, one that appears directly after he finds Konrad's radio.
  Walker: I... I didn't mean to hurt anybody.
  Konrad: No one ever does, Walker.
• Hidden Depths: Walker is definitely very well-read, considering that his split personality Konrad is quite philosophical and quotes a rather obscure poem.
• His Own Worst Enemy: The further the game progresses it becomes clear that Walker himself is his true enemy and not Konrad. It becomes more obvious when the real Konrad turns out to have been dead the entire time, meaning he had been performing all of his heinous acts for no truly justifiable reason.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He puts his trust in Riggs and his men very quickly, despite having very little to go on. Konrad calls him out on this, insisting that Riggs's intentions are less than noble, and when Adams and Lugo question his judgement, he justifies his decision on the basis that "Right now Riggs and his men are the only people not trying to kill us". Given that Walker's hallucination of Konrad represents his conscience, it's obvious that Walker knew that Riggs couldn't really be trusted, but ignored his better judgement regardless.
• Icy Blue Eyes: They're his most noticeable physical feature. Near the end of the game, after Walker has reached the conclusion of his character arc, they become especially haunting — hollow and dead. Should Walker shoot Konrad's "ghost", then one of the U.S. soldiers sent to rescue him even comments, "Look at his eyes. Something's not right."
• I Did What I Had to Do: This is his excuse for all the things he does in order to take down the 33rd. It becomes increasingly clear that he's just deluding himself.
• Ignored Epiphany:
  • Let's just say that a lot of blood would've remained unspilt had Walker knocked himself out of his hero narrative and realized the extent of his destruction a lot earlier than finding Konrad's corpse. It's part of what makes him so tragic as a character; he's almost pathologically incapable of admitting that he crossed the line and constantly finds ways to justify his atrocities for the sake of the mission.
    Konrad: It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him.
  • Walker actually manages to piece together that his presence has been causing more harm than good a while before The Reveal, but chooses to ignore it anyway on the basis that everyone shot him first.
    They're clothed, fed, sheltered. And, until we showed up, relatively safe from harm. These people killed Lugo to protect Konrad. I killed them to protect myself. At least, that's what I'm telling myself today.
• Ironic Echo: "You brought this on yourself."
• Irony: Walker initially serves as the leader of a search team sent to find a famed infantry battalion stranded in a sand-flooded Dubai. In the epilogue, he is found by a rescue force after becoming stranded in a sand-flooded Dubai due to the deaths of Adams and Lugo.
• It's All About Me: His mindset can also be described as "It's all about my heroism". It's deconstructed, since his determination to complete his mission all by himself results in everyone in Dubai dying.
• I've Come Too Far: The reason that he keeps persisting with his mission is that he believes he can make everything better. Big mistake. In one ending of the game, after he realizes what he does was All for Nothing, he attacks the rescue team, and presumably any more soldiers and surviving citizens, because he comes to believe that killing is all he's good for and what he's done can't be forgiven.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Deconstructed. His desire to do "what's right", whatever the cost, results in the delusion that whatever he does is right, no matter what it is.
• The Kirk: Played straight early on where he has to settle conflicts between Adams and Lugo. Later, as he becomes increasingly mentally unhinged, it becomes their turn to try to rein him in, but to no avail.
• Knight Templar: Progressively over the course of the game. He is finally called out on his actions most explicitly in the endgame.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: He's got the lantern jaw. As for the "justice" part...
• Last Survivor Suicide: He is the last member of the Delta squad to die in the ending where he kills himself.
• The Leader: He starts off as a very neutral Type II, but he later devolves into a Type III and takes his position to a frightening extreme.
• Made of Iron: Falling off a skyscraper knocks him out for a while, but he gets up and goes straight back to fighting. Even more telling is that despite the various injuries he suffers over the course of the story, he never complains or takes stock of them in any way.
• Meaningful Name: His name is Walker. He never stops walking, regardless of the consequences. invoked Word of God is that the name was sarcastically suggested in an attempt at getting a better name from someone else.
  Williams: A good name says something about the character. So I put it to the team: "Who is our main character?" And no one said anything. So out of frustration I'm like, "Well, I guess he walks a lot, so we'll call him Walker." I forced the point, thinking that someone would come back with something better. No response. So Walker went down, and it never changed.
• Mercy Kill: Inflicts these in his executions and potentially against Riggs, who is trapped under the water truck. Later subverted; they become more brutal and sadistic, first after the white phosphorus mortar, then after the helicopter crash.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: Walker can invoke this in the short term by shooting the image of Konrad (rather than himself), calling for backup to evacuate any survivors, and then when backup arrives, open fire and force them to kill him.
• Military Maverick: Walker defies orders to scout out the situation and retreat in favor of going on to rescue McPherson and determine the condition of the 33rd. If only he'd stopped when he had the chance...
• Motive Decay: Starts out with the assignment of finding out if there are survivors in Dubai, ends up getting in a fight with some locals, and it spirals downhill from there. By the end, he has lost all track of why he's killing so many people and destroying so much. And likely so have you. Much like many other tropes, the loading screens call this out, asking “can you even remember why you came here?”
• Never My Fault: He ostensibly throws blame for his own actions and their consequences anywhere but on himself, especially the white phosphorus incident. However, it becomes increasingly clear that he's simultaneously riddled with self-loathing because of what he's done, even as he denies his fault. The game makes some pointed remarks about cognitive dissonance; the game also simultaneously blames Konrad for all of it and says “this is all your fault”.
• No Indoor Voice: The captain goes from being a composed, steely-nerved leader to a deranged psychotic who screams curses at any given opportunity after the Freak Out.
  Early Game Walker: Tango down!
  Late Game Walker: GOT THE FUCKER!
• Not So Stoic: He starts off as a composed Consummate Professional. As the game goes on, his lines when he kills enemies go from standard "enemy down" lines to Cluster F Bombs and he curses when he gets shot.
• Obliviously Evil: He really doesn't let himself understand how bad he's making things until the end. However, if some of the loading screens are anything to go by, and given that the Konrad he's been talking too is a manifestation of his concience, it can be inferred that he subconciously knows he's doing wrong but just ignoring his concience.
• One-Man Army: Played straight with how brutally efficient he is, and deconstructed later on. The point of his character is to show how much of an asshole a gung-ho soldier could be if he were to think he can complete his mission all by himself.
• Pinball Protagonist: Claims to be one of these, constantly asserting that everything he does is because the enemy is forcing his hand. In reality, he's anything but. invoked Word of God said the dev team went out of their way to avert this trope, by having the plot almost always be driven forward by the protagonist's (and by extension the player's) actions.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: He demonstrates a knowledge of Hammer Horror in one of the recordings accompanying the intel items.
• Pride Before a Fall: A subtle example. He's not overtly prideful or badass from the start, despite ostensibly being the action hero. By the time of the incident at the Gate and the ensuing crash course through tragedy after tragedy, his stress visibly starts to unhinge him a little bit. It's only after Chapter 12 and storming the Radioman's broadcast tower that he finally, finally has a solid victory—and immediately begins to sound a lot more like a standard "heroic soldier" type, roaring while gunning down enemies and taking time out to demolish their base when he doesn't need to. This is swiftly punished when his rasped-out order to fly directly into the storm—a crazy course of action that would nonetheless work in a movie or another game—literally drags him back down to Earth, with the resulting crash seeing his squadmates injured and killed and ending the short-lived flight of Captain Walker, badass action hero.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: The entire game is this for him, as he bucks orders and gets more and more involved with what's going on in the city, with universally disastrous consequences.
• Redemption Quest: A very dark example, almost to the point of deconstruction. Walker's continuing efforts to intervene in Dubai and improve the situation are in part motivated by a subconscious desire to redeem himself after the white phosphorus incident. However, he only succeeds in making the situation even worse. After confronting the shadow of Konrad, however, Walker actually has an opportunity to strive for the real thing. What happens next depends on the player:
  • Redemption Equals Death: If the Walker shoots himself on the spot or commits Suicide by Cop.
  • Redemption Earns Life: If Walker surrenders his weapon and goes home.
  • Redemption Rejection: If Walker opens fire on the rescue team and succeeds in killing all of them.
• Revenge by Proxy: If he listens to Adams; while some people in the crowd definitely murdered Lugo and the others at least failed to stop it, it's impossible for all of them to have been guilty or to know who the innocent or guilty are.
• Robbing the Dead: There's presumably a naked (or at least topless) corpse of Konrad lying around somewhere, considering that Walker is wearing his clothes in the epilogue.
• Sanity Slippage: Throughout the game, but especially toward the end after the white phosphorus incident, Walker becomes more and more unhinged. This is reflected in his worn down physical state and his combat callouts, that become more and more savage with each crime he commits.
• Selective Obliviousness: His squadmates evidently try to snap him back to reality on several occasions, but he always filters them out or rationalizes them in a way that makes sense to his narrative. For instance, during the hanging prisoners incident, both Adams and Lugo tell him to stop staring at a pair of corpses, but he filters that bit out of his memory and keeps only what doesn't contradict his delusion (Adam and Lugo urging him to just move on).
• Send in the Search Team: He is the leader of a team meant to serve such a purpose at the beginning of the game. This makes the Irony in the epilogue wherein he alone is found by a similar search team all the more crushing.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Along with the crushing blows to his mental well-being dealt throughout the game itself, his alluded-to experience in Kabul, Afghanistan was probably unpleasant — he never speaks about it any way but vaguely, other than to mention it's where he first met Konrad, who saved his life. Of course, Dubai only makes it worse. It'll even be lampshaded if he lives past the credits by the US soldiers who arrive to pick him up.
• Shouting Shooter: He frequently lets out infuriated yells once he gets behind the minigun on a stolen helicopter.
• Shows Damage: An extensive case — he goes from clean, healthy and battle-ready to filthy, bloodied, burnt scarred, and ragged. Comparing the character models from the beginning and end, he becomes all but unrecognizable.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He keeps the swearing to a minimal level at the beginning, but slowly but surely becomes more profane, to the point that he regularly drops angry f-bombs while in a fight.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: After the water trucks crash, he's knocked out and wakes up later, with the sleeves on his top having been ripped off. Rather tellingly, they're removed in such a neat and orderly way that it implies he did it to himself somehow, or at least thinks he did, to try and sell his hero image.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: He tries to convince himself that all of his actions are in the right, without letting himself become aware of his increasing violence and irrationality. It only drives him further and further into malignant delusions and eventually outright sociopathy.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Grows into the "mission comes first" variety over the course of the game. How quickly he does so depends on the player in some instances.
• Sole Survivor: By the end of the game, he is the only military officer left in Dubai until the United States military comes to pick him up. Given the actions of the game, it is possible that he is the last person left alive in Dubai, period.
  "Survivors... one too many."
• Suicide by Cop: A possible ending, by the team of soldiers sent to pick him up and bring him home. Even in the event that Walker survives the initial fight, he has basically made himself a target for the remaining U.S military forces in Dubai. He knows he'll never leave.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: One of his many justifications for continuing on with the mission: they've already come this far, so why back down now? Gets played horrifically straight at the end when nothing has been solved, everyone's either dead or going to die soon, and Walker had every opportunity to back down but didn't to serve his own hero complex. Turns out that the cost he sunk into this endeavor didn't justify the "reward" when all was said and done.
• Tautological Templar: In his Heroic Wannabe attempt to be badass, he ignores any clues that what he's doing is actually not the right thing, solely based on the idea that, since he is fighting Konrad, anything is justified. The problem is, he actually isn't fighting Konrad, and his actions led to far more devastation than existed before he arrived in Dubai in the first place.
• Talking to Themself: Whenever Walker talks to Konrad, he's actually talking to himself. This is best seen in the ending, where Walker is saying out loud the things that Konrad is saying.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: He sports one while frantically trying to internally justify his unknowing murder of dozens of civilians with WP shells at The Gate. His Icy Blue Eyes make it even more hollow-looking Later in the epilogue, his gaze is so dead and empty that Falcon-1 even remarks on how unsettling it is.
  "Look at his eyes. Something's not right."
• Through the Eyes of Madness: As befitting a game about an insane man projecting his deadly, immoral delusions onto his fellow soldiers and innocent civilians. The frequent hallucinations don't help either.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: His obsession in completing his mission results in him going from a well-meaning captain, to a full-on glory-seeking Heroic Wannabe who's all about his heroism.
• Tragic Hero: invoked Word of God described Walker's Fatal Flaw as his inability to reconcile the conflict between the kind of man he wants to be (namely, The Hero) and the kind of man he really is (namely, a flawed Anti-Hero). He falls so far because he is unwilling to admit that nothing will justify his actions, even if he'd succeeded in his original goal.
• Tragic Mistake: The white phosphorus shelling where he kills an entire group of civilians that, as it turns out, the 33rd were aiding. But his mistake wasn't just in using it — it was refusing to accept personal responsibility for the consequences of doing so.
• Tragic Monster: What Walker will be turned into, in the final chapters of the game. Ultimately, he was a man who wanted to help save people and saw his every action doom them instead.
• Two-Faced: Gets a rather nasty burn on one side of his head from an explosion when the helicopter crashes close to the end of the game. It ends up making an already traumatized man look even more wrecked.
• Unwitting Pawn: He becomes one to Riggs's plan to destroy the water trucks. From what Konrad says over the radio, he's aware that Riggs is not trustworthy, but he deflects it.
• Villain Protagonist: He's responsible for much of the hell Dubai is put through since his arrival, though he doesn't get it until after he finds that Konrad is dead and he doesn't have anyone but himself to blame anymore.
• Walking Spoiler: Impressive feat considering he's the protagonist.
• Weapon-Based Characterization:
  • In gameplay, his loadout depends on player choice, but in cutscenes, he's often equipped with the standard-issue M4A1 carbine and M9 service pistol, which establishes him as a straight-laced military protagonist with no overt personality traits though this only really applies to him in the beginning.
  • However, he's also shown using a Desert Eagle — considered Awesome, but Impractical by most soldiers, but a darling of action movies and a constant sight in the hands of protagonists thereof — when all his weapons are removed, perhaps suggesting his proclivity for violence and absurd self-view of action-heroism. By the ending, he's shown wielding an AA-12 fully automatic shotgun, which is about as far from his more practical loadout as you can get.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Has shades of this with Konrad. While it's obvious that he's obsessed with the man, Walker's desire for Konrad's approval is more subtly implied. In particular, when he begins hallucinating Konrad's voice, he imagines the Colonel telling him that he performed admirably under the circumstances in Kabul — indicating Walker's subconscious need to have Konrad reassure him and bolster his past actions, even while presently Walker is beginning to vilify Konrad.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Walker does have sincerely noble motivations for wanting to intervene in Dubai. However, his interventions only end up making things worse.
• Wicked Cultured: Subtle, but since Konrad is a figment of Walker's imagination, all of the literary references and philosophical musings that the former makes in dialogue are definitely from things that Walker has read.
• Windmill Crusader: He thinks he's an action movie hero, when he's in fact anything but. And as a side note, his battle against Konrad turns out to be meaningless as he was dead before Delta got to Dubai.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Receives this from pretty much every single major character in the game, save Riggs (who encourages Walker as a means to manipulate him) and Gould (who barely sees him).
• What You Are in the Dark: A Gameplay and Story Segregation example. In a few instances, the player can have Walker shoot civilians who are hiding or running away from the firefights. You'd think the game would reprimand the player or Walker over it such as a penalty, or commentary, even a mission failure. Instead the game does and says nothing, and Walker himself is stonefaced and goes on as normal. These instances happen well before the White Phosphorus incident. While they could be an oversight on the developers part, considering later revelations, it begs the question just how far Walker's cognitive dissonance reaches.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: At least, not on purpose... until Lugo gets lynched, possibly. Or depending on the player's choices.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: No, Captain, you're not the protagonist of a Call of Duty, Medal of Honor or Battlefield game. No matter how much you might want to be.
• You Can't Go Home Again:
  • His belief, even if he does make it to the epilogue. Most thoroughly shown in the "Road to Glory" ending.
    Capt. Walker (in thoughts): I said something about going home, and [Konrad]... you said, "Home? (scoff) We can't go home. There's a line men like us have to cross. If we're lucky, we do what's necessary, and then we die.".
  • This is illustrated in the other choice as well:
    U.S Sergeant: We drove through this whole city to find you, Captain. On our way here we...saw things. What was it like? How did you survive all this?
    Capt. Walker: Who says I did?

Adams

1st Lt. Alphonso Adams

"Might not have a choice."

When I'm on the job, I'm not a person. I'm a tool, and I have to adapt to whatever the mission requires. If I bring my baggage into the field, it'll just get in the way. Only thing that matters are the words 'Mission Accomplished'. The sooner I hear those words, the sooner I can go home and get back to being me.

Voiced By: Christopher Reid (English), Mikhail Belyakovich (Russian)

A stoic soldier who acts as a support gunner for Walker's squad. He can be commanded to throw grenades at targets, and occasionally uses a shotgun to breach doors.

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• Ace Pilot: Pilots a helicopter once during the story, a shown in an In Medias Res first part before Chapter 1, and again later in. "Ace" might not be the best term, however, as, if the Dying Dream is true for Walker over the entire game proper, the one time we see him fly, he ends up crashing fatally, at least by Captain Walker's orders.
• Alliterative Name: Although his first name is hardly ever brought up.
• Black Dude Dies First: Possibly inverted or even subverted. Depending on how you interpret his Last Stand and what ending you choose he's either the last named character in the game to die, the second last, or the Sole Survivor.
• The Big Guy: He's technically the second-in-command of the team, but since there's just three of them, it doesn't really matter all that much.
• Break the Badass: Like Walker, his optimism about being able to save Dubai erodes throughout the story. However, he becomes more vocal about it, culminating in his With Due Respect What the Hell, Hero? just before his Last Stand.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Cements his position as a Class 2 The Big Guy by carrying an M249 SAW and M1014 shotgun.
• Captain Obvious: Sometimes, usually because he's shocked and trying to confirm what he really saw.
• Character Development: In Chapter 5, Adams will prioritize saving the civilians over saving Gould. After Lugo’s lynching, Adams all but begs to be allowed to fire on the crowd responsible.
• Death by Irony: Over the course of the game, he grows to question the mission tasked to Lugo and himself by Walker and prioritizes saving the lives of the civilians they were initially sent in to assess. He gets betrayed when those civilians lynch Lugo and wants revenge, then later, he dies in a Last Stand meant to allow Walker to escape and complete said mission.
• Despair Event Horizon: Lugo's death.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: A Delta Force Operator.
• Fire-Forged Friends: One of the loading screens says that he and Walker have worked together in the military for years, reinforcing why he holds himself to Walker's command as tightly as he does and seems so close to him.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The "heroic" is debatable at that point in the game, but he holds off what remains of the Damned 33rd so that Walker can get to Konrad and finish him off. The tone of his parting words to Walker suggests that by this point, he may even have become a Death Seeker - simply so he won't have to live with what they've done in Dubai. The game never actually depicts the outcome of his Last Stand, but it is highly probable he was killed.
• Last Stand: At the end of the penultimate level.
• The McCoy: As the game progresses, and he sees how bad things really are in Dubai, he switches roles with Lugo, and prioritizes saving civilians over furthering any mission Walker tasks them with. Once those same civilians lynch Lugo, he returns to being The Spock, now disgustedly focused on just helping Walker finish the damned mission.
• More Dakka: When not pointed at a target, he provides suppressing fire with his machine gun.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Grows out of this over the course of the game, culminating in a With Due Respect What the Hell, Hero?.
• Never My Fault: He refuses to take responsibility for most of his actions, which includes being the one to suggest using the white phosphorous, and blames Lugo's death entirely on Walker.
• Number Two: Is the unofficial second-in-command of the Delta Force Team. However, this is both a Downplayed Trope and an Overly Narrow Superlative since there's only three of them.
• Semper Fi: At one point he says "Adapt and overcome, bitch." "Improvise, adapt and overcome" is a Marine Corps slogan, suggesting he served in the Corps prior to joining Delta.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Gradually. Though it's less obvious than with Lugo or Walker, Adams' stoic, unflinching loyalty evolves into silent but complete disgust for the entire situation and the Delta squad's part in it.
• Shows Damage: Like Walker, he picks up more and more battle damage as the game progresses, eventually looking more like a feral maniac than a composed and handsome man.
• The Sneaky Guy: Somewhat ironic, considering he normally totes an M249 SAW, but if you give out an order to kill someone stealthily, Adams carries it out alone with a suppressed M9 pistol. Considering he also leads the team when breaching doors, he may fulfill the point man version of this trope.
• Sour Supporter: Gradually transitions into this over the course of the game. After The Squad has committed a great amount of atrocities over the game, it's clear that the only reason he still listens to Walker is so he can justify his part in said atrocities as Just Following Orders. This is best seen when he outright blames Walker for Lugo's death and mimes firing a gun in Walker's face.
• The Spock: Albeit a more emotive version. However, see The McCoy.
• Revenge by Proxy: Exactly when you know he's really snapped after the mob lynches Lugo. While some were definitely guilty and the rest at least failed to stop it, you know not all of them could've done it and have no way to tell guilty from innocent.
• Stuff Blowing Up: When pointed at a target, he'll usually toss a grenade.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Uses this regularly.
• Token Minority: The only named African-American character in the game. It's not done in a patronizing fashion, however, and he receives just as much Character Development as anyone else.
• Undying Loyalty: Downplayed. While he regularly balks at Walker's increasing deterioration and makes it clear how much he's hating the man, he never once leaves him behind or otherwise betray him, and he keeps going along with Walker, if only so he can keep using the Just Following Orders mentality. Even after Lugo's death, when he clearly wants to murder the refugees, he outright begs Walker to order him to do so.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It was his idea to use the white phosphorus mortar at the Gate, which causes Walker's mentality to go downhill, as well as the deaths of the civilians.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Lugo. Though the "best buds" aspect becomes extremely strained as the game goes on, to the point where they come to blows and Walker has to shout them back to their senses. That said, when Lugo dies, Adams is very distraught, to the point of demanding to be allowed to kill the mob who killed Lugo.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: After Lugo is lynched, he really wants to — but he won't unless Walker gives the order.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He thinks he's in the plot of a typical The War on Terror scenario. He couldn't be more wrong.

Lugo

SSgt. John Lugo

"If I wasn't a hardened kill' machine, that mighta hurt."

So here's the thing... I never actually thought they'd let me in here. Sure, I speak six languages. Gimme a broken radio and a paperclip, and I'm MacGyver. I can deadeye a squirrel at 2000 meters. And, to top it all off, I'm the sexiest thing ever poured into a pair of ACUs. When you add it all up, it's obvious they'd want me in Delta Force.

Voiced By: Omid Abtahi (English), Daniel Sheblanov (Russian)

The sharpshooter of Walker's squad, Lugo is quick-witted and wise-cracking even in the face of the atrocities in Dubai... though this demeanor of his isn't destined to last long. He can be commanded to snipe targets at long range.

---

• Ambiguously Brown: His ethnicity is not made explicit, and though his facial features belie an Iranian heritage similar to that of his VA, his surname is of Hispanic origin.
• Break the Comedian: Lugo is the joker of the team, firing off smartass remarks and making light of the situation from the very beginning. As time goes on, however, he becomes increasingly bitter about the sacrifices Walker makes in pursuit of his goal, ultimately suffering a complete and total Freak Out when he realizes that they just dropped a white phosphorous bomb on a camp sheltering rescued civilians. From then on, Lugo doesn't even try to be funny anymore; worse still, his humanity eventually goes the same way as his humour, to the point of gunning down the unarmed Radioman in cold blood.
• Break the Cutie: Lugo's the nicest-looking and youngest of the squad, and also the comedian. As the events unfold, the joking part of him shrivels and dies.
• Climax Boss: The hallucinatory one is, anyway, shortly before leaving Adams. He's a Heavy Trooper with far more health than a normal one.
• Cunning Linguist: He is fluent in Farsi, Hindi, Turkish and Cantonese, all languages which would be extremely useful for a U.S. Spec Ops member to know. Granted, this is minus the "cunning", since the one time he tries to communicate with hostile forces in Farsi, Walker and Adams immediately feel This Is Gonna Suck, in part due to his attitude.
• Deadpan Snarker: Pretty much the first thing you learn about him is that he cracks jokes constantly.
  Walker: Lugo, do you ever actually hear the shit comin' out of your mouth?
  Lugo: No, I do not, sir. I find it messes with my rhythm.
• Death by Irony: Over the course of the game, he grows to prioritize the mission tasked to Adams and himself by Walker over saving the lives of the civilians they were initially sent in to assess. He is hanged by a lynch mob of those very same civilians.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: A Delta Force Operator.
• Everyone Has Standards: Just mere moments before the white phosphorous incident begins; when the three Delta operators discuss how to advance and deal with the 33rd, Adams suggests use of the white Phosphorous Mortar. Lugo, as much as he nominally cares only about the mission and achieving the objective, balks at the suggestion and the apparent signing off by his Captain on the the white phosphorous mortar against the soldiers of the 33rd. In disgust he even reminds Walker himself what it does, Walker himself being implied as having seen the results of its use before, and rebutting Adam's justification of there is no choice with "There is always a choice". As pragmatic and unwavering to the objective of the mission as he is; even the use of White Phosphorous was a moral line he was not willing to cross without heavy, firm objection.
  • As they set up the mortar and prepare to fire off the shells, with Walker giving the order to fire: Lugo's voice is dripping with disgust and contempt with what he is ordered and about to do. He even makes Walker tell him that it’s an order before he does it.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Shortly before storming the radio tower, Lugo prompts a discussion on their plans as to how to deal with Radioman. Adams shuts it down pretty quick, being unconcerned about the odds, but Lugo is clearly hoping things come to a struggle.
• Freak Out: After seeing the aftermath of the white phosphorous incident, he goes hysterical. His mood never improves after this scene.
  Lugo: HE TURNED US INTO FUCKING KILLERS!
• Friendly Sniper: The sharp-shooter and generally the most emotive of the group.
• Hidden Depths: During Chapter 6 when the Radioman begins playing Giuseppe Verdi's "Dies Irae", Lugo yells that he "loves this song", suggesting a possible taste for classical music or maybe just some varied music taste.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Downplayed, but he still definitely shines as a sniper. The first chapter sees him shoot the grenade out of an enemy insurgent's hand, with the glare of the sun against him, causing the billboard he's on to collapse. Twice in Chapter 12, he will snipe an enemy that would otherwise have caught Walker off-guard.
• Jack of All Trades: He is the group's radioman, general technical expert, medic, translator, and designated marksman. Comparatively, Adams just carries a larger gun and acts as the team's pilot.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: After the white phosphorus incident, he started to grow more bitter and cynical.
• Kill the Cutie: He is hanged by an angry mob of local ex-civilians before Adams and Walker can get to him.
• The McCoy: Which leads to him being the most shaken of any of the squad. However, see The Spock.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After the carnage of the white phosphorus incident hits home, he starts screaming at Adams about how Walker turned them into killers.
• Never My Fault: While not to the same extent as Walker, he ignores his own (albeit reluctant) role in the white phosphorus incident; his accusation that Walker turned him and Adams "into fucking killers" is especially ridiculous given that he's already killed scores of people before that point, and fellow Americans at that. Granted, the victims of the white phosphorus incident included forty-seven civilians, but even still...
  • He also ignores the fact that it was Adams who suggested they use the white phosphorus, not Walker.
  • Later, he murders the Radioman in cold blood with no remorse and is quick to try and justify it when Walker and Adams are both shocked by this action. A far cry from the one who accused Walker of turning him into a killer.
• Omniglot: The loading screens indicate that Lugo is fluent in Farsi, Hindi, Turkish and Cantonese, all languages which would be extremely useful for a U.S. Spec Ops member to know.
• Plucky Comic Relief: At the start of the game, he provides a bit of this, serving as the team's resident Deadpan Snarker. It doesn't last.
• Public Execution: Lynched by a mob of enraged Dubai locals.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A hallucination of him calls Walker out near the end of the game.
  Walker: Lugo?!
  Lugo: You left me to die! Don't you get it? It's all a lie!
  Walker: No!
  Lugo: You're no fucking hero!
  Walker: No, I tried to save you!
  Lugo: You can't save anyone!
  Walker: I TRIED!
  Lugo: This is all your fault! YOURS!!
  Lugo after being shot down by Walker: The only villain here is you, Walker. There's only you.
• Revenge Before Reason: Subverted. Despite his furious promise to kill Radioman, when they actually do meet, he remains calm and makes sure to get every bit of info on how to work the broadcasting system that he needs out of Radioman before capping him three times. When Adams pins him for this, he cites largely pragmatic reasons that letting him live would result in more casualties.
• Sacrificial Lion: If not the people in the Gate incident with the white phosphorus, Lugo's death demonstrates with emphasis this will not end well for the team, let alone the city. Anyone Can Die.
• Sad Clown: His jokes stop being cheerful pretty quick. After a while, they become downright bitter.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Over the course of the game.
  Loading Screen: If Lugo was still alive, he would likely suffer from PTSD. So really, he's the lucky one.
• Shows Damage: Compared to Walker and Adams, he gets off somewhat lightly, with scorch marks and some nasty facial cuts.
• The Smart Guy: Given his role as both radio operator and translator, he is the first one consulted on technology or language.
• Sniper Rifle: Aside from his Scout Tactical Sniper Rifle, he uses a TAR-21 as his primary weapon. You can find the TAR-21 and equip it as a Sidetrack Bonus near the end of the level in which he is lynched.
• Sound-Only Death: During a firefight with the 33rd and separated from Walker and Adams, Lugo tries to hole up in a refugee camp. And certainly, the soldiers don't find him...but the refugees do. Walker, Adams and the player all get to hear him screaming and pleading in a panicked mix of English and Farsi while the civilians form a lynch mob. He's dead by the time Walker and Adams arrive.
• Sour Supporter: Gradually becomes this as the game progresses. After The Squad has committed a great amount of atrocities over the game, it's clear that the only reason he still listens to Walker is so he can justify his part in said atrocities as Just Following Orders. He is the most vocal opponent of the use of the white phosphorus mortar, and starts blaming Walker for involving Adams and himself right on the spot.
• The Spock: As the game progresses, and he sees the strain placed on Walker's decision-making abilities, he switches roles with Adams, and prioritizes any mission Walker tasks them with over the lives of the civilians they were initially sent in to find, even making what he feels are logical decisions without waiting for Walker's orders. He is then killed when those very same civilians turn into a mob and lynch him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Adams. The whole "best buds" part gets more doubtful over the course of the game - starting with the situation with Gould. When he dies, though, Adams' distraught attitude shows it wasn't gone.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Calls Walker out after he forced them to use the white phosphorous.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Averted with the Radioman. That said, he waits a good few moments to get as much info from him as possible before killing him.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Notably, however, he's the first to break out of it, not that it helps.

The Damned 33rd Infantry Battalion

Konrad

Lt. Col. John Konrad

"You must think that I'm a monster. That I've gone insane. I came to terms with what I am a long time ago, Captain. What about you?"

There were over five thousand people alive in this city, the day before you arrived. How many are alive today, I wonder? How many will be alive tomorrow? I thought my duty was to protect this city from the storm. I was wrong. I have to protect it from you.

Voiced By: Bruce Boxleitner (English), Alexander Bobrovsky (Russian)

Commander of the US Army's 33rd Infantry Battalion, Konrad is a highly accomplished officer who's been praised as the "greatest military leader since Patton". Defying orders to pull out of Dubai, he and the 33rd stayed put and made efforts to keep order among the civilians still stuck inside the storm wall with them, eventually attempting to lead a convoy out of the city. After the failure of this evacuation attempt, Konrad sent out a distress message which gets picked up by the outside world, setting the story into motion.

In truth, there are actually two different Konrads. The real Konrad kills himself out of guilt prior to the start of the game, while the "Konrad" that the player interacts with throughout the game is just a figment of Walker's imagination/Split Personality.

---

• Above Good and Evil: Or so he claims in Walker's hallucinations. Tellingly, the real Konrad killed himself exactly because he couldn't live with the guilt of the atrocities he had committed and had allowed to be committed in the name of reestablishing order in Dubai.
• Apologetic Attacker: In the ending, Konrad gives Walker five seconds to react before he shoots him. If Walker doesn't react at all, Konrad will actually be surprised and ask him to reconsider. If Walker remains true to his choice, then Konrad will let out a dejected "so be it" before killing him.
• Big Bad: Subverted, if not an outright deconstruction of the modern FPS Big Bad. The real Konrad is long dead by the events of the game and what information we do learn about him, varies considerably from the hallucination Walker interacts with. Konrad is depicted as a well-meaning but extremely flawed man who recognized his atrocities and couldn't live with himself. The hallucination acts more like a traditional Big Bad who sees themselves as a God-like figure and is the source of all conflict. Walker believes that in defeating Konrad, he will redeem himself for his own horrific actions. Him being a hallucination serves to highlight Walker's self delusion of his heroism and Konrad's villainy.
• Colonel Badass: If Walker's stories are anything to go by, Konrad was a mean presence on the battlefield. He dragged an incapacitated Walker half a mile to an extraction point, by himself.
• Colonel Kilgore: The hallucinatory Konrad is clearly meant to be a bloodthirsty lunatic, but the real Konrad was probably closer to this trope as well. Certainly in his own mind.
• Cutscene Boss: Downplayed. While there's definitely a battle with minimal interactivity against "Konrad", it's entirely a psychological, symbolic affair instead of a physical one. The real Konrad, meanwhile, is simply The Unfought since he had killed himself long before Walker arrived in Dubai.
• The Conscience: What his voice really is to Walker.
• Dead All Along: As revealed in the ending, Konrad was long dead by the time Walker gets to his penthouse. The opening cutscene implies that he was Dead to Begin With long before Delta Force arrived.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In a way, the Konrad we hear throughout the game is just Walker's subconscious/split personality taking on the identity of Konrad to give him a villain to blame everything on.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Much as Walker is one for the typical Action Hero, Konrad is one for the villain, demonstrating them as a device by which The Protagonist justifies their otherwise outright evil actions and the consequences of said mindset.
• Destructive Saviour: Konrad did his best to evacuate Dubai and later hold it together, but he had to take extreme measures and leave a trail of corpses in his wake. And he is very aware of it. It was this knowledge that drove the real Konrad to kill himself.
• Driven to Suicide: He came to realize that while he had managed to stabilize the situation in Dubai, him and his men had committed several horrible atrocities to achieve this. When his desperate evacuation attempt failed, the weight of it all became too much for him to bear.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Konrad cares deeply about his family. In the last level, before confronting him, Walker can find a poem he wrote about how much he misses his wife, Elizabeth, as well as a short letter he wrote to his son, Jeremy, warning him that he is going to hear some bad things about his dad, and apologizes for putting him through that. Mind you, this was the real Konrad, who was not actually evil and was probably explaining to his son what drove him to suicide, but at that point in the narrative, we didn't know that yet.
• Evil Is Hammy: Konrad, when communicating with Walker via radio, is grandstanding and melodramatic, often speaking in flowery figurative language, in sharp contrast to how he speaks in the occasional intel items Walker comes across, in which he is softly-spoken, matter-of-fact and dejected. This is because the Konrad Walker hears via radio is in fact his hallucination, and Walker is trying to convince himself that Konrad is a typical video game-esque Big Bad when in fact he is anything but.
• Evil Wears Black: Whenever Konrad appears in the campaign after the opening credits, he's wearing a simple black t-shirt and dark green cargo pants. This takes on a different meaning when it's revealed that this Konrad is only Walker's hallucination, showing that Walker was so desperate for a villain he even imagined them dressed as a villain should. In the epilogue, Walker is wearing Konrad's black shirt and uniform jacket and it's in this outfit he has the chance of completely losing himself and massacring the rescue team sent for him.
• Expy: He's the Colonel Kurtz to Walker's Captain Willard, though most of this is in Walker's head. But like Kurtz, he does set the plot in motion by defying his original orders and "going off the reservation".
• Fallen Hero: Walker met him in Kabul (in fact, he owes Konrad his life) and says that he was once an honorable man. Konrad — or rather, Walker's guilt in the voice of Konrad — notes that he isn't a hero just because he saved Walker's life; he has saved many lives, but as a soldier he's ended many more, and there's no real nobility in following a basic standard set by the U.S military.
• Good All Along: Not the man himself, but his hallucinatory counterpart. Konrad at first appears to be a megalomaniac just like Walker wants him to be, but as Walker subconsciously grows doubtful of his own actions, Konrad takes on the role of his conscience, desperately talking him out of doing more harm. By the end, Konrad stops pulling any more punches and just throws Walker headfirst into reality, giving him a long overdue "The Reason You Suck" Speech for good measure.
• Hate Sink: Shadow Konrad is one to Walker, who's in denial and uses Konrad to redirect his whole guilt and frustration at the white phosphorus massacre. It's telling that the first time we get direct contact with him, it's after Walker meets the consequences of his shelling and snaps. In the ending, Konrad acknowledges this.
  Konrad: I'm here because you can't accept what you've done. It broke you. You needed someone to blame, so you cast it on me... a dead man.
• Helpless Good Side: He's Walker's more heroic split-personality, but he's unable to do anything to influence his counterpart's actions other than taunting or threatening him to stop his rampage. It's only in the ending when Walker sees the undeniable proof of his actions that Konrad begins to take control, managing to point a gun at both of their head and threaten to kill them both if Walker doesn't save himself.
• Heroic Safe Mode: The hallucinatory Konrad could be seen as a manifestation of this for Walker. Just when Walker is given undeniable proof in the form of the white phosphorous incident that his presence in Dubai is causing more harm than good, Konrad conveniently begins taunting him through a broken radio and providing both a scapegoat for Walker to place the blame for all his failings on and a drive to keep going.
• Intercom Villainy: He gives a series of disparaging speeches via a radio Walker finds not long after the white phosphorous incident. It's revealed in the ending that the radio was broken the whole time, and everything Walker heard him say was in his head.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The atrocities he was forced to commit to keep Dubai in order and his men and the civilians alive, only to end in a failed evacuation, leave him with so much guilt that he kills himself.
  Konrad: No matter how hard I tried, I never could escape the reality of what had happened here. That was my downfall.
• Named After Somebody Famous: He's named after Joseph Conrad, the author of Heart of Darkness that the game drew significant inspiration from.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His attempt to help the people of Dubai led to the damning of the 33rd Infantry Batallion and a failed evacuation with a death toll he found too much to live with. It might have kept Dubai alive long enough for the storm to abate and rescue to come.
• Non-Action Big Bad: In the final chapter, Konrad doesn't fight you. There's good reason for this: the real Konrad had been long since Driven to Suicide, and the Konrad Walker was talking to is nothing more than his own tortured mind creating a Hate Sink to deflect his own blame to.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: When he decides to help the people of Dubai, even in violation of his orders to do so, the entire 33rd Infantry go with him. Though not the entire 33rd, as the executed and hanging corpses of soldiers suggests, assuming they are real.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Inverted when the real Colonel Konrad is revealed to have committed suicide. When Walker discovers this, Shadow Konrad, amused by Walker's reaction chimes in:
  Konrad: It appears that reports of my... survival... have been greatly exaggerated.
• Smug Snake: He sounds very full of himself when you hear him speak... Except really not. Collect the intel, and you will probably notice the jarring difference between the sneering, mocking villain that plays mind games with Walker whenever he "speaks" with him, and the recordings of the soft-spoken, humble man who is clearly horrified at the terrible things he has done.
• Split Personality: All but confirmed. Walker can be seen mouthing off Konrad's words in the finale, thus showing that "Konrad" is no mere hallucination. There's also the fact that Konrad can force Walker to kill himself in one possible ending if Walker doesn't stop him first.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Seemingly attempts one in the ending. Konrad forces Walker into a mental battle where one of them has to kill the other. If Walker allows Konrad to win, Konrad seemingly takes over and shoots himself in the real world. Conversely, if Walker kills Konrad first, Konrad is seemingly purged from his mind and does not appear in the epilogue (asides from a flashback conversation in one ending).
• Suicide by Cop: One way to interpret his action in the ending. He holds Walker at gunpoint and threatens to shoot him unless Walker shoots first. The way he hesitates and gives Walker extra time to reconsider makes it very clear that he expects to be killed first in self-defense.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Basically everything after the white phosphorus incident is one long one to Walker.
  Konrad: It takes a strong man to deny what's right in front of him. And if the truth is undeniable, you create your own. The truth, Walker, is that you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not: a hero. I'm here because you can't accept what you've done. It broke you. You needed someone to blame, so you cast it on me, a dead man.
• Taking the Heat: One of the intel items is his confession, in which he takes full responsibility for the battalion's desertion and claims that they did so under duress. Of course, this is contradicted by several other intel items in the game, which show that they willingly followed him.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to describe the character in detail without giving away The Reveal that he's Dead All Along, and that the Konrad that Walker was hearing was a manifestation of his guilt and self-loathing.
• Wicked Cultured: Zig-zagged. He writes poetry for his wife, and at one point quotes the poet Charles Simic. The real Konrad actually wrote the poem, while the latter quote is from Walker's hallucination of Konrad. And of course, whether Konrad qualifies as "wicked" is a matter of no small debate, including in-universe by the other characters.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Konrad is very cynical about the ultimate fate of soldiers. In the Suicide by Cop epilogue choice Walker flash backs to a time where Konrad told Walker that all he desired was peace — but there was an inevitable line men like them would have to cross, with no option afterwards but to die bitterly on the battlefield. In a heartwarming contrast, the hallucinatory Konrad's final words to Walker in the game are a reminder to Walker that despite everything he's done, he still has the right to go home — basically challenging Walker to prove him wrong.
  Konrad: No matter what happens next, don't be too hard on yourself. Even now, after all you've done, you can still go home. Lucky you.

The Radioman

Robert Darden aka. The Radioman

"I know there's a lot of you asking the same question right now: why? There was no reason for any of this."

These people have seen the end of the world. No food, no water, no hope. Friends dead, family butchered. They live in hell and yet, they still take time to smell the dying roses. I get why the Colonel does... what he does. But, if these people can still muster enough soul to create art... maybe there's more than he sees. I've been thinking a lot about Murrow, broadcasting outta blitzed London. He helped people. He showed 'em something that the Nazis couldn't flatten. That truck out front has an old CB. If, just maybe, I could put my hands on some speakers... Wouldn't that be something?

Voiced By: Jake Busey (English), Alexander Noskov (Russin)

An eccentric radio DJ affiliated with the Damned 33rd. Once a journalist who was reporting on the ongoing crisis in Dubai, he now uses a makeshift collection of speakers set up all over the place to broadcast his music across the city, in addition to words of motivation for the 33rd and taunts leveled at Delta Force.

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• Boom, Headshot!: By Lugo. Three times.
• Bullying a Dragon: His smug prodding of Delta Force seems more unwise the more scores of his 33rd infantry they mow down, and his taunts over their atrocities turn them fully against him. His "burnt baby" guffawing is particularly upsetting to Lugo, who vows to kill him if they ever meet. Eventually, Lugo makes good on his threat when the team storms his radio tower.
• Character Development: A very interesting case, since it's mostly implied rather than directly shown. He started out as just a cynical, shallow journalist before becoming deeply involved with the situation in Dubai and trying to rescue the people there. Eventually, however, he went from trying to save civilians and keeping up morale with his broadcasts to helping the 33rd control Dubai with an iron fist, at the cost of many civilian lives.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: His various comments tend to be out-of-place, considering the graveness of the situation. Walker even describes him as a "weird guy" when he met him in Kabul.
• Cutscene Boss: When you finally reach him, he goes down without a fight. Justified in that he had no way to arm himself.
• Cynicism Catalyst: He became significantly more abrasive after the failure of the Dubai evacuation. Of course, it's shown at the very end of the game that what probably brought this about was Konrad's suicide.
• The Dead Have Names: Tries to pull this on Walker and his team during the assault on his station. Darkly parodied, as the problem is, even he doesn't really remember a lot of them.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: This comical civilian turns out to be the real leader of the 33rd after Konrad's death. The loading screen even hints at The Reveal ahead of time by asking what happens to Konrad if the Radioman is now calling all the shots for him.
  Loading Screen: If the Radioman now speaks for the 33rd, then what happened to Konrad?
• Deadpan Snarker: Everything he says is coated with sarcasm.
• The Dragon: He's initially seen as such in relation to Konrad's supposed status as the Big Bad.
• Dragon Ascendant: After Konrad offs himself, the Radioman is implied to have become the closest thing the 33rd has to a leader.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Delta Squad does NOT appreciate his sense of humor. Lugo especially calls him out on it, telling Radioman he'll kill him if they ever meet. He keeps his word on that promise.
  Radioman: Mmm, what's that smell? I do believe it's BURNT BABY.
  Lugo: Fuck you! I ever get my hands on you, you're a dead man!
• Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": His real name (Robert Darden) is only mentioned in a single intel item. He even refers to himself as Radioman in several of his broadcasts.
• Everyone Has Standards: Several of the intel items show off his moral integrity before the storm. One had him terrified over the discovery of murdered foreign aid workers, while another had him calling out one of the city’s elite for covering the storm’s true danger. One of the last items regarding him had him secretly record an interview with Konrad that the latter requested to be off the record only to shut it off after Konrad began by stating how grateful he was to have someone to trust.
• Expy: Of the Photojournalist from Apocalypse Now. He even bears a shocking resemblance to a young Dennis Hopper.
• Faux Affably Evil: Occasionally, he acts sort of polite to the protagonists. This is perhaps best seen right before his death, where his lines are dripping with sarcasm and a hint of contempt, but never loses a polite tone until he is shot.
• Fearless Fool: He's awfully self-assured given his position. He condescends to Delta, saying he isn't scared of them, and even insists that "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me." This is despite not carrying a weapon and having no defenses besides a million meat shields who fall at Delta's hands. When they finally storm his office, this gets subverted when he waves a white flag and weakly insists that their guns obviously aren't real.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Averted. In Chapter 5, Walker recognizes his voice and remembers meeting him in Kabul with the 33rd.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From a tabloid journalist to the leader of a rogue U.S battalion. Doesn't stop him from dying at Lugo's hands, though.
• Hypocrite:
  • While he castigates Delta endlessly for the white phosphorus incident, which resulted in the death of civilians, he shows no sympathy for the insurgents or those taken from the Nest by the 33rd, and when Lugo calls Konrad a war criminal, he drops his smug façade and becomes genuinely pissed off.
  • Thanks to the 33rd sandboarding Gould to death before he could tell Delta his full plan, they go ahead without realizing the assault on the Gate was intended as a rescue, which resulted in innocent civilians being bombed with white phosphorus. He takes every opportunity to lash them for this, despite the 33rd previously using the same chemical weapons very much deliberately on an already-beaten insurgent force simply to cow other potential rebels. At least Delta can say what they did was an accident.
  • As much as he criticizes Delta for making everything worse, he doesn't do anything to help either; at one point, Walker requests him to convince the 33rd to stand down and stop fighting and he refuses, despite Walker accurately pointing out that the conflict was not working for either side.
• Intercom Villainy: He uses his makeshift radio setup to demoralize Delta on top of broadcasting music and messages of encouragement to the 33rd.
• Jerkass: The majority of the soldiers in the game have a tendency to be assholes, but he in particular stands out as the biggest of them all. It's implied that he was rather unpleasant even before Dubai, as Walker remembers meeting him in Kabul and didn't seem fond of him before, admitting he never understood why Konrad trusted him so much. Surprisingly, despite how rude he's been to everyone, when he's finally encountered in person, he fully cooperates with Delta Team. Too bad for him, Lugo still remembers his tasteless comments and promptly blows his brains out.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Over the course of the game, his criticism of Delta Force goes from being typical baddie banter to shockingly accurate.
• Lack of Empathy: Possibly the biggest example in the game, as he jokes about the slaughter of civilians and the deaths of the soldiers protecting him during his broadcasts.
• Mouth of Sauron: He serves as this for the Damned 33rd, monitoring Dubai and keep them informed of what's going on. Subverted with the reveal that Konrad is dead; in practice, the Radioman really is the leader of the 33rd.
• Never My Fault: Despite endlessly criticizing Delta for their actions, he shows no sympathy for the insurgents or civilians, even claiming that they provoked the 33rd's harsh treatment and tries to justify it by stating that Walker has "no idea" what Konrad had to do.
• Non-Action Big Bad: He goes down without a fight in a cutscene. Kind of a retroactive example, seeing as the revelation that Konrad was Dead All Along, and hence Radioman really was at the top of the chain of command, doesn't occur until the end of the game.
• Pet the Dog: The Intel items that Walker finds indicate that he ultimately was concerned for the well-being of the citizens of Dubai - at least before the whole evacuation went to shit, anyway.
• Sad Clown: Gradually revealed to be this to some extent, most notably after the water supply is damaged, where he's audibly shaken by the event.
  Radioman: Let's keep it clean! This is, after all, a family program! Rated E for EVERYONE'S THIRSTY!
• Sanity Slippage: Some intel items reveal that he had a noble goal in his broadcasts, once — to keep hope alive in Dubai. That obviously got lost somewhere; by the time Delta enters Dubai, he's barely in touch with reality.
  • It's implied he might have been somewhat unstable before, when Walker remembers him in Chapter 5.
  Walker: Weird guy. The kind you didn't want loose in a firefight.
• Sinister Shades: Briefly sports them.
• Smug Snake: During gameplay. Less so in the intel logs, where he's trying to get the truth about the situation out.
• A Sinister Clue: Besides wearing a watch on his right wrist, he's seen poking keys with his left hand.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Especially jarring because the tone of the scene and the surroundings is light, almost friendly — he could be any quirky disk-jockey giving technical advice. Until Lugo shoots him in the head three times at point-blank range, spattering the camera with blood. Even Adams and Walker are obviously shocked, forcing Lugo to start yelling in his own defence.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: As he began to lose his sanity, he became more narcissistic, partly because of how Konrad trusted him and appreciated his company.
• Tuneless Song of Madness: Has a habit of singing off-key along with his music, particularly Dies Irae.

Dossler

Randolf Dossler

Voiced By: Richard Epcar

An interrogator (i.e., torturer) in the Damned 33rd.

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• Cold-Blooded Torture: He can be seen doing this to Gould. A collectable lore item indicates he also did this in Afghanistan. At one point he even had this done to himself so he could better understand the pain he was inflicting on others.

CIA

Gould

Agent Rick Gould

Don't stand there! Run!

Voiced By: Chris Cox (English), Ilya Isaev (Russian)

One of the agents of the CIA op-squad sent into Dubai. His mission at the time Delta comes across him is to launch an assault on the Gate, one of the 33rd's main outposts.

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• Agent Provocateur: He and Riggs lead a CIA squad against the 33rd.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: By the Damned 33rd, using sandboarding to tear his skin off.
• Everyone Has Standards: He was against Riggs's plan to destroy Dubai's water supply and told him he was insane.
• Not Quite Saved Enough: Even if you save him from the 33rd, he still ends up dying from his injuries.
• Poor Communication Kills: Inverted and played straight. Inverted, because he dies from his torture before being able to communicate his full plan to Delta. Played straight, because in not being able to do so, they don't realize he intends to launch a rescue mission, leading to the white phosphorus incident playing out the way it does.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Seemingly the Blue to Riggs's Red, at least in attitude.
• Take Up My Mission: Gives his mission to the Gate to Walker and his team before his death if he survives that long. If not, Walker just takes what he has and does the mission anyway.
• Token Good Teammate: Possibly. He seems to be the most honest of the CIA team, actually saving Walker and his team, and showing regret at the civilian casualties he's forced to witness. While he's still deviating severely from his mission parameters by leading an insurgency against the 33rd, unlike Riggs, he actually wants to see it succeed.

Castavin

Agent Brian Castavin

Another of the CIA agents sent into Dubai. The Delta Force soldiers come along while he's in the middle of brutally interrogating a soldier of the 33rd. It doesn't go well for Castavin (or anyone else).

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• Laser-Guided Karma: He's ultimately shot and killed by McPherson, the 33rd soldier whom Castavin was brutally interrogating until the Delta Force soldiers distracted him.

Daniels

Agent Thomas Daniels

Voiced By: Rick Pasqualone (English)

Another of Riggs's agents.

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• Dead All Along: Radioman broadcasts Daniels screaming in agony as the 33rd tortures him. When Walker and his men find Daniels, they learn that Daniels was killed long ago and the screams were played off a recording.

Riggs

Agent Jeff Riggs

Guess you can't save everyone, huh?

Voiced By: Patrick Quinn (English), Vitaly Petrov (Russian)

Another member of the CIA that Delta stumbles upon later in the story. He's been hatching a plan to steal several trucks which hold the city's water supply; ostensibly, this is in an effort to weaken the 33rd's hold on Dubai, but the real reason for it turns out to be far more sinister.

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• Agent Provocateur: He's the leader of a CIA squad pitting armed refugees against the 33rd.
• A Million Is a Statistic: His opinion of the refugees of Dubai; he cares nothing for their lives and goes so far as to lead them on to serve as Cannon Fodder in his plot to destroy their water supply and doom them all in the name of preserving peace between America and the Middle East.
• Asshole Victim: What Walker sees his death as. He's actually not entirely wrong, seeing that Riggs used the Emirati refugees as cannon fodder and a distraction against the 33rd while covering up Konrad's actions while planning to doom them and literally everyone else left alive in Dubai to a slow death by dehydration - and tricking Delta into helping him.
  • Keep in mind, too, that for all his actions and delusions, Walker genuinely wants to help the refugees (at least, initially) and by the end, he realizes how his actions and mentality made the situation worse - Riggs, on the other hand, wants to kill off everyone in Dubai and has absolutely no regrets for his actions - which are heavily implied to be the results of his own delusional mentality and self-justification like Walker.
• Beard of Evil: He has a gray goatee and is one of the most ruthless and amoral characters.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: If Walker doesn't kill him, then this is how he dies - trapped under a crashed truck, unable to do anything as the fire eventually engulfs him and burns him until he finally dies in utter agony.
• Death by Irony: Not only does his plan get him killed, but if Walker chooses not to Mercy Kill him then he burns to death trapped under a destroyed water truck. If only there had been some water available to put out the fire...
• Evil All Along: Once his plan is unveiled, he is shown to be cruel and merciless.
• Evil Counterpart: As some of the other tropes show, Riggs is fairly similar to Walker, serving as a foil to him. But as his own actions and mentality show, he's much more openly cruel and extreme, being willing to manipulate a bunch of desperate, armed refugees and pit them against the 33rd as a distraction - and that's not even going into how he's planning to leave everyone in the city to slowly die of dehydration.
• Evil Old Folks: As revealed by the completion of his plan, he is a wicked, wicked old man.
• Foil: He's someone who went through what Walker did 20-30 years ago and came out the other side more assured of his convictions.
• Foreshadowing: Riggs's insanity and fate can be seen as a mirror to Walker's own mental deterioration and possible fate, and in a sense, he can be seen as foreshadowing and a warning to both Walker and the player.
• Good Is Not Nice: He considers himself to be this, stating his plan to kill off the population of Dubai by destroying their water supply to be the right thing to do.
  Riggs: What I did may not have been nice, but it was right.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He acknowledges the depravity of his plan but believes it to be necessary. Walker disagrees.
• Idiot Ball: Telling the only guy who can save you from a horrible death that you just tricked him into killing thousands of innocents may not be the brightest idea. Walker was still sympathetic to him before he gloated about that.
• I Regret Nothing: He's completely unrepentant about the now-inevitable deaths of the civilians in Dubai, even as he's dying himself.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: The reason why he considers himself to be Good Is Not Nice is because he only cares about protecting his country from another war with the Middle East, rather than helping to evacuate the people in Dubai.
• Karmic Death: If avoiding the Mercy Kill, he burns to death in the fire from the crashed water truck. Fitting for one who intended to condemn an entire city to a slow and agonizing death by dehydration.
• Kick the Dog: He and Gould manipulated the refugees into fighting for them just so they keep the 33rd busy while hiding Konrad's actions.
• Kill It with Fire: The method for the Karmic Death, being burned alive by wrecked truck's burning fuel. Walker can shoot him and spare him the pain, however.
• Knight Templar: Riggs believes his plan to kill the population of Dubai is absolutely necessary to prevent the entire Middle East from going to war with America, although evidence indicates that such a war will never happen at all and that Riggs is likely delusional.
• Manipulative Bastard: Manipulated the protagonists into getting rid of the water supply, leaving everyone in the city to die until and unless the unlikely event occurs that the rescue team comes in.
• Meaningful Name: A guy named "Riggs" who turns out to have rigged you into his plan to kill Dubai and keep the truth from getting out.
• Mercy Kill: Walker has the option of either killing him with his .44 Magnum to spare him the pain of being burned alive or leaving him to his fate.
• Mirror Character: Like Walker, Riggs believes he works to achieve a heroic goal (i.e. preventing another war between USA and the Middle East), and just like with Walker it is clear that he is completely delusional about the validity of that goal and the methods he uses to achieve it by only serves to make the situation much, much worse.
• Old Soldier: Age isn't slowing this soldier down at all.
  • In Chapter 10, after killing a 33rd member that surprises him, he mentions that he's 53 years old.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Seemingly the Red Oni to Gould's Blue, at least in attitude.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Partial to a .44 revolver when you meet him. You can choose to use it to Mercy Kill him in his final moments.
• Sociopathic Soldier: As revealed by his actions, he's a type 1 (seeing as how he believes his actions, no matter how horrifying, will protect the United States from another endless war) and a type 4 (given how he's willing to condemn everyone still alive in the city to a slow death just to complete his mission).
• Treachery Cover Up: His mission, going so far as to condemn everyone left alive in Dubai to die of dehydration.
• Villainous Breakdown: If the player chooses to let him get burned alive, he'll lose his stoic acceptance of his fate and shout Walker's name until his words dissolve into screams.
  Jeff Riggs: Why're you just standing there? Come on! For fuck's sake, Walker, please! I'm beggin' you! Walker! Walker!!! Walker!!!!
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: His goal is to prevent the United States from going to war with the Middle East. He's willing to kill off the remaining population of Dubai in order to make sure word of what the 33rd and the Delta Squad did doesn't leak out.
• Windmill Crusader: Riggs's purported Great Middle East/US war is strongly implied to be just a delusional fantasy on his part, and can be seen as a mirror of Walker's own madness and desire to be a hero.

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