Throughout WAW and BO1, it was fun to listen to drunk Nikolai talk about his many wives, Richtofen crave power, Dempsey be a machine gun loving American, and Takeo do it all for the Emperor. In BO3/BO4, we learn Nikolai’s only wife died in the bombings of Stalingrad. I feel like this moment changed how we viewed those funny quotes from Kino. His personas of many wives are an attempt to suppress his previous happy life with the idea that it was never happy. He uses his gift of self sacrifice to sacrifice himself for a greater world. Richtofen discovers something greater than power through brotherhood. He uses his gift of intellect to save his friends rather than rule the world. As he didn’t hesitate to enter the MPD in moon to rule the world, he didn’t hesitate to enter a machine that would drain his blood to save it. Dempsey goes from living to fight a war, to literally sacrificing that part of him. Takeo dedicated his life to the emperor, only to find out his death penalty “Orders came crime the emperor himself!”. He then fights for his own morale goodness finding his own purpose to fight.
I think we forget this is a story about war and how men cope with it. It shows how hard it can be when you don’t form a brotherhood. Like us zombie players and our crew, we play for different reasons. We come in like Takeo thinking we know the best reason to play, like Richtofen being prideful and not wanting to spend money on doors, like Nikolai playing to escape reality, and like Dempsey to feel good about fighting for something. It isn’t until we grow together and destroy our egos to become a team when that Origins EE gets beat.