List of characters in Call of Duty: Black Ops
Call of Duty: Black Ops is a first person shooter developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It was released in November 9, 2010.
Protagonists
- Captain Alex Mason (USMC) is the first and primary playable character. He first appears at the very beginning of the game, being interrogated by members of an unknown organization who are trying to get information out of him. In the first level of the game, Mason and his teammates Joseph Bowman and Frank Woods infiltrated Cuba in order to assassinate Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Though Mason appears to succeed in killing Castro, he strands himself on Cuba while ensuring that Woods and Bowman escaped by plane; it was revealed shortly thereafter that he had actually killed Castro's body double, and the real one was still alive. Castro then gave Mason to the Soviet General Nikita Dragovich, who imprisoned him at the Vorkuta Gulag. During his two year imprisonment, he befriended Viktor Reznov, a former Russian soldier. He and Reznov sparked a major prison uprising to escape from Vorkuta, but only Mason managed to escape. Afterwards, Mason was brought to The Pentagon with Jason Hudson and Robert McNamara, where he meets President John F. Kennedy, who authorizes the assassination of Dragovich. Mason and his team were dispatched to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in order to disrupt the Soviet space program and kill Dragovich, though the mission went wrong when one of their teammates, Weaver, was captured. Though they managed to save him and destroyed a Russian rocket as it tried to take off, Dragovich escaped. Five years later, Mason was dispatched to Vietnam, where he was reunited with his old teammates and repelled an attack by the North Vietnamese Army at the Battle of Khe Sanh. In Hue City, they were sent to look for a man who was trying to defect to the West; the defector appears to be Viktor Reznov, who has since escaped from Vorkuta. They are, however, captured once again, and, ultimately, only Mason is left alive. He and Reznov then infiltrated Rebirth Island, a Soviet research station where the deadly chemical Nova 6 was manufactured and weaponized, in order to kill Friedrich Steiner, a German scientist who defected to the Soviet Union near the end of World War II. During the interrogation, Mason recalls that Reznov was the one who killed Steiner, but it was actually Mason himself who did so; it is revealed that Mason was brainwashed at Vorkuta to eventually assassinate President Kennedy, though it is unclear what his actual involvement in the assassination is. Viktor Reznov managed to tamper with the brainwashing process and turned Mason against his former brainwashers, Mason suffered from a personality disorder as a result, and he thought that Reznov was real but he himself was Viktor Reznov, thus altering his memory of past events where he thought Reznov was involved. Mason is voiced by Sam Worthington.
- Special Agent Jason Hudson is a secondary player character, who was Mason's handler and turns out to be the man interrogating him throughout the game. His first formal appearance is when he is escorting Mason into The Pentagon, and he worked together with Mason and Woods in Vietnam. Hudson becomes playable for the first time in the fourth level of the game, set in Hong Kong as he is interrogating Daniel Clarke, a British defector who weaponized Nova 6. Later in the game, Hudson and a team of other agents were sent to apprehend Steiner on Rebirth Island, at the same time that Mason and Reznov were there to kill him, acting against orders. In order to stop Nova 6 from being used on civilians, Hudson interrogating Mason to try to find out what the numbers that Clarke had mentioned meant. Hudson is voiced by Ed Harris.[1]
- Viktor Reznov (Russian: Виктор Рэзнов) is another playable character, returning from Call of Duty: World at War, though is only playable in one level. He first appeared in the second level as a prisoner in Vorkuta, where he and Mason became friends. Reznov instigated a large-scale uprising by the prisoners, but was recaptured while Mason escaped. He and Mason appeared to reunite in Vietnam, where he claimed to be defecting to the West, and saved Mason after the helicopter he was on crashed. Following Kravchenko's death, he and Mason tracked down Steiner on Rebirth Island. Mason actually suffers from dissociative identity disorder; he himself became Viktor Reznov. At the end of the game, it is revealed that Reznov, after Mason escaped from Vorkuta, was actually an illusion in Mason's mind, and Jason Hudson tells Mason that Reznov reversed his brain-washing so that Mason could kill Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner out of revenge for Reznov's comrades (who were killed in 1945 by Dragovich and Kravchenko by exposure to Nova 6). Reznov is voiced by Gary Oldman.
- Grigori Weaver (CIA) Is a soldier who defected to the United States after the government-sponsored murder of his father. He is also an engineer who was sent to sabotage a rocket, but was captured and has his left eye cut out by Kravchenko. He also assists Jason Hudson during the interrogation of Daniel Clarke and during the missions on Mt. Yamantau and Rebirth. Towards the end of the game, Weaver becomes more and more distrustful of Mason because of his erratic behavior. It is revealed that he along with Hudson has been interrogating Mason throughout the game. Weaver learns from an anonymous note that his niece is alive in Russia. However, he is never informed that she is a high-ranking government agent. Weaver is voiced by Gene Farber
- Sergeant Frank Woods (USMC) is not a playable character, but is an ally of Mason in most of the game's levels. He first appeared in the first level, along with Mason and Bowman, during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Woods and Mason are captured by the Vietcong and almost killed during a forced game of Russian roulette. After escaping the rat tunnels, Woods and Mason eventually commandeered a helicopter and fought their way to where Kravchenko was hiding. Woods sacrificed his own life by tackling Kravchenko and knocking both of them out a window as the latter pulled a grenade. He later appeared alive seconds later, only to be revealed an illusion in the eyes of Mason. He is presumed dead, but an anonymous note sent to Mason (viewable in the interrogation room computer) states that Woods is still alive, imprisoned in Hanoi, but it is not confirmed. He is voiced by James C. Burns.[2]
- Chief Petty Officer Joseph Bowman (USN) is a non-playable character who appears in several missions as an ally of Mason. He first appeared in the first level, along with Mason and Woods, during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Bowman was brutally beat to death by a Spetsnaz operative when he insulted him, and refused to play a game of Russian roulette. He is voiced by Ice Cube.
- President of the United States John F. Kennedy is the first player character in one version of the Zombie mode. He made only one formal appearance in the campaign, during his meeting with Alex Mason to authorize Nikita Dragovich's assassination, though his voice plays over some parts of the game. He was assassinated in 1963, allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald, though Mason appears to have had some form of involvement in the assassination. Kennedy is voiced by Jim Merkimen and Chriss Anglin.
Antagonists
- Major General Nikita Dragovich (Russian: Никита Драгович) is the main antagonist of the story, the instigator of the Nova 6 plot and the attempted invasion of the United States. He first appears at the end of the first level, receiving Mason as a prisoner from Fidel Castro. Dragovich was largely responsible for Mason's brainwashing. His earlier involvement in the Nova 6 plot was in 1945 in the Arctic Circle, when he helped Friedrich Steiner move his chemical weapons out of a ship which had been frozen in place by the weather. Dragovich was killed by Mason at the end of the game. His final words suggest that Mason followed his original programming to assassinate President Kennedy despite Reznov's interference, but even this remains unclear. Dragovich was voiced by Eamon Hunt.
- Colonel Lev Kravchenko (Ukrainian: Лев Кравченко) is a secondary antagonist, first appearing when Mason was captured in Cuba. He was also personally responsible for the loss of Weaver's left eye, and though Mason and his team searched feverishly for him, he managed to escape. He was eventually killed by Woods, who knocked them both through a window and simultaneously pulling the pins from the grenades that Kravchenko had strapped to him, ensuring both their deaths. As evidenced by intel found in-game, he was quite sadistic, going so far as to torture his own sister to death to prove his loyalty to Dragovich. He was voiced by Andrew Divoff.
- Prime Minister of Cuba Fidel Castro is a minor antagonist in the campaign, though serves as a protagonist in one version of the Zombie mode. He was Mason's target during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, though Mason only killed Castro's body double. His soldiers then captured Mason and handed him over to Dragovich. He later appears in the Pentagon fighting zombies alongside John F. Kennedy, Robert McNamara and Richard Nixon. He is voiced by Marlon Correa and Gustavo Rex.
- Friedrich Steiner is a German scientist responsible for the creation of Nova 6, a nerve toxin which can kill a human being in a matter of seconds. He formally worked for the Third Reich designing other chemical weapons, but withheld the use of Nova 6 by the Germans and instead handed it over to Dragovich in 1945. He defected to the Soviet Union and continued to develop the toxin. Near the end of the game, Steiner began to have second thoughts and begged Hudson and Weaver to extract him from Rebirth Island before he would be killed by Dragovich's men (who were killing those who were not important anymore), but was shot and killed by Mason despite his attempt to jog Mason's memory. Steiner is voiced by Mark Bramhall.
- Doctor Daniel Clarke is a cynical British communist and defector who left for the Soviet Union in 1964. His experience in Biology and chemistry, gained at Oxford University, made him a useful tool to Dragovich in stabilizing the volatile compounds which made up Nova 6. Knowing that Dragovich would kill him as soon as Nova 6 was weaponized, he escaped to Kowloon City in Hong Kong, though was captured by Hudson and Weaver, who tortured him to try to weed out information. During their attempted escape, just before he could tell Hudson what the numbers from Dragovich's broadcast station meant, he was shot in the head and fell from the rooftops. Clarke is voiced by Gary Oldman.
- 'Numbers' is an unnamed female character who broadcasts the number sequences to the Soviet sleeper agents in America from an unknown location. She is first seen when the game starts for the first time and in the ending of the game, and she can also be heard in Mason's head throughout the campaign. She is voiced by Emmanuelle Chriqui.
Zombies
- Tank Dempsey is a typical American war hero, a US Marine who is obsessed with war and bloodshed. He hates Richtofen, and likes Takeo. His favorite weapons are 2 M16s. Tank Dempsey was also awarded for his bravery on the island of Peliliu during World War Two.
- Nikolai Belinski is a typical Russian. He was a former soldier in the Red Army. He has had 6 wives, all of them killed by him, and he is obsessed with vodka. He likes Dempsey, but hates Takeo. His favorite weapons seem to be the M14, and the SPAS-12.
- Takeo Masaki is former soldier in the Imperial Army from a long line of distinguished warriors. As such, he is concerned with his and his allies honor in battle. He likes Richtofen, but hates Nikolai. His favourite weapon is MP5K. He is the first to begin regaining his memories after Richtofen erased them following the latter's experimentation on the former.
- Edward Richtofen Former scientist who worked for Dr. Ludvig Maxis and his daughter Samantha, and is revealed to be the true main antagonist of the Zombies campaign. He was driven insane, possibly schizophrenic, by his encounter with an alien device called the "M.P.D." Maxis created the Hellhounds, Richtofen used them to kill Maxis and group 935, although the daughter, Samantha, survived, and was sent to the Group 935 facility on the Moon. He has created the Wunderwaffe DG-2. He hates Dempsey yet he seems to like Nikolai. His favorite weapons are the Wunderwaffe DG-2,Raygun and the MP40. In Call of the Dead, he retrieves the Golden Rod from the celebrities, and in Shangri-La he obtains the Focusing Stone, which both play a part in his plan on the Moon. He uses both items to switch places with Samantha - who had been held prisoner inside the M.P.D. - and has been using Takeo, Nikolai, and Dempsey to achieve this, to become the master of all zombies to conquer the world. However, his plan is thwarted when the others follow Maxis' contingency plan to destroy the Earth and all zombies on it, leaving Richtofen in control of only the surviving zombies on the Moon, which are already being killed by the other three.
- Samantha Maxis A young girl who is infected with Element 115, or Ununpentium. She has attacked the four with hellhounds, zombies, and space monkeys. She lured Yuri Kravcheski, a scientist, into trapping Dr. Gersch in the Kassimir Mechanism, leading to the map Ascension's greatest easter egg. When you shoot the generator with various Pack a Punched (Upgraded) weapons, you will free Samantha from Dr. Gersch and they will reward you and your team with Death Machine mini-guns which last for 90 seconds. In Moon, she is revealed to have survived Richtofen's betrayal years ago, having been kept inside the alien device M.P.D., having been using the zombies to kill Richtofen. She ends up in Richtofen's physical body, while he ends up in her place, a spirit who controls the zombies.
- Dr. Ludvig Maxis Samantha's father. He was the head of Group 935, and Richtofen's superior before Richtofen betrayed him by locking him and Sam in a room with the teleporter and a Hellhound. He later appeared as some sort of computer file denying access to Richtofen at Moon. However, Maxis is deleted by Richtofen just before he can stop him from receiving the Vril Generator from the computer. Later, just as the original characters and Samantha, now in Richtofen's body, he appears in a radio message and tells them to launch 3 rockets in order to kill all the zombies, stopping Richtofen's plan for an army of zombies to conquer Earth.
- President of the United States John F. Kennedy is the first player character in one version of the Zombie mode. He made only one formal appearance in the campaign, during his meeting with Alex Mason to authorize Nikita Dragovich's assassination, though his voice plays over some parts of the game. He was assassinated in 1963, allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald, though Mason appears to have had some form of involvement in the assassination, but it turned out that it was actually the zombies who killed Kennedy (at the end of the game) while the other three characters somehow escaped.
- Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara is the second player character in one version of the Zombie mode. Like Kennedy, he only formally appears once in the campaign with his voice dubbed in other sections as well. He brings Alex Mason to Kennedy and helps to conspire to assassinate Nikita Dragovich. He is voiced by Robert Picardo.
- Richard Nixon is the third character in the same version of Zombies as Kennedy and MacNamara. While he makes no formal appearance in the campaign, he is revealed to be in this mode because Kennedy believes that he could bring helpful ideas to ease the tensions between the U.S. and Cuba. He also appears to be a source of comic relief similar to that of Takeo Masaki in the majority of other zombies maps.
- Sarah Michelle Gellar is the first playable character in the "Call of the Dead" mode of Zombies. She is the one of the only women in the entire Call of Duty Series (and one of the even fewer playable ones.) She is one of the four survivors on the set of a movie that was attacked by zombies and had helped Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, Edward Richtofen, and Takeo Masaki transfer themselves from a closet on the set into Shangri-La. Like the other characters in "Call of the Dead", she has no relevance to the actual campaign.
- Robert Englund is the second playable character in "Call of the Dead." During the opening, he is made out to be the butt of a joke involving how to hit a zombie with a shotgun. He, like Gellar, is one of the four survivors of the zombie invasion on the movie set. During the opening is shown killing zombies with a pitchfork however, it somehow vanishes when the game begins (Englund brings this up if you buy the "Sickle" to replace your knife)
- Danny Trejo is the third playable character in "Call of the Dead" and one of the four survivors on the film set. Like Englund, he has weapons in the opening that disappear when the game begins. In his case, they are dual wielded machete's though he never brings it up.
- Michael Rooker is the fourth playable character in "Call of the Dead" and the fourth survivor on the film set. He, like Trejo and Englund, wields an unusable weapon in the opening (in his case they are dual double-barreled shotguns that fire three rounds before needing to be reloaded)
- George A. Romero is the main antagonist of "Call of the Dead." While directing a movie, he is abducted by zombies and injected with Element 115. He chases the playable characters around with a spotlight and becomes increasingly difficult the closer you get to defeating him. If you hit him he goes into a berserk sprint and will not stop until he reaches water. It is assumed that he is either cured or the Element eventually wore off as he gives a speech at the end of the level.
Other Characters
- Terrance Brooks first makes his appearance in the level 'Executive Order' as part of the team that infiltrated the Baikonour launch facility to destroy a Soyuz rocket. He makes a later reappearence in the level 'WMD' as part of the team infiltrating a Soviet outpost in the Ural Mountains. He is voiced by Troy Baker.
- Bruce Harris is a soldier who appears only in the level 'WMD'. He is killed by a Russian RPG. Despite Hudson's attempt to save him, Harris plunges off the catwalk he is on and smashes against the side of a cliff in the free-fall.
- Dimitri Petrenko was a soldier, who, like Reznov, retruns from World at War. He only appeard in the mission 'Project Nova'. Petrenko, along with Vikharev and Belov, were thrown into a gas chamber were they were killed with Nova 6 when Dragovich discovered it and wished to see the effects of the poison firsthand. He is voiced by Boris Kievsky.
- Nevski is a member of Reznov's squad. He is the only person, besides Reznov, that escapes the ship containing the Nova 6 shipment before it explodes. His fate is left anonymous after the end of the level were he and Reznov are fleeing. He is voiced by Daniel Gamburg.
- Vikharev was a member of Reznov's squad. He was gassed to death by Nova 6 after Dragovich betrayed them.
- Belov was a member of Reznov's squad. He was gassed to death by Nova 6 after Dragovich betrayed them.
- Tvelin was a soldier who was thrown into the same gas chamber as Reznov and Nevski. He managed to escape being killed by the Nova 6 gas but was killed sometime during the rush to escape the ship they were on. Even if he manages to make it to the escape point, he does not appear with Nevski and Reznov, thus assuming he was killed before he could follow them.
- Kaylor is the driver of an unmarked van who arrives to save Hudson and Weaver in Kowloon just as they are being attacked by Spetsnaz soldiers. He is part of Team 3 who was stationed to extract Hudson, Weaver and Clarke.
- Shabs is a member of Team 3. He assisted Hudson and Weaver in eliminating the Spetsnaz soldiers who were attacking them.
- Maestas is a member of Team 3. He, like Kaylor and Shabs, have no role in the level 'Numbers' until the end of the level. The only lines he speaks are to question Hudson what their next destination is.
- Sgt. Crosby is a panicked U.S. Marine who appears in the level 'The Defector' while trying to radio in an airstrike. His fate in battle is being killed by the large number of enemy soldiers swarming streets of Hue City at one time or another. Even if he survives the soldiers he will most likely be brought down by a Russian T-55 tank roaming the streets.
- Swift is a soldier who appears in the level 'Victor Charlie' when he and Mason enter an underground tunnel network. He is confused when Mason thinks Reznov appears, as Swift sees only Mason talking to himself. Seconds later a hidden enemy appears and stabs him in the throat.
- Carlos is one of the first appearing characters in the campaign. He is Mason, Woods and Bowman's contact in Santa Maria for information on infiltrating Fidel Castro's compound while he and the rebels stage a diversionary attack. He also helped them escape from the city after the police surrounded his bar and he also managed to escape on the plane with Woods and Bowman. He is voiced by Gustavo Rex.
- Sergei Kozin is a huge, black man who appears in the second level of the game. It is assumed he was a former circus attraction and was referred to as the 'Monster of Magadan'. He is killed later in the level as he tries to keep a steel shutter open to allow others through but is shot by a Soviet prison guard and is crushed by the shutter.
References