It would be fair to say that the Blood Dragon expansion from Ubisoft’s 2012 video game Far Cry 3 is still one of the most popular versions of the Far Cry series, even after a handful of questionable new releases. Ubisoft now seems to be capitalizing on this very popularity with a very new animated series on Netflix, Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. Created by Adi Shankar, most known for Castlevania, the 6-episode series presents a similar dystopian world as Blood Dragon, with a number of characters from various Ubisoft video games and franchises. While the plot or the overall effect of the series are not anything remarkable, the nice nod to the many video game characters and interesting visual choices make Captain Laserhawk quite a fun watch.
Spoiler Alert
Plot Summary: What Happens In The Series?
Captain Laserhawk begins with a short video message being telecast on a news television program, and the current world where the series is set is introduced through this very message. The country of the United States of America, as we know it in the present, does not exist any longer in this dystopian alternate-history world. Crime, poverty, and anarchy had taken a grip over the country, and society was crumbling because of the situation when a corporation named Eden Innovation Technologies rose to power and brought things under control. Based entirely on high-tech innovations in the world of electronic surveillance, Eden soon developed means to stop every crime in the country and bring peace and stability to society once again. But the method used to do so was establishing a base income for everyone, called the UBI (or Universal Basic Income), and essentially curbing everyone’s freedom with respect to their earnings. As a result, the new society formed by Eden only favors those conforming to its values and beliefs, while everyone else is labeled as criminals and rebels deserving to be persecuted.
In such a world, Captain Laserhawk is one such rebel mercenary who has decided to finally act against the authoritarian corporation in his own way. Using the very cybernetic weapons that were once installed in his body by Eden Innovation, Dolph Laserhawk now goes around stealing and looting from the evil corporation. At the beginning of the series, Laserhawk makes a plan to steal a codec from a high-security facility, which allows anyone to get access to unlimited funds that cannot even be traced by the EIT corporation. It is with his lover, Alex Taylor, that Laserhawk makes this plan and then successfully executes it as well. While the name Alex Taylor is an obvious nod to the protagonist of Ubisoft’s racing video game The Crew, there is not much in common other than the name itself. After the lovers have successfully stolen the codec, though, Laserhawk gets the shock of his life when his boyfriend betrays him. Shooting down Laserhawk, Taylor takes away the codec for himself and disappears from the place, leaving Captain Laserhawk to be found and arrested.
Who are Captain Laserhawk’s new friends?
When Dolph Laserhawk wakes up next, he finds himself inside a big chamber along with some other individuals as well. Very soon, this chamber is revealed to be the holding cell of a Supermaxx prison, which is basically one of the toughest jails in all of Eden City, with the most advanced security features. The protagonist is not the only prisoner here, though; and the others are also skilled in different walks of life. First is a hot-headed wrestler called Cody Rhodes, who hilariously tries to break open the doors of the chamber but miserably fails every time. Cody Rhodes is an actual wrestler in the WWE, and his likeness has been used for this character. Next is Jade, a young woman who is warm enough to welcome Laserhawk to this new setting, but she is also later revealed to be extremely intelligent and resourceful in carrying out plans. Along with her is an anthropomorphic pig named Pey’j, who is like an uncle to Jade, even though they are not related by blood, and Pey’j actually has a romantic interest in the woman as well. Both Jade and Pey’j are characters taken from Ubisoft’s Beyond Good and Evil video game series. Lastly, there is an anthropomorphic frog among the prisoners, named Bullfrog, who also happens to be a French assassin belonging to the same hidden organization seen in the Assassin’s Creed franchise.
Once all these introductions have been made, the reason for them being gathered at this Supermaxx prison is also revealed. A woman walks into the cell and introduces herself as the Warden of the prison, making it clear that it was she who had captured all of these mercenaries and brought them together. The Warden reveals that despite having served the Eden corporation for all her life, she now wanted to wield control for herself without adhering to the rules and demands of the corporation. In order to carry out this plan of hers, the woman has gathered this team of mercenaries, as she intends to get hold of a super weapon with their help. When the mercenaries question why they should listen to her and not just kill her, the Warden blows up Cody Rhodes in a rather bloody demonstration. She has fitted bombs into each of the prisoners’ brains, which can be easily set off with buttons on her cuff. This makes it impossible for the mercenaries to avoid The Warden’s orders, and so they now agree to steal the Super-Scope gun for her.
What is Alex Taylor’s plan?
When Laserhawk and the rest of his new associates prepare to steal the super gun for The Warden, they learn of the location of the weapon—in the private collection of an independent businessman named Pagan Min. Pagan Min happens to be the main antagonist from Ubisoft’s 2014 game Far Cry 4, and the very same villainous features about the dictator, particularly his ego and sheer disregard towards human lives, are maintained in the Captain Laserhawk series as well. In the world of Eden City, Pagan Min lives inside his pagoda, which is always guarded by his own private military. The pagoda also serves as a gambling den, and using this gambling den, the Ghosts, which is the name given to The Warden’s group, enter the place. The Ghosts is clearly a nod to the Ghost Recon games. After some serious help from the others, Laserhawk finally reaches the Super-Scope gun, but a familiar smell distracts him.
Seeing a cigar burning in the ashtray, Laserhawk grows suspicious and rushes into Pagan Min’s private chamber, where he finds his ex-lover, Alex Taylor, in an intimate moment with the businessman. This deviation from the original plan causes problems for the Ghosts group, and Jade also loses her life here. Pey’j kills Pagan Min as his revenge, but the Super-Scope gun is stolen by Alex Taylor. As the remaining members of the Ghosts group reunite with The Warden and discuss their next step, Alex Taylor goes ahead with his own plan. As someone also looked down upon by the Eden corporation for most of his life, Taylor now decides to go completely rogue and bring down the corporation by himself. This was the reason why he wanted to steal the codec from the EIT facility.
Taylor is of the opinion that certain extremely harsh and violent measures need to be taken in order to bring down the evil Eden corporation, and he knows for a fact that his ex-lover Laserhawk would not be ready to carry out such extremism. This was the reason why he betrayed Laserhawk and stole the codec for himself, with which he got close to Pagan Min. Earning Min’s trust through his body as well as the unlimited money, Taylor now manages to utilize the situation and steal the Super-Scope gun when Min’s army and the Ghosts are engaged with each other. Once this super weapon is secured, Taylor carries out the next phase of his plan by taking over Min’s private army. He then designs a software virus that is to take over the smart glasses worn by citizens, and this virus physically alters the wearer’s vision, making them see everyone around them as hostile enemies.
When Taylor unleashes the virus, all hell breaks loose, and the common citizens turn extremely violent against every anthropomorphic and mixed-breed resident of the place. This leads to more hatred being spewed, and the main state-funded superheroes of Eden City, the Niji 6, also turn hateful against alien individuals who had migrated to the technopolis city. The leader of Niji 6, Red, directly calls out the most popular journalist in the city, Rayman, as an outsider who does not deserve to live in the place. As the name makes it clear, Rayman is indeed the very same character from the Rayman video game franchise. While Laserhawk manages to destroy the virus and stop the glasses from being hacked, it does not stop the violence, as the citizens spew hatred by themselves now, without any software-based provocation.
As Laserhawk kills his ex-lover, Taylor points out this underlying hatred and reinstates the need to completely destroy Eden City before rebuilding it. The man had planned to wipe out the entire city so that every negative could be undone and a fresh start could be given to the world. However, such a proposition could never be supported, and so Laserhawk lashes out against the killing of innocent residents, calling out Taylor’s plan as terrorism and then killing him.
What is the Warden’s real identity? Who is Marcus Holloway?
Following the death of Alex Taylor, Captain Laserhawk takes a new turn as The Warden takes Laserhawk away from Eden City to the neighboring suburbs known as the Wasteland. She tells the protagonist how she wants to help a developing situation at the Wasteland, for she has some old ties to the place, but before the two can work on their plan, they are both kidnapped. As the two characters are kept imprisoned in a cell, the real identity of the Warden is revealed. Her real name is Sara Fisher, and she is the daughter of Sam Fisher, a super-spy and covert agent for the United States of America government when the country still existed. Sam Fisher is actually the protagonist of the beloved Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell spy video game series.
Many years ago, during Sara’s early teenage years, she and her father would often go around the Wasteland area. Sam disliked the Eden Corporation for what they had been doing to his beloved country, and so he was planning to team up with a group of hackers called DedSec. Headed by super-hacker Marcus Holloway, DedSec was determined to work against Eden and expose their lies, which would lead to the corporation’s downfall. Both DedSec and Marcus Holloway are from Ubisoft’s “Watch Dogs” series. During Sam’s first meeting with DedSec, something strange happened when suddenly the authorities were alerted of the secret group’s hideout, and the Eden army walked in to arrest them all. This was actually because of young Sara, who had decided to work for and help the corporation from a very young age, and it was she who alerted the authorities about DedSec.
This led to Marcus being arrested, and Sam lived with this guilt for many years while Sara officially joined the army and started her training. Finally, after a few years, Sam Fisher decided to undo the wrong, and so he broke into the Supermaxx prison at the Wasteland to help Marcus Holloway escape the place. In turn, Marcus led a full-fledged rebellion, and the authority in the Wasteland was completely overthrown. The Eden Corporation did send in their army, which killed Sam Fisher on the battlefield, but DedSec ultimately won, making the Wasteland a free space at present. In fact, it is Marcus Holloway who is revealed to have kidnapped Laserhawk and Sara at present, as he gives them a taste of what it feels like to live in virtual reality.
But Captain Laserhawk has one final twist up its sleeve, though, as, at the very end, it is revealed that Sara Fisher’s claims of having learned from her mistakes and her decision to now work against the Eden Corporation were totally false. In reality, Sara was still working for the corporation, and she only intended to capture Laserhawk and Marcus, both of whom were termed terrorists by the authorities.
Did Laserhawk ultimately bring down the evil corporation?
As Sara holds Marcus captive inside his own DedSec hideout, Laserhawk is pursued by Nija 6 on the open Wasteland. In an epic battle between the two sides, Laserhawk defeats the Nija 6 and the Eden Corporation army, despite his cybernetics being heavily damaged. His desire to avenge all the wrongs and to bring down Sara Fisher, who had manipulated him so far, drives the man to destroy all the enemies in his way and finally reach the DedSec hideout. Laserhawk succumbs to his injuries here, and as he falls to the floor, Sara consoles him for his foolish decisions. At this very instance, Laserhawk uses the detonation switch on Sara’s cuff to explode the bomb in his brain, killing himself and Sara together.
During this time, established journalist Rayman had grown terribly angry against the corporation after he realized that they would not stand by his demands for justice. Despite having advocated for the corporation’s evil decisions so far, Rayman leaves his job now and is even more startled to see that the corporation easily replaces him with a likeness of himself. Finally seeing the evil in his ex-employers, Rayman infiltrates the council that runs the corporation and kills all the members. In one last association with Ubisoft video games, Captain Laserhawk reveals this council to be the same group as the Templars from Assassin’s Creed, and Sara Fisher had wanted to establish her own order of the Templars after feeling that the existing one was a failure.
During Captain Laserhawk‘s ending, we see Marcus Holloway frightenedly looking at a completely alien body that rises from the remains of Sara, suggesting that Sara was not human after all. The robot asks if Marcus would like to join its efforts or be killed, as it will surely rise up with plans of world dominance again. On the other side, Dolph Laserhawk is also shown to be teaming up with Sam Fisher, as a possible sequel with new fights is definitely hinted at.
