Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Setting and characters

The events of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance are set in the year 2018, four years after the events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. The Patriots, a powerful deep state running the world's war economy, have been destroyed, and PMCs have splintered into numerous factions. The player controls Raiden (Quinton Flynn), a former Liberian child soldier turned into a cyborg that now works for the PMC Maverick Security Consulting, Inc. Raiden is supported by his Maverick colleagues, consisting of Russian pointman Boris Popov (JB Blanc), military advisor Kevin Washington (Phil LaMarr), computer specialist Courtney Collins (Kari Wahlgren), and cybernetics expert Wilhelm "Doktor" Voigt (Jim Ward). Returning from Metal Gear Solid 4 is Sunny Emmerich (Cristina Pucelli), a child prodigy and friend of Raiden working at Solis Space and Aeronautics.

Rival PMC Desperado Enforcement LLC serves as the game's main antagonist; Desperado aims to destabilize peaceful nations and preserve conflict, allowing them to reap the financial rewards and technological advancements of the war economy. Desperado operative Samuel Rodrigues (Philip Anthony-Rodriguez), also known as Jetstream Sam, serves as Raiden's rival, with a conversation between the two in the beginning influencing Raiden. Sam works with an elite team of Desperado cyborg assassins named the "Winds of Destruction": Sundowner (Crispin Freeman), Desperado's de facto leader, who wields machetes that combine into a large pair of pincers, and who also has a set of reactive armor shields connected to his body; Mistral (Salli Saffioti), the team's only female member, whose frame can support multiple additional arms, some of which combine into a staff that she can use as a whip; and Monsoon (John Kassir), who wields dual sai and uses magnetism to manipulate large objects and separate his body into individual components, while retaining control over each part.

The IF Prototype LQ-84i, later named Blade Wolf (Michael Beattie), is a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence housed within a quadrupedal combat robot who serves initially as Raiden's Desperado-controlled enemy, but it is later reprogrammed to aid Raiden and Maverick. Additionally, Colorado Senator and potential presidential candidate Steven Armstrong (Alastair Duncan) is involved in Desperado's activities. An additional member of the Winds of Destruction, Khamsin (Benito Martinez), appears as part of the Blade Wolf DLC chapter.

Plot

While providing security detail in an unnamed African country for its prime minister, N'Mani, Raiden and his team are attacked by rogue PMC Desperado. While Raiden fends off their forces, their leader Sundowner kidnaps and assassinates N'Mani. Raiden is badly wounded in a duel with Sundowner's lackey "Jetstream" Samuel Rodrigues, losing his left eye and arm, but Boris saves him as Sundowner and Sam escape. Doktor later repairs and upgrades Raiden with a more capable cyborg body.

Three weeks later, Raiden infiltrates the breakaway Georgian statelet of Abkhazia after learning that Desperado is leading a military coup there. He plans to capture Andrey Dolzaev, a Chechen extremist leading the forces, to force Desperado into standing down. Desperado anticipates the move and assigns a prototype AI robot designated LQ-84i to stop Raiden. Raiden defeats the LQ-84i in combat and later has Doktor rebuild it as an ally, naming it Blade Wolf. He faces further opposition from Mistral, the commander of Desperado's forces in Abkhazia. After Raiden kills Mistral in combat, Dolzaev commits suicide by blowing up an oil tank he is standing on.

Maverick assigns Raiden to investigate a research facility in Guadalajara, Mexico. There, Raiden meets an orphan named George, who was brought to the facility to have his brain—along with the brains of several other orphans—surgically removed and shipped to the United States. He learns that Sundowner inspected the facility in the company of Senator Steven Armstrong, creating an alliance between Desperado and World Marshal, a major PMC Armstrong has invested in. World Marshal plans to condition the children to become killers through constant VR training, and place them inside cybernetic bodies to create new soldiers, similar to Raiden. Raiden rescues George and the children to Doktor.

Furious at their unwillingness to take action against World Marshal, Raiden resigns from Maverick and, with Blade Wolf by his side, launches a one-man assault on World Marshal's headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Though no longer Raiden's employer, Maverick unofficially provides discreet support throughout. After he fights his way through the city's privatized police force and soldiers, Raiden encounters Sam and another operative named Monsoon, who, using technology they developed, force Raiden to listen to the thoughts of the police officers and soldiers he kills, which cause him to become extremely conflicted over his actions.

Eventually, this leads to him unleashing his repressed personality of "Jack The Ripper", which he developed due to the Sears Program when he was young. He kills Monsoon and infiltrates World Marshal's headquarters before locating and killing Sundowner. There, he discovers that Armstrong is using Desperado to distract Raiden while readying "Operation Tecumseh", a plan to assassinate the President of the United States during peace negotiations with Pakistan to ensure another war on terror.

While Doktor recovers the children's brains, Raiden seeks help from Sunny Emmerich to reach Pakistan in time to stop Armstrong. He encounters Sam on the way and the pair engage in a final duel, from which Raiden emerges victorious. Sunny helps Raiden travel to Shabhazabad Air Base in Pakistan, where he is attacked by Metal Gear EXCELSUS, a hexapedal mecha piloted by Armstrong who takes down Blade Wolf. He reveals that Operation Tecumseh was a false flag operation, and that his true plan was to frame Desperado for killing American military personnel at the base to turn the American people against them and in favor of World Marshal.

Armstrong, being a primary shareholder of the latter, would win the subsequent Presidential election in a landslide, giving him free rein to realize his vision of a social Darwinist society, where the strong will thrive and the weak will be purged. Raiden destroys EXCELSUS, but discovers that Armstrong has augmented himself with nanomachines that harden in response to physical trauma, destroying Raiden's high-frequency blade. Blade Wolf intervenes and gives Raiden Sam's sword, which allows him to defeat and kill Armstrong.

Doktor receives approval to create a new cyborg staffing firm, allowing them to shelter the orphans' brains and potentially give them a chance at a better life, while George and Blade Wolf go live at Solis with Sunny. Although Desperado is defeated and the brain-taking operation defunct, World Marshal remains in business. Raiden decides against rejoining Maverick, resolving to fight his own war.