"I am Stefano... And now you are my art."

Stefano Valentini is a major villain and the main antagonist for the first half of The Evil Within 2, sequel of The Evil Within. He is a deranged photographer and serial killer with a very dark and twisted psyche, and is quite possibly one of the most intriguing and complicated villains in video game history so far. His role in the story is completed in the 8th of the 17 chapters of the game, however his emblematic presence and personality as a villain offer material for plenty of analysis, both about himself alone, as well as concerning his relationship with the protagonist of the game, detective Sebasian Castellanos.

The plot of the game is centered around Sebastian's daughter, Lily, who was announced dead after a fire that burned her family home, something that was known already from the first game. In The Evil Within 2, however, Sebastian finds out that Lily is very much alive, and is in fact held in STEM by Mobius, the secret organization that stole Ruben Victoriano's research and developed it so as to create the necessary means for universal mind control. As the STEM system needed a central unit, a core, to operate (Ruben's brain had this 'role' in the first game), Mobius tested several people for this, narrowing the candidates down eventually to children, whose pure brain would be a perfect 'blank sheet' for the process to progress smoothly. Lily was chosen as the ideal candidate because she was an intuitive girl with an innocent heart, and was subsequently kidnapped so as to take her place in the main STEM unit. When Sebastian's wife, Myra, found out about this, she became a member of Mobius, planning a way to take her daughter out and destroy the organization from the inside afterwards. Something went wrong however when Lily disappeared completely and the system became destabilized.

Sebastian is called to enter STEM and go to Union, a virtual environment that simulates a town and which was created by Mobius for its test subjects, to look for his daughter, as well as for the members of the search team that was sent to find her but went missing too. Sebastian finds out that one of the people who was supposedly helping Myra with her plan secretly wanted to keep Lily for himself so as to gain personal power using her potential, and for this he sent Stefano Valentini to kidnap her for his own benefit. However Stefano found out about Lily's 'power' and he decided against handing her over, thinking that, with taking advantage of her abilities, he would achieve great works of art.

Although Stefano is clearly identified and defined as a psychopathic and sadistic serial killer who has developed an appalling concept about what great art is, his connection to Sebastian and how this affects his attitude as the story progresses presents great interest. But this cannot be examined separately from his works of  'art' - photographs and installations - that can be seen in several places, and their evolution.

Stefano's installations take gore to a whole new level of creepiness

First of all we should focus a bit on an important fact about his past life. Stefano used to be a war photographer, and given that he is 31 at the time of the game's events, we can easily deduct that he had been on such missions while at a very young age. This fact alone should be enough to explain part of his paranoia, as it is more than obvious that, as a war photographer, he had witnessed and captured with his camera numerous horrible scenes. What made the biggest difference in his case however and practically altered his psyche was an incident where while photographing a war scene, he captured the moment when a man died, hit by an explosion; the same explosion that caused the loss of his own right eye. The fact that he managed to capture the exact moment of death fascinated him and after getting back home, he became a fashion photographer using this activity as a cover, planning to put to practice the twisted artistic projects that started occupying his mind.

There are several recurring elements and themes in his older photographs and installations, which can be seen in various rooms in the City Hall, the most characteristic being the red roses and the violet blue color (which also resembles the color of the suit he is wearing). These photographs and installations all depict women, albeit their head is always missing or is replaced by the flowers. What Stefano did to create his 'art' was to kill his victims and set up installations with the corpses which he then shot with the camera and edited accordingly to create a misleading artistic effect (that is, he edited the photos to make them look as if he had created all the gruesome effects with photographic or computer tricks, but in fact they were 100% real).

Some of Stefano's photos may look artistic from a distance, until you notice the morbid details

Soon his concepts became more specific, as he focused on capturing the moment of death, somehow reviving again and again that first random capture in the battlefield; and to achieve this, he had his camera ready and hit the button just as he was stabbing or shooting his models with a gun. Although one such photo can be seen in the City Hall and it shows a woman, it is quite interesting that almost all the others of this kind that Sebastian comes across depict men who, moreover, are soldiers - except the young man  in the white shirt near the start.

Being exposed to the horrors of war at such a young age, Stefano was inevitably traumatized, something that took irreversible monstrous dimensions after the event with the explosion that turned on his psychopathic switch. Clearly the paranoia that he showed afterwards was connected to the war in every way, but initially he would express it in more indirect ways, which is why his victims were female fashion models and he obviously devoted a lot more time in staging and editing his photos. As soon as his most crucial memory settled itself in his mind, his photos started being more specific. He started killing soldiers, seen now as direct symbols of war, and photographing the moment of their death; and the captured result showed exactly that, with no extra additions or effects. He went even further than that though, by creating some kind of live installations with his victims, framing them in a real-time camera shot which would loop eternally, repeating the captured moment of death again and again.

In these installations, these frozen displays, as they are called in the game, it is as if time has stopped; the moment of the victim's death plays over and over in slow motion, the scene is bathed in a gloomy and sick blue light, while in the background is heard a distorted version of Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, Op 48, I.

Sebastian watches the frozen display of a young man whom Stefano stabbed moments before

This ingenious music segment seems to match Stefano's art from a technical aspect: Tchaikovsky creates harmony through dissonance and makes unconventional use of accords, still the resulting piece sounds immaculate. Similarly, Stefano's photos look artistic, albeit creepy, on the exterior, but in fact they are made of dead bodies and body parts. Of course Tchaikovsky uses disharmonies to create something beautiful, while Stefano's 'art' is literally a murder pile.

The most raw manifestation of this is the Guardian, a hideous monster made of severed limbs and cut heads stitched together, which runs around with a creepy smile stuck on its main head, yielding a huge buzz saw that is attached on its arm, while letting out a chilling, hysterical laughter. The Guardian represents all of Stefano's victims who died violently and is some sort of evil spirit that seeks revenge. Its smile and laughter are a constant reminder of the moment that they were caught in Stefano's trap when he ordered them to smile for the camera, and from that moment and on, their nightmare began.

The Guardian is one of the most hideous monsters you've ever seen

Near the closure of his role in the game, Stefano conceives and realizes a most bloodcurdling frozen display which involves several people - both men and women - who are all dressed in white and are sitting in the seats of a theater, with their hands and legs tied with duct tape and sacks covering their heads. Having attached explosive mechanisms on each one's head, he sets them all off at the same time, causing a series of explosions which create a visual effect that defies any description.

This mini-war that he creates himself in the theater brings him back to the start of his madness, to the explosion that marked his life both literally and metaphorically in the battlefield; only this time he has the illusion that he is the one in control of everything and everyone around him.

Sebastian watches in shock as Stefano realizes his latest concept

Stefano is, from many aspects, a fascinating villain. His appearance is stylish, classy, and marginally eccentric, with a toned-down flamboyant elegance. He is a young and handsome man, but his soul and his mind are of the worst kind of evil. His Italian descent gives him an air of charm and beauty that is the exact opposite of his real self. In that sense, he is more or less like his photographs. Art as a concept takes a distorted form in his head and is realized in the most disturbing ways. His missing eye has been replaced with a camera lens, which makes him see everything around him as photographic stills, even before he actually takes a photo.

Disappointed from what he considers to be a shallow approach of his work, he has created an alternate reality within the virtual reality of Union. He is able to alter the environment around him and transform it the way that he pleases, and thus he has turned several places of the town into his own personal artistic domain. The Grand Theater and the City Hall in particular are like some kind of Museums of Horror, where he has his artworks set around so that he is able to admire them as much as he wants and preserve them for eternity.

Stefano's domain is a place full of nightmarish displays of all kinds

His chemistry with Sebastian is extremely intense and dominates everything else for the whole first half of the story. Sebastian is as clear and pure as Stefano is dark and perverted. This contrast becomes even more powerful when taking into consideration that Stefano is almost a decade younger than Sebastian, as it intensifies the fact that Sebastian has maintained his unadulterated heart despite the nightmares he's been through and the evil he has encountered, while Stefano not only succumbed to his dark side when he met the horror and evilness of war and embraced it, but moreover found pleasure in it.

Sebastian and Stefano have an intense hero/villain chemistry

Sebastian enters Stefano's twisted world rather unexpectedly at the very beginning of the game, when he finds himself in an empty and tall dark room, decorated with long, red curtains that swing slightly as if moved by a ghostly wind. The whole place looks like a dismantled theatrical stage.

The entrance to the artist's domain looks like the scenery of a nightmare

A bit further, he goes through a door and he enters a smaller room where there is a photo of a door on one wall and an identical real door on another. By looking at the photo of the door, Sebastian is able to open the real door behind him and proceed. It is as if the photo became reality; or maybe reality manifested itself as a photo so as to drag him in? Nothing is clear inside STEM, and most importantly, nothing is friendly. As Sebastian goes along a corridor, Tchaikovsky's music is heard from a distance, and soon Sebastian comes across a frozen display, featuring William Baker, the leader of the Mobius search team that went missing. The same room also hosts several photos on the walls, associated with other victims, that will reappear later on.

Sebastian watches one of Stefano's frozen displays, featuring William Baker

By revealing a secret passage nearby, Sebastian enters a bizarre and disturbing building with long corridors, red curtains and gory photos on the walls, which seems to be Stefano's private place as he can be seen walking around, teleporting himself from one place to another, changing the layout of the rooms, making doors appear or disappear. A woman that you see crying for help behind a glass door disappears seconds after, and it is just Stefano and Sebastian alone in the artist's domain.

Sebastian is not just one more random victim for Stefano. This becomes very clear from the start, from the first time that the two of them cross paths. In the room where Sebastian sees Stefano for the first time, where Stefano stabs a young man then shoots him with his camera, Sebastian hides behind a couch after witnessing the scene. As Stefano passes by him, he stops for a moment, throws a look sideways to the direction where Sebastian is crouching and literally smells him, letting out a lustful groan.

Stefano's senses are enhanced whenever Sebastian is closeby

Moving on, Sebastian goes down to the basement where there is a storage room full of hanging corpses. This very interesting room is in fact a stripped down version of the vicious circle in which Stefano has willingly trapped himself. And the word vicious in his case is rather literal. When you first enter the room, it has several corpses covered with sheets, hanging from the ceiling. As you approach the back wall, you can see a mural depicting a huge artistic eye, made with what looks like red paint but is probably human blood.

Just as you get closer, a noise makes you turn towards the opposite direction. You see then that the entrance from where you came in has disappeared and instead there is a solid wall there, and a mounted camera standing in front of it. A new noise makes you move to the back of the room again, and now a door has magically appeared where the eye initially was. As Sebastian opens the door, Stefano appears in front of him and shoots him with his camera. Turning towards the opposite direction again, Sebastian sees that the hanging corpses have been replaced with piles of stuff covered with cloth, and now there is a mirror on the wall where the mounted camera was minutes before; and on the mirror Sebastian finds the photo of himself that Stefano shot a few seconds before.

Stefano's deadliest weapon is his camera

The corpses, the mounted camera, Stefano with his own camera in hand, and a new victim, Sebastian: this scenery not only sums up Stefano's repeated activities in Union but moreover describes perfectly the confusion and derangement of his mind.

As soon as Sebastian takes his photo from the mirror, he catches a glimpse of a black-haired woman dressed in red behind him. She disappears immediately and at the same time the Guardian shows up from behind the glass, shatters the mirror and prepares to attack Sebastian, whose only rescue is the passage behind the mirror. So Sebastian runs through the looking glass, with the Guardian breathing (rather, laughing) down his neck, but this is definitely no Wonderland he is seeing. Suddenly Stefano appears from the opposite direction and throws a knife at him, hitting him on the shoulder. The key in this scene is the fact that, with stabbing Sebastian, Stefano is actually offering him a knife. In other words, he gives him an item that is vital for surviving for the rest of the adventure. It is as if he wants Sebastian to follow him, and as he is luring him into his world, he is making sure that he has at least the basic means to defend himself.

A bit later in Union, while following a signal on his communicator in his search for two missing soldiers, Sebastian enters a basement room where he has a vision in which Stefano has captured Ryan Turner, one of the soldiers, whom he soon kills and photographs, creating yet one more frozen display. As Sebastian is leaving this room, Stefano shows up again in the opened door and takes one more photo of him, then disappears. Before getting back outside, Sebastian enters a creepy dark room where there is a photo of the frozen display he just saw, showing Ryan at the moment of his murder.

Soldier Ryan's photograph (right) is an unedited capture of his frozen display (left)

It looks like Stefano treated Ryan a bit differently than his rest of his victims, as there are a few details that hint to that: he tied Ryan down and kept him like this for a while before killing him, instead of just taking him by surprise or chasing him then shooting him, like he did with the others. Additionally, he obviously took the time to observe and study his victim, both before and after the murder: along the walls of the corridor that connects the room where Ryan's frozen display is and the last room where his photo is hanging on the wall, are several other photos focusing on details like his eye and his hands, his head at the moment of death from various angles, as well as others showing parts of his severed body; in one of those, Stefano has added a butterfly. Moreover, the photo that captured his death is large and framed, as if Stefano wanted it to stand out from the rest.

There is no specific hint that could explain why Stefano would have this different behaviour towards Ryan; besides, we only have the chance to know very few things about him. From the visions triggered by the resonances in Sebastian's communicator, we can see that he was a tall and slender young man, and that he was somewhat ruthless since he was the one who planned to proceed in the Alpha One emergency plan. We could assume that Stefano, in his attempt to create 'his greatest work yet', considered some victims to be more fitting for this than the others, for whatever sick reason; and Ryan was one of them. 

Some time later, and after following Lily's voice via a signal, Sebastian enters a huge warehouse where his daughter sought refuge while being chased by Stefano. Once inside and in an upper room, Sebastian has a vision of Stefano searching for Lily and eventually finding her and dragging her out of her hiding place. While heading back outside, he sees Stefano again and runs after him. Seconds later, the words 'Smile For Me' appear on a wall at the end of a corridor and just at the exit, Stefano turns to the side and smells Sebastian the same way as before.

Stefano says this to most of his victims, but with Sebastian he outdoes himself

This is the point when Stefano decides to show Sebastian that he is very aware of his presence and that he wants to lead him somewhere. Before he disappears from that place, he activates the Aperture, a huge eye that covers Union's skyline, that has a camera lens in the place of the iris. With it, Stefano is able to watch Sebastian's movements all around Union, turning this into one more means to keep him on a tight leash.

Following a lead, Sebastian reaches the City Hall, which is isloated now that Union is slowly falling apart. The place looks and feels ominous, as if it is dominated by a dark presence - which indeed it is. As Sebastian approaches the main gate, Tchaikovsky's music piece starts playing again, this time through his communicator. The whole area is instantly overwhelmed by the familiar by now gloomy blue light and Stefano appears in the distance, luring Sebastian in his lair. As soon as he shows up, he stops for a second and turns towards his back, to make sure that Sebastian is following him.

Stefano wants to be sure that Sebastian is still after him

Just at the entrance, Sebastian finds another photo of himself taken from a distance, with the words 'Waiting For You' written on it. Stefano wants to make it very clear to him that he is not only one step ahead constantly, but he is also watching him wherever he goes; therefore there is no way Sebastian can get away.

The interior of the City Hall is just as empty and haunting as the exterior was. Large, deserted rooms with photos on the walls, yet one more frozen display in one hall featuring a soldier falling from an upper floor, and just behind a bright blue curtain, a puzzle awaits. Sebastian has to recreate a photo that is hanging on a wall; this photo is, like Ryan's, large and framed, and it shows a girl wearing a blue dress and an emerald necklace round her neck, posing next to a vase with roses. What makes this photo even more interesting is that it does not feature a dead body for a change.

A rare occasion where the model is alive in the shot

Still, it is no less creepy; the face of the girl is rubbed out, and the contrast of her bright blue dress and the red roses with the dusted dark background creates a chilling atmosphere that is transmitted to the room around. When the task is completed, a new section opens up; a long corridor with more framed photos on the walls left and right, and the phrase 'Appreciate The Art' written with blood on the far wall, closed in an empty frame. Sebastian also finds a newspaper clipping with an article about the case of a woman, Emily Lewis, who was found dead while her body had been decapitated. Emily was a model and actress, and a long-time friend of Stefano who was also her photographer.

Emily is obviously the girl in the blue dress, and the long corridor that opens up beyond the room where her photo is hanging, is dedicated to her. Stefano took a proper photo of her at first while she was alive (the one in the hall) and then killed her; and all the framed photos in the corridor are showing parts of her body during and after her murder.

Stefano is as imaginative as he is disturbing

Emily is yet another victim who, like Ryan, was treated differently from the others; although in this case there is an explanation: Emily was Stefano's friend before, unlike his other victims who were random people he didn't know. And not only that; with her short dark hair and her bright blue dress, Emily looks like a mirrored female version of Stefano. The pale blue eyes in her severed head are like his too, while she had brown eyes when she was alive. Stefano identifies with Emily in a rather twisted way, as he seems to both love and hate her. This, in extension, hints that he may have embraced his female side but at the same time he hates it, which again is quite complicated in itself, because Emily and subsequently his female side symbolize his art. In his slumber while in STEM, Stefano has gone back to his roots as an artist, where Emily represents the Muse who gives him inspiration; but because meanwhile he has moved far beyond the stage where he needs a muse in the classic sense, for this reason he wants to destroy Emily and all that, in his eyes, she stands for. The corridor in the City Hall is not the only room dedicated to her; there are also several photos showing parts of her dead body in the foyer of the theater where Sebastian will go later, and in one of them, that is focusing on her black hair, Stefano has added a butterfly.

Although this detail seems minor, it could be a clue that, with adding the butterfly, Stefano put some sort of mark on the victims that he considered unique. Emily was even 'honored' with a photo where she is shown to have butterfly wings - until you look more closely and realize what those wings really are.

This means that, since Sebastian is a unique victim too, he should have his butterfly. And indeed he has; his butterfly is actually Lily. Butterflies are associated with Lily in several ways, the most obvious and direct one having to do with something as simple and humble as the decoration of her room. But it goes even further and deeper than that. While Sebastian is investigating the case of the missing soldiers in the town, and just before going down to the basement where Ryan is held captive, a cryptic message appears on a wall, as if written with fire, warning him to not go there. Next to the words, there is a butterfly, which has a binary role: it serves as a bait for Sebastian, but also carries all the symbolism associated with Stefano's victims.

Stefano is the master or sick tricks

This long and twisted ritual that Stefano has prepared for Sebastian shows that the evil photographer sees our hero as his most unique victim for whom he has reserved a very special treatment before reaching the point of murder. He could very well capture Sebastian, kill him and photograph him just like he did with his previous victims, but instead he has set up a whole series of trials and tricks, until he decides it is time to introduce himself. Sebastian seems to be his only victim of whom he takes so many photos while still alive; and in these photos Stefano sadistically captures Sebastian's fear and anxiety. Nothing less than an extreme form of stalking; and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Stefano is more than likely obsessed with Sebastian on a sublevel; something that partly lies in the fact that Sebastian is Lily's father. Stefano may be a disturbed psychopath, but the intelligence that he had in his sane days is still there, so he is able to discern Sebastian's qualities that are very similar to Lily's - the high perception and guileless heart - which are exactly those responsible for her being chosen as the perfect core of STEM. Maybe subconsciously, he senses that Sebastian is like a grown-up version of Lily, so he may even go as far as to consider that if he were to use Sebastian somehow in the way that he plans to use Lily, he could create even greater things; but of course greatness is something very altered in Stefano's world.

The moment when Sebastian has Stefano within reach for the first time while in another room of the City Hall, is just when the latter shoots him with the camera, capturing him in a frozen display. Unlike Stefano's previous victims, Sebastian is still alive during the process, and Stefano decides that this is the perfect chance to introduce himself and declare Sebastian 'his art'.

Stefano exposes his twisted plans to Sebastian

Stefano's speech can have many interpretations at that point, one being literal and another conveying something more complex and twisted. He devotes time to examine Sebastian's frozen display, cuts his cheek with a dagger and seems to enjoy his agony too much, and in a way that goes a lot deeper than his standard sadism as a disturbed serial killer.

By capturing Sebastian in a frozen display, Stefano has a momentary victory and a few minutes' control over him. By cutting Sebastian's cheek, he puts his signature on his victim and marks him as 'his art'. All this makes the whole process look even more like a ritual and turns what would be a standard 'cat and mouse' chase into a twisted and sadistic game, that gets more and more complex and disturbing.

Stefano is marking Sebastian as his next work of art

Later on, Stefano locks himself up in the town's Grand Theater, in another part of Union, but when Sebastian arrives there, he sees that the gate that leads inside is blocked by barbed wire and guarded by two framed photos. Following the advice of the team's psychologist, he sets on to locate the actual place where the photos are and destroy them, so as to make the barrier outside the theater disappear.

This sequence is extremely interesting and revealing, as it puts both Sebastian and us in the essence of Stefano's 'work'. The two photos are of course as creepy as one would expect, but there is something rather artistic about them. To destroy them, Sebastian has to literally get in their interior, where he sees what they are really made of: corpse parts stitched together and combined with more corpse parts.

Stefano's art as it looks on the outside (left) and what it really is made from (right)

The inevitable battle between Stefano and Sebastian comes soon after Stefano has Sebastian witness the realization of his gruesome concept in the theater. He teleports away and makes sure that the path leading to him crumbles down, but still it is relatively easy for Sebastian to reach him; because Stefano wants Sebastian to get to him, but he also wants to have the upper hand in this sadistic game until the last minute.

As Sebastian gets closer to him, Stefano can be heard mumbling stuff about creating something great, for which he also needs an audience to make it complete. His speech is inconsistent and vague, and somewhat misleading; he clearly isn't planning to create his next piece with Lily in the role of the victim, as this means he would need to kill her, and therefore miss all the supernatural powers that he has gained so far thanks to her; moments before, he declared that with the power of the Core (Lily) he would create his art forever, implying that he intended to keep her with him so as to be able to accomplish his sick artistic plans. Taking into consideration all the extremes to which he has gone so far in his twisted game with Sebastian, it more likely means that has conceived a way to make use of Lily's full potential, so as to create a work of art featuring Sebastian, since he has already reserved a room especially for him.

When Sebastian arrives outside the room where Stefano awaits, it is revealed that is is a place he has seen before: when he first entered Stefano's domain, right after finding William Baker's frozen display, the entrance to that room was in a corridor, behind a locked metal gate, with a plaque on a pedestal standing at the front. Sebastian could see it through the bars but could not make out the details nor what was written on the plaque, but now he can see that it has his name engraved on it.

Sebastian's dedicated room was ready long before he arrived there

Stefano has plaques with the names of all of his victims placed outside the rooms that host their frozen displays or directly in front of them, but in all the other cases he obviously does this after killing them and having the displays ready, as his victims are chosen randomly or at least without any special preparations from his part. In Sebastian's case, however, he had already both the room and the plaque ready before Sebastian even had the chance to see him or know about him.

Sebastian's room is a large hall which looks like a gallery. This room, apart from resembling a lot the gallery room in Max's nightmare in Life Is Strange, where Mr Jefferson is chasing her, has yet one more peculiarity: almost all the photos in it show close ups of eyes and mouths. We could say that the eyes stand for Stefano's missing eye which now is a camera, and the mouths represent the screams of his victims that he so enjoyed hearing. During the boss fight, you may have the chance to notice that the photos are moving; sometimes the eyes turn upside down, other times the mouths become bloody; they are all constantly changing.

Yet another twisted exhibition by the unstoppable Stefano

Stefano uses his teleporting power to make things tough for Sebastian, while attempting to shoot him with his camera and capture him in an ideal frame. Every time he succeeds, he feels proud for his 'work' and praises himself, never failing to also praise Sebastian for being so perfectly frozen in time; and if Sebastian doesn't manage to move away from the frozen frame, Stefano rushes to him and stabs him with a fury that resembles lust too much, informing Sebastian that his death will be his 'masterpiece', leading even more to the confirmation that it is Sebastian whom he plans to make his 'greatest work yet'.

Stefano has a rather perverted view of what an artistic masterpiece is

Eventually Sebastian defeats him, and as Stefano falls down, he says with a tone of admiration in his voice, that Sebastian turned him into a masterpiece and grabs his camera for 'one last photo'. Being so obsessed with the idea of capturing the moment of death, one would imagine that he wants to take a photo of himself while dying, so as to capture his own such moment for eternity. Surprisingly enough, he doesn't do this, but attempts to take a shot of Sebastian instead, before Sebastian shoots him through the camera with his gun at just the last minute.

Before that, and while he is dying, we have the chance to look at Sebastian through Stefano's camera eye for a moment, and see how Stefano views the world around him: it is like everything has a red filter on, which makes his surroundings resemble constantly a dark room. It is as if the photographer absorbed the man and his whole being is a camera.

Stefano sees Sebastian in a dark room through his camera eye

In the first Evil Within, in chapter 4 (The Patient), Sebastian gets inside a house with Dr Martinez, looking for Leslie. It is a house like all the others in the village, and it also has several framed photographs on the walls. Those photographs have a vintage look and they seem to have a concept, like they portray the life in the countryside. One of them is of a girl who looks strikingly like Lily.

Although dressed in vintage style, the girl in the photo resembles Lily a lot

Things get creepier though when Sebastian and the doctor get down to the basement, where Leslie is hiding in an isolated room. That room, which seems totally unrelated with the place around it, is a photographer's dark room with several photos hanging from the ceiling to dry, and there is also one wall that is almost covered with photographs. If you look closely, you will see that nearly all of those photos are shots of Sebastian.

Either Sebastian is more famous than he knows or he has a creepy stalker

When Sebastian enters Stefano's domain at the start of The Evil Within 2, the door leading to the room of his final fight with Stefano can be seen through the metal gate, and it already has the plaque with his name engraved on it at the front. And in the next hall, as Sebastian heads towards the stairs leading up, a phone rings; when Sebastian answers it, Stefano can be heard laughing maliciously from the other end of the line.

Additonally, the room in the City Hall where the stable field emitter is (where Sebastian comes face to face with Stefano for the first time) is bathed in red light when Sebastian first finds it. It has a photography umbrella on the one side and lots of smudged photos on the walls, bringing that bizarre room from the first game to mind. This one here is like a mock dark room and it is as if it is set up for a photoshoot. Then Stefano enters and captures Sebastian in a frozen display, and moments later he summons the Obscura (a monster that is made of body parts and an old-time camera) to attack Sebastian.

All these details, as well as the fact that Stefano was a citizen of Krimson City before entering STEM, could be hints that Stefano knew about Sebastian before the events in The Evil Within 2; and in fact it wouldn't come as a surprise if he was really stalking Sebastian all this time, from Krimson City already, both in the real world and inside STEM.

________________________________________________

• Emily's Gallery
• Ryan's Gallery
• Sebastian's Gallery
• Stefano's Other Art
• Stefano's Domain

  

• Thanks to afterdarkmysweet for helping with the musical terminology

Bromantic Heroes

Bromances in video games are like the bread and butter; no matter what the main story is, many games feature a bromance which sometimes is there for fan service purposes while other times it is an important element of the plot. Although there is no specific reason why there are so many bromances in the video games universe, I would guess that it is mainly due to the fact that the male characters, no matter whether they have a lead or a secondary role, are men of action focused on their mission, of good nature and with good intentions (although there are surely exceptions to this), therefore they can easily like people and become likeable themselves and be trustworthy friends and comrades.

A bromance is defined as "a close, emotionally intense, platonic bond between two men, [...] an exceptionally tight affectional, homosocial male bonding relationship exceeding that of usual friendship, [...] distinguished by a particularly high level of emotional intimacy."  This definition seems to describe perfectly all the bromances that are featured in this article, however quite a few of them are not as simple. Several times our heroes go even further than that, and quite often what is implied is much more prominent than what is actually shown.

Dating back in the '90ties, Jane Jensen's Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within was possibly the first game to feature a bromance; or at least the first to feature one in such an obvious and canon way. The protagonist is Gabriel Knight, a young writer and amateur detective with a good deal of metaphysical heritage on his back. While investigating a series of murders, his research leads him to the charming and mysterious baron Friedrich Von Glower. Although it is made clear in several ways that Gabriel is straight as an arrow and quite the womanizer, it becomes equally clear in the process that he is strangely attracted to Friedrich who, even from their first meeting, seems totally smitten with Gabriel.

Gabriel's life is about to take a dramatic turn

Gabriel, who is normally quite laid back and cool, feels that there is something different about the Baron. Friedrich on the other hand shows his infatuation with Gabriel, although the latter does not always seem to take notice of the hints in the baron's words. However, considering he is actually a writer and therefore an intelligent man, it is more likely that he understands everything in fact, but decides to not let Friedrich know that he does.

The mystery that surrounds the baron, as well as the fact that for a good part of the game he may be considered the main villain, are the basic elements that make Gabriel keep his distances at the start. Still, Friedrich never ceases to subtly flirt with him and make his point.

Friedrich's words take a different meaning once you realise his attraction to Gabriel

Although Friedrich is not the killer everyone is searching for, his secret is connected to Gabriel and his past, and this is bound to make things tough for both of them soon. At some point, Friedrich notices the medallion that Gabriel is wearing around his neck, and which is a valuable and powerful family heritage: Gabriel comes from a long line of 'Shadow Hunters', people able to find and defeat evil powers. As one of them, Gabriel has the ability to discover that Friedrich is actually a werewolf, something that does not pass unnoticed from the baron.

While examining sleeping Gabriel's medallion, Friedrich has the chance to get a bit more intimate

Forced by the tumultuous events that come the one after the other, Gabriel finds himself unable to control his fate. The only solution is to kill Friedrich so as to not become a werewolf himself. On another level of analysis, we could say that Gabriel killing the baron symbolizes the suppression of a side of his sexuality that was unbeknown to him until he met Friedrich. By killing Friedrich, he forced that side to remain hidden in an attempt to get back to his old life.

This is one of the most ill-fated and starcrossed bromances so far, with its undertones giving it a far more dramatic character.

Gabriel struggling to not turn into a werewolf symbolizes his inner fight to suppress his new emotions

Born from the inspiration of Jane Jensen again, Malachi Rector, the protagonist of the adventure puzzle game Moebius: Empire Rising (2014), is a man characterized by a striking contradiction: he has an extremely cold and snobbish attitude while his physical features are dangerously attractive and fiery. Malachi is a well-known antiquities expert who suffers from seizures (this is something that very few people know about) and prefers to be alone for most of the time.

Malachi is a handsome man and he seems to be aware of it

While working on a case of a mysterious murder where he his knowledge as an antiquer is needed, he comes across David Walker, a young man who used to be in the army. Their meeting takes place under mysterious circumstances, and although Malachi doesn't seem too keen on becoming buddies with David, he is soon forced to hire him as a bodyuard when he realizes that his life is in danger. David becomes attached to Malachi, although the latter is not always sure about trusting him, and things become even more complicated and intense when David is kidnapped together with Helene, a distinguished aristoctat and potential murder victim.

While it becomes somehow clear that David's feelings for Malachi go beyond a standard frienship, for Malachi things are more mazey. His biggest issue is that he is a misanthrope, so when he gets closer to David, above all he finds it hard to deal with the fact that he actually got to like someone for a change. When David disappears, Malachi realises how much he cares for him, and when an operation is set to find Helene and free her, he risks his own life to make sure that David remains safe and also gets freed in the process.

David helps Malachi during a seizure crisis, not missing to feel him up a bit

What makes the Moebius bromance stand out most is fact that it is not afraid to demonstrate itself directly. Moreover, from a point and on it becomes the focus of the story, as Malachi puts his research aside and his main concern becomes David's liberation. The fact that David was deliberately thrown in Malachi's path when they first met is an important revelation that makes Malachi change his perspective. The people who are responsible for the murders are in fact putting to practice a theory which claims that certain patterns of history are repeated from time to time, and they want to take advantage of this for their own benefit. Both David and Malachi are revealed to be part of such a pattern, and they were destined to come together, which makes their relationship more or less karmic.

Another detail that accentuates the deeper essence of this bromance is when at some point David's sexual preferences are not only hinted to but also pointed at, during a conversation between Malachi and Mr Carter, one of the villains. Mr Carter remarks that it should be easy for Malachi to keep David under his control, thanks to his stunning looks. This implies that David may have been a bait for Malachi for practical reasons - since their acquaintance served the bad guys - but also Malachi was, unbeknown to him, a bait for David who, we can safely assume, had soft spot for tall dark men. The conspirators knew about David's weakness and this gave them the certainty that David would not betray them since it would be impossible for him to quit his mission once he met Malachi.

The ending of the game leaves little to imagination as to what the development of this bromance will probably be.

The connotations of the bleeding nose are rather obvious in this scene

Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011) and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016), has several different bromances in his adventurous life. In Human Revolution, Adam was a regular police officer working as a Security chief, but saw his life turn upside down after he got nearly killed during a violent attack. His boss, David Sarif, head of an Industry that developed and produced evolved prosthetic limbs, literally saved his life by using those necessary to replace the ones that Adam lost or became disfunctional. When he returned back from the dead thanks to David, he was a wholly new man, only the half of him was mechanically augmented.

Adam's bromances could fill a small notebook

The fact that David was the one responsible for Adam's 'rebirth' established a peculiar 'father-son' relationship between them. Adam is, to David, a constant reminder of the perfection that can be achieved with the right use of augmentations, as well as a confirmation of his own successful work. For Adam, David is a saviour who brought him back to life, but on the other hand he is also the one responsible for Adam's isolation, since his too obvious impressive enhancements push him to the margins of the 'normal' human society.

It is subtly implied - although it can pass unnoticed because the main plot is so massive and overwhelming - that Adam has some sort of emotional dependence on David, due to the fact that his new self was literally created by his boss's hands. Adam's name is not random; and David's name begins with a 'd', like 'Deus' (God). Adam is David's 'son' but in reality he is not his son, of course; Adam owes David his life, but at the same time he cannot forgive him because David made the choice to give Adam all the mechanical enhancements on his behalf without asking him if he wanted it. David on the other hand loves Adam dearly as a son, but inevitably he feels - maybe subconsciously to a degree - that because it was him who created the new Adam, he totally owns him, therefore has total control over him and he doesn't hesitate to manipulate him if necessary

David cares for Adam but sometimes he becomes too bossy

On a totally different level is Adam's relationship with Frank Pritchard, David's tech guru. Frank is a down-to-earth, sarcastic and extremely intelligent man who thinks on his feet and initially feels contempt for the gloomy, mysterious and compelling Adam.

Adam and Frank want to pretend that they dislike each other deeply, but they never miss to bump onto each other with or without excuse. Initially Frank likes to pick on Adam with ironic comments, however as they have to work more and more together, they both get to know each other better. Frank starts changing his attitude gradually and even helps Adam dig out shocking details about his past, going as far as to risk David's trust in him by passing top security info over to Adam.

Frank later writes a screenplay where the main hero is a guy who seems like a combination of himself and Adam, proving that bromances can be a great source of creative inspiration.

In spite of his misleading sassy attitude, Frank trusts and respects Adam a lot

Things are a bit different for Adam in Mankind Divided; although the world around him is in turmoil and augmented people like him are totally marginalized and treated like lepers, he seems much more settled and conscious of his situation. He is less sentimental and more cautious towards others, which is why he never opens up to anyone.

His closest friend is Vaclav Koller, his personal doctor, a very young and very eccentric mad scientist, who seems to have developed some sort of crush towards Adam. Although his interest is clearly scientific mostly, because Adam's top-notch augmentations give him goosebumps and he wants to get his hands of them and study them, his whole attitude betrays something much more than admiration and caring for his patient. Adam, for his own part, seems rather distant when interacting with Koller, but this is his regular style anyway, and on the other hand, it surely feels very awkward for him to have someone gaze at him from head to toe like Koller does, moreso if it is for science's sake.

You don't actually realize how much Adam counts Koller's friendship unless you trigger an unfortunate development where Otar Botkoveli, a ruthless mafioso, decides to take his revenge on Adam for not keeping his word. Knowing how much Adam needs Koller for his medical assistance and cares for him as a friend, Botkoveli sends his men to kill the doctor, who was on his black list anyway, so the poor guy didn't stand a chance.

Koller likes to greet Adam with over-enthusiastic comments

Being the responsible and reliable agent that he is, Adam has managed to gain the respect of his new boss, Jim Miller; but not his entire trust. Miller appears to be a hard man, void of emotions, who is focused on his job and his duty and does not care for anything else. The reality of his life is much different, though. While making a research, Adam breaks into Miller's apartment and finds out the many secrets of his personal life, details that make Adam view him differently and realize that Miller actually uses all that tough facade as a cover for his deeply sentimental side and the troubles he's dealing with.

Miller wants to trust Adam, but he is sceptical towards him at the beginning; something that is bound to change as the story unfolds. At a crucial point, Adam offers Miller the ultimate proof of his integrity, by giving him an antidote to reverse the effects of a lethal poison that he had been forced to drink. Miller then confesses to Adam that he knows he is a good man and that he always wanted to trust him, like he does now.

Adam's relationship with Miller is much more balanced than the one he had with David, as there is no dependence between them. Another interesting element is the fact that Miller is in fact a homosexual, but prefers to keep this for himself; Adam however seems totally unaffected by this revelation (in fact it seems that somehow he likes Miller more after finding it out), teaching the seemingly progressed but in reality still very conservative society of 2029 a life lesson about social acceptance.

Adam and Jim have a budding bromance

Although the theme in Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014) is a crime story with a supernatural twist, thew game does have its fair share of bromancing, although the parties involved never interact in real time. The plot is centered around Ronan O' Connor, an ex-rogue who became a detective and got viciously murdered while chasing a serial killer. Finding out that he is trapped between this world and the other, he comes back as a ghost to take care of his unresolved business. While at it, he has a chance to look back at his life, recall events and contemplate his relationships with his loved ones; and it is through these memories that we get to know him better as well.

Ronan causes a stir of emotions even as a ghost

Ronan was a boy who was living a wild life in the streets, and the prison was his second home. When he met Julia, his good side prevailed and the two fell in love. Julia had a brother, Rex, who was a police chief. Rex liked Ronan so much that even Julia was taken by surprise, because she knew that her brother was always very sceptical and did not easily trust people. Rex was able to see the good in Ronan; he accepted him in the family as a brother, took him under his wing and helped him become a cop and then a detective, leaving his rogue days behind. Unfortunately the happy times ended when Julia was killed in a street clash, and some time later Ronan was murdered, leaving Rex totally devastated.

It becomes very clear, from the several notes and memories that we collect along the way, that Ronan and Rex were having a very intense bromance, to the extent that Julia mentioned at some point that they all were 'a family of three'. When Rex learns about Ronan's death, he rushes to the scene of the crime although it is not his case, and his reactions show openly how much despair he feels.

Rex (right) silently mourns over Ronan's dead body (center) while Ronan's ghost (left) watches

From several aspects, the bromance between Ronan and Rex resembles the one of Gabriel and Friedrich from Gabriel Knight. Ronan and Rex fall victims of supernatural forces and metaphysical twists, which make them do things that they don't want to. The difference is that while Gabriel and Friedrich were conscious of both the events and their consequences, Ronan and Rex could not realize what was going on, because of an evil spirit that possessed both of them and led them to repulsive criminal acts, of which they had no conscience while committing. The tragic aspect however is pretty much similar, as it is revealed that it was actually Rex who murdered Ronan, albeit under the influence of the evil spirit.

Ronan's ghost tries to comfort Rex at Julia's grave

A game series like Life Is Strange, that explores the many layers and expressions of friendship, could not be without a bromance. Its most recent installement, Before The Storm (2017) features yet one more ill-fated bromance which, although it is not associated with the main characters, it partly affects the progression of events and is loaded with a decent amount of drama.

In this flashback story, among other characters from the first game, we also have the chance to see Frank Bauer, the drug dealer of Arcadia Bay, who, in spite of his ill reputation, does have a sincerely good side. Frank won't hesitate to pull a knife or be a tough negotiator with his clients, but he adores his puppy and will gladly get in the way to protect Chloe and Rachel.

Frank may look tough but deep down he is very sentimental

Frank has a strong, life-long bromance with Damon Merrick, who belongs to the underworld like Frank, but is way tougher than him and literally ruthless. Despite their different approach in life, Frank and Damon are connected with brotherly love and mutual respect, and they trust each other unconditionally. When at some point Chloe attempts to accuse Frank of being a stitch, Damon becomes enraged and replies that this is something he would never believe, adding that he would kill for Frank, whom he knows almost since they were born.

Frank (left) and Damon (right) are like brothers

Things won't end up well for them, though. During an eventful meet up in the junkyard, Damon gets furious after Rachel hits him and Frank with a plank of wood; he attacks her and hits her severely with a knife, and when Frank tries to keep him from going after her and Chloe, Damon slashes him too. Later on, Frank is forced to kill Damon when the latter attempts to inject Chloe with a drug overdose.

Frank has to face Damon as an enemy against his will

The fact that Frank did the right thing did not ease his guilt, however. By the end of the story, we see him sitting by a campfire and he is deeply emotional as he goes through a box with photographs of himself and Damon, as well as the knife that took his friend's life away. In the end he puts everything related to Damon in a shoe box which is like a shrine of sorts and even spills wine on the ground as a libation in his dead friend's honor.

Frank is overwhelmed by memories when going through the contents of his box

Chris Redfield from the Resident Evil series has always been in great terms with his friends and partners and with some of them he has been particularly close. His good heart and the bravery that he showed in the battlefield made him stand out from a very young age, and he easily came up through the ranks relying on his value, making more friends but also enemies on the way.

Chris is the friend that everyone would love to have

As a soldier, he used to be the best man of his captain, Albert Wesker, whom he respected and appreciated a lot. In the first Resident Evil, he teams up with Wesker after they get trapped, with two more members of the team (Barry and Jill), in the Spencer Mansion. Wesker has some evil plans which he will soon expose, until then however he needs to make sure that he has Chris's trust. For this reason, he regularly helps Chris out by leaving ammo and supplies for him, by fixing malfunctioning stuff in the estate, or even by backing him up when a monster attacks. However when the time comes, he reveals his ulterior motives and from that point and on, he officially becomes Chris's number one enemy.

Wesker manages to hide his true intentions from Chris for as long as he needs to

The case of Chris and Wesker is not that of a standard bromance, but Wesker still is, even after his death, a huge chapter in Chris's life. Wesker had a dark background and he was always on the evil side, seeing himself as an almighty god who would one day conquer a whole new world inhabited only by a select few (an allegory that couldn't be more timely, by the way). If you notice some details in the games where he and Chris appear together, you may catch certain undertones in his words which imply that he would have wanted Chris to join him in this new world that he imagined. Although he always despised Chris for his integrity and honesty, he couldn't help but appreciate his abilities, and he knew that if he had such a gifted and courageous soldier by his side, it would have been so much easier for him to realize his plan. Knowing that Chris would never agree to such a prospect, made Wesker even more furious and resulted in him hating Chris even more.

Chris, on the other hand, used to think highly of Wesker in the good days, but when he learned the truth about his captain, he became his Nemesis, until he finally killed him in Resident Evil 5. Still, the last word that Wesker said (rather, shouted) was Chris's name.

Chris is forced to fight and kill his power-hungry ex-captain

In Resident Evil 6, Chris is a highly respected chief of his team and he looks after all of his men. His right hand is Piers Nivans, a young but extremely efficient soldier, who seems to complement Chris in many ways. Chris is hot-blooded and impulsive, while Piers is rational, collected and calm. Many times Piers is like the conscience of Chris, offering him advice and guiding him towards the right direction, although Chris many not always be willing to listen to him.

It is shown from the start that the two of them have a strong bond between them, as it is shown that Piers never hesitates to protect his captain. Several times, Chris seems to lose focus and take everything to a personal level, and this is when Piers intervenes and tries to put him back on track. It is almost never easy though, as Chris finds it hard to accept that he is wrong.

Piers is always by Chris's side, in good and bad times

The bromance between Chris and Piers passes from many stages, and becomes more powerful as the plot unfolds, although the truth is that Chris is far too absorbed in tracking down Ada Wong (rather, her evil clone, Carla) to realize it. Piers is like a silent force, handling Chris's anger with patience and wisdom despite his young age. For Chris, Piers is his most trusted soldier, someone he can rely on at any given time. But for Piers, Chris is someone that he not only trusts but also admires tremendously and even adores.

His devotion is absolute, and he proves it by making the ultimate sacrifice, when Chris is just about to be killed by a most dangerous monster in an underwater facility. Having been viciously hit himself by the same monster moments before, something that cost him the loss of his right arm, Piers injects himself with a virus sample which grants him superhuman powers but also mutates him.

Piers loses himself in the mutation

After the mutation occurs, Piers is able to assist Chris in defeating the monster, but the effects of the virus in his body are irreversible. Knowing that he won't be able to get cured (a bit of tragic irony here, as Leon learns at the end of his version of the story that a cure has been found thanks to Jake's antibody), he tricks Chris into thinking that he is willing to escape with him, and at just the last minute he stays behind, locking himself in the facility, ignoring his captain's desperate cries. While Chris is seemingly safe in the escape pod, the monster appears again from a distance, ready to attack; but seconds later it is eliminated, obviously by Piers who remains Chris's guardian angel until the end.

Piers spells something that reads like 'I love you' as Chris floats away in the escape pod

Amidst madmen who float around in ghost form, sadistic mind games and mental journeys mixed with messed up memories, detectives Sebastian Castellanos and Joseph Oda in The Evil Within (2014) maintain their totally legit and canon true-detective-esque bromance against all odds and in the face of all the human and superhuman forces that want to plant seeds of faction between them.

Joseph (left) and Sebastian (right) are the best friends and partners

Sebastian and Joseph are as different as day and night; starting from something as simple as their ancestry (Sebastian has Latino heritage and Joseph has Japanese origins). Sebastian is passionate, moody and impulsive, with a vigorous and attractive physical appearance, while Joseph is cool, considerate and cautious, and looks more like a delicate college student and less like a police officer. Justifying the famous law of physics about the opposites that attract, the two guys are extremely close friends and get along perfectly, despite their many differences.

The zombies can wait, now we want to sit and chat in the grass

Unlike Sebastian and his crystal clear personality, Joseph is surrounded by an aura of mystery. He seems to be very easily corrupted, turning into a Haunted several times, attacking both Sebastian and Juli on different occasions and wandering around STEM like a ghost. All this comes to contrast with his low-profile nature; it is as if a well-hidden dark side of his finally found a way to prevail thanks to STEM and, as he confesses to Sebastian, he doesn't want to stop it.

This can have many interpretations; and considering how close he and Sebastian are, we could take it to an even deeper level: Joseph here is a bit like Gabriel Knight, who struggled to suppress the werewolf within him and, by extension, the strange new emotions that Friedrich stirred in him. Joseph seems to have developed certain feelings for Sebastian that are still new to him, and while he feels confused and frustrated by them, he doesn't want to suppress them. This is not very obvious in the main game (although it becomes so if you pay more attention to several details), but in the Assignment (Juli Kidman's mission) there is a scene where he turns into a Haunted right after he and Juli get separated from Sebastian in the sewers. He attacks Juli and although he is possessed, he seems rather conscious of his words and their meaning.

It is clear that Joseph is speaking for himself and is referring to Sebastian

The bromance between Sebastian and Joseph carries on to the Evil Within 2, although Joseph does not make an appearance there. Sebastian believes that Juli killed Joseph, and this is what we knew as well, but after Sebastian finds a secret slide, Juli confesses to him that all that he saw back then was an illusion and in fact Joseph is still alive. Sebastian is happy to hear this, but at the same time sounds somewhat angry because Juli kept him in the dark all this time. However the most interesting and intriguing detail is what Tatiana, the nurse in the Upgrades section, says to Sebastian prior to this, when he has just found the slide and wonders what it is about. Tatiana tells him that although he had come to terms with all his demons and traumatic experiences of the past, there is still one memory that he had refused to confront; and that memory is Joseph's death.

Sebastian is very moved when watching Joseph's slide

A famous zombie hunter with a heroic past and a bright future, Leon Kennedy from the Resident Evil series is one of the most popular heroes of the saga, and rightly so, since he is the epitomy of perfection: he is very handsome, highly intelligent, extremely efficient in the field of action and has a heart of gold. Someone as gifted, was doomed to star in a most tempestuous and adventurous bromance.

Leon is a feast for the eyes

Leon met Jack Krauser in the jungles of South America, just a couple of years after he became a government agent, in the Operation Javier story of The Darkside Chronicles. His orders were to locate a notorious drug dealer with suspicious connections, and because the mission was very demanding and dangerous, Jack Krauser, an intelligent and experienced mercenary, was sent along.

Although coming from different backgrounds, Leon and Jack had many things in common and they went along extremely well right from the start. Their first meeting in the jungle is legendary and not only marks the start of their bromance, but also leaves several interpretations open to imagination. Jack approaches Leon from behind without making a sound, and it is as if he had already been staring at him for a while from a distance before he made an impressive appearance, stabbing a snake that was just about to bite Leon. Further down in the same scene, Leon can be clearly seen checking Jack out as he walks in front of him.

Leon and Jack's first meeting in the jungle is nearly as epic as their bromance

During the course of their mission, they seem to cooperate perfectly and they are never seen arguing or disagreeing. They respect each other, they even exchange teasings, they back each other up, and in general are the ideal partners. What could bloom into a great lifelong friendship, however, goes to pieces abruptly from Jack's part, when he finds out that Leon is a highly ranked government agent, a revelation that makes the green-eyed monster wake inside Jack, whose still unfullfilled dream had always been such a career. From that point and on, Jack chooses to shift to the dark side and consider Leon an enemy for all the wrong reasons. All this time, Leon is happily killing monsters of all sizes and shapes, naively believing that his bromance with Jack is still going and hopefully will go on forever.

Jack then disappears for two whole years, only to appear again as Leon's hopeful murderer in Resident Evil 4 where Leon and Jack have an epic knife fight that is orchestrated and carried out in such a way as to remind of other things, and which leaves Leon with a mark on his right cheek as a souvenir.

All that Jack really wanted to do was to give Leon a kiss

Interestingly enough, Jack never bothers explaining to Leon what made him change his attitude towards his ex-partner. Instead, he entangles them both in a lethal game of a marginally S/M nature, where he enjoys attacking Leon with tricks that are particularly suggestive, while he gets himself equally excited every time that Leon succeeds in hitting him back.

Jack could attack Leon in many ways, but he prefers the hug approach

When eventually Leon dramatically reduces Jack's options of prevailing, Jack runs up to the top of a tower, straps the whole place with timed explosives and blocks the exit after Leon gets to him. Leon has only a few minutes to kill Jack before a fatal blast happens. Jack's soul is an abyss, and noone can tell for sure what exactly he had in mind, but it looks like he was planning a dramatic finale à la Romeo and Juliet for Leon and himself. Leon however does not seem to be angry with Jack, and contemplates what a good guy his ex-partner used to be, over Jack's dead body. 

Krauser left an unfading mark in Leon's life, something that even has a tangible proof. In Resident Evil 6, Leon still has the scar from Jack's knife on his cheek, both as a badge of bravery, because he is is a fearless hero, and as a reminder of his epic bromance with Krauser, because even fearless heroes have a heart.

The scar is still very noticeable on Leon's right cheek

Leon has one more bromance in Resident Evil 4, which develops very quickly but ends too fast in a tragic way. Soon after he arrives in Spain, he meets Luis Sera, ex-cop and specialized scientist, who was helping Osmund Saddler develop the Plaga virus but ended up being chased by him. Leon finds Luis locked in a closet in an abandoned farm house and frees him, but minutes later one of Saddler's allies shows up and knocks them both unconscious.

When they are back to their senses, they realize that they are in an empty storage room, tied back to back. Nonetheless, they both keep their coolness and take the chance to introduce themselves and chat a bit before they get separated after another violent attack.

Every time Leon and Luis meet, they get in big trouble

When they meet again, it is in an isolated cabin in the woods, where Leon seeks shelter with Ashley as they are being chased by angry villagers. While Ashley is safely hidden in a cupboard on the upper floor, Leon and Luis get involved in a crazy battle with the mutated residents, who are able to break all barriers and get inside the cabin.

Leon and Luis are an excellent fighting duo

Although the two guys know each other very little by that time, the intense experience in the cabin apparently has a powerful effect on them and they form a strong bond. When later Luis is sadistically killed by Lord Saddler before being able to hand Leon over the antidote for the infection that he and Ashley are carrying, Leon looks and sounds so desperate, that it is as if he just lost a life-long friend, and swears to make Sadder pay for what he did to Luis.

Leon is devastated when Luis dies

In the CGI movie Damnation, while on a mission in a war-torn eastern european country, Leon meets Alexander "Buddy" Kozachenko, a teacher who belongs to a rebel group. Although Buddy doesn't trust Leon at frist because he is American, the two guys soon become friends and develop a very strong emotional bond and, eventually, a bromance in the process.

Buddy likes to play rough, but he soon becomes Leon's buddy

Buddy is infected from the Plaga virus but he can still manage the effects of his infection thanks to which he is able to control an army of Lickers, something that he regularly takes advantage of to save his own life. He also does it to save Leon's life, even before they become friends: early on, he orders the Lickers to halt their attack against Leon, and later he sends them off to deal with a group of lethal enemies.

Leon and Buddy unite to face the common enemy

While being chased by two Tyrants, Leon saves Buddy's life by offering him a hand as he is about to fall. This event makes Buddy realize that Leon is a man he can rely on and trust fully. When at some point Buddy considers committing suicide because his infection is spreading and he will eventually get mutated, Leon stops him and shoots him in the spine. This paralyzes his legs, but also stops the infection from expanding to the rest of his body, thus saving his life.

Buddy and Leon contemplate their lives

After Leon returns to America, Buddy goes back to teaching; while he is out in the sun on his wheelchair, we see that he still has the small bottle of whiskey that Leon had given him, and he is obviously cherishing it as a treasured reminder of his great friendship with Leon.



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• Wikipedia source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromance
• Thanks to afterdarkmysweet for providing essential info and material about Gabriel Knight