Marcus Holloway
Marcus Holloway is a fictional character from Ubisoft's Watch Dogs video game franchise, first appearing as the player character of the 2016 title, Watch Dogs 2. Marcus is introduced as a young hacker based in the San Francisco Bay Area who is wrongfully flagged with a criminal profile by ctOS 2.0, the electronic mechanism employed to manage the region's infrastructure and surveillance network. Marcus succeeds in wiping his profile from the system, and joins the hacktivist collective DedSec to raise social awareness about the risks posed by ctOS 2.0 and expose the corruption of its creators, the Blume Corporation. An older Marcus makes a voice-only cameo appearance in Bloodline, a 2021 downloadable content expansion for Watch Dogs: Legion, which stars his best friend and fellow DedSec member Reginald "Wrench" Blechman, and in which Marcus is voiced by Ruffin Prentiss. The character returns in the animated series Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix, voiced by Mark Ebulue.
Marcus was first revealed along with Watch Dogs 2 in June 2016 by Ubisoft. He was intentionally designed to be very different in terms of personality and gameplay utility when compared to Aiden Pearce, the player character of the first Watch Dogs. The developers of Watch Dogs 2 encouraged collaboration with African American professionals within the entertainment industry to avoid turning characters like Marcus into caricatures. In keeping with the general shift in tone of Watch Dogs and expansion of its protagonist's abilities, the developers suggested that Marcus' intended playstyle mostly involve stunning enemies using nonlethal weaponry or using hacking skills to create distractions. Marcus has been the subject of generally positive reception following the release of Watch Dogs 2, with many critics recognizing the character's importance as an unusual representation of African Americans in popular media as well as black people in the video game medium as a whole.
Concept and design
Marcus Holloway was first revealed during the Watch Dogs 2 world premiere video uploaded on Ubisoft's official YouTube channel in June 2016. He is designed to be an athletic player character. His approach to navigate the game world of Watch Dogs 2 emphasizes fast-paced parkour maneuvers similar to other video games like Mirror's Edge. Marcus' gadgets, which help extend his ability to hack electronics, include a tiny remote control car which can conduct physical hacks and divert enemies with high-pitched insults, and a drone which scout from an elevated position and help plan his moves. Marcus could also using his hacking skills to create proximity triggers on electronics and place traps for his enemies.Although Marcus is presented as an antihero hacker like the protagonist of the first Watch Dogs, Aiden Pearce, he is designed to be more expressive and charismatic by contrast. According to Watch Dogs 2 producer Dominic Guay, Marcus is "an optimistic man. He needs people. He sees good things in people, he's young, he's funny, he's charming". Marcus goes by the handle Retr0 due to his appreciation for the nostalgic aspects of popular culture, such as old-school hacker culture and "classic" songs from the R&B, hip hop, and electronic music genres. Marcus' background is conceptualized as an individual who is raised in Oakland, California. This became crucial to the story as the character is likely to have experienced social injustice early in his life as a member of a marginalized community, which informs the character's motivations throughout the story.
Unlike the first Watch Dogs, it is possible to play the entirety of Watch Dogs 2 as Marcus without killing any enemies, which Guay explained is informed by the game's setting and lighthearted tone. Most of Marcus' abilities result in his enemies being rendered unconscious on the floor with little "z"s floating from their bodies for a time in the aftermath. Marcus takes down enemies within melee range in a brutal but non-lethal manner using the "Thunder Ball", a makeshift weapon made from a billiard ball strung on a chain. The developers' desire to balance player agency with the coherence of the narrative meant that there are certain decisions the character would and would not make, and that there are no cinematics or predetermined moments in the game where Marcus shoots or kills a non-player character as it would be inconsistent with his personality. Although players may equip Marcus with conventional firearm weapons, electroshock weaponry could be acquired through 3D printers in DedSec hideouts or "hackerspaces" However, the game only featured two non-lethal weapons at launch until a major content update released in April 2017 offered more nonlethal options for players.
Portrayal
Marcus Holloway is portrayed by Ruffin Prentiss through performance capture in Watch Dogs 2. The developers noted that they had a responsibility to ensure Marcus resonates with players as an authentic character as opposed to being a caricature. To accomplish this, Ubisoft actively sought out African-American script consultants and actors for their involvement with finding the characters' voices and encouraged improvised dialogue to make them feel real. Watch Dogs 2 Creative Director Jonathan Morin said the team encouraged the actors to embrace the natural synergy that spontaneously happens during their interactions with each other, noting in particular that the actors who played Marcus and another African American character named Horatio Carlin had a natural way of saying things to each other due to their similar cultural backgrounds.Prentiss said his work experience on the game was positive: in an interview with IGN in October 2020, he praised the game's developers for the opportunity to "play a character in a video game that was brave enough to tackle such tough topics" as well as their willingness to not only explore issues of racism, but also give him creative freedom to interpret certain scenes from his perspective as a black man. Prentiss also acknowledged the positive fan reception to the close friendship between Marcus and a fellow DedSec team member named Wrench, which had been likened to a "bromance". According to Prentiss, the writing team for Watch Dogs 2 had considered the idea of implementing crossover storylines featuring characters from other titles like Marcus in an Avengers-like coalition for future work in the Watch Dogs series. Prentiss did not hear from Ubisoft before or shortly after the announcement of the then-upcoming Bloodline DLC for Watch Dogs: Legion even though Wrench was confirmed to appear, although he did express an interest about reprising the role as it is one of his favorite roles. Prentiss was eventually contacted by Ubisoft late in the development of Bloodline to provide several voiced lines, which he was happy to oblige.
Appearances
''Watch Dogs 2''
The story of Watch Dogs 2 begins with Marcus infiltrating a ctOS 2.0 server facility owned by Blume, a security company that operates a surveillance network spying on the populace of the San Francisco Bay Area and stores their personal information on a cluster of servers. His actions are remotely observed by the hacktivist collective DedSec, which Marcus intends to join due to their common dislike of ctOS 2.0 and Blume. Marcus hacks into the relevant server and removes incriminating information which is wrongfully placed on his data profile, then flees the facility with the help of DedSec members, who accept him into the collective. Together with his newfound team members, they celebrate his successful infiltration on a beach near the Golden Gate Bridge, where they unknowingly cross paths with Blume chief technology officer Dušan Nemec by chance.Over the course of the game, Marcus helps DedSec neutralize various threats around San Francisco, as part of their larger goal to bring down Blume by exposing its corruption and other crimes. In retaliation, Dušan executes automated social media accounts or bots to artificially inflate the popularity of DedSec's presence on social media, and exploits paranoia over the perceived security threat posed by DedSec as leverage to promote the widespread adoption of ctOS 2.0 to deter hacking attacks. Marcus is soon lured to the Blume CEO's office, where he is confronted by Dušan and narrowly escapes an ambush set up by him in collaboration with the police. Marcus regroups with the core group members of DedSec, gains an ally in the notorious hacker Raymond "T-Bone" Kenney, and soon rises to a leadership position within the collective as they attempt to fight the undue influence of Blume and its allies throughout the Bay Area. Dušan eventually succeeds in having Marcus placed on the FBI's most wanted list, but DedSec retaliates by publicly exposing Dušan's illegal dealings retrieved from the ctOS 2.0 network, leading to the latter's arrest and Blume being placed under investigation by the authorities.