List of characters in Manhunt 2

This is a list of characters and who appear in the 2007 video game "Manhunt 2".

Major characters

Daniel Lamb

The main playable character. He was a former scientist with "The Pickman Project" but ended up locked away in the Dixmor Asylum for the Criminally Insane for six years. A lead researcher and scientist, Daniel's recent invention of the drug Cortexa was revealed in an audio recording of a clinical session. The drug is used to help Danny temporarily recover from his amnesia. When the Project lost its funding, Danny volunteered to be a test subject for the "Pickman Bridge." His family was not supportive of this, but it is implied that he was deeply in debt and his family needed the money. The process seemed to be a success, but the killer personality implanted in him - Leo Kasper - was able to act too freely on his own. Leo convinced Danny to burn any records of their past, unknowing that Leo was really attempting to start a new life in Danny's body. The final link to Danny's past was his family, so Leo took over once more and murdered Danny's wife. Danny was captured and put in Dixmor for six years, when the game begins. He has no recollection of who he was before the Project started. Leo - whom he thinks is an actual person - is his only link to his past. After working with Leo for a long time after escaping, Daniel learns that Leo killed his wife and attempts to defeat Leo in his own mind. If the player plays as Daniel, Daniel kills Leo several times but he keeps coming back, not being human after all. The ghost of his wife comes and tells him to bury her body in his mind to end it all. Once he does this, Daniel smashes Leo in the face with a shovel until he is dead. After this, Danny wakes up on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere. His memory has been wiped clean and in his hand is a note giving him a new name, David Joiner, and a fresh start. After reading the notes he looks around, curious about what happened to him, before he walks down the road.

Leo Kasper

The second playable character, playable only in flashback missions and a bonus level. A psychopath who was also put in the asylum by the Project. He was once a government agent and has expertise in combat, evasion, infiltration and assassination techniques. He helps Daniel Lamb escape and teaches him his own well-honed tricks of the trade. At first Leo appears to be a real person but in reality he is a personality created by the Project and implanted into Danny while remaining separated from Danny's own mind by the Pickman Bridge. However, the Pickman Bridge was not perfected yet and it resulted in Leo being able to freely talk to Danny inside Danny's head. His personality also took over at times when it was not called upon. More than anything, Leo wants the Pickman Bridge removed so he can takeover Danny's mind and body forever. Leo helps Daniel a long way, but with the ultimate goal of trying to get Daniels body, even going so far as to murder Daniel's wife to sever another tie to his past. In one ending, Leo confronts Daniel in his mind. If the player plays as Leo, Leo fights Daniel and wounds him with a gun. Cursing the Project and those involved in it, Leo steps on Daniels neck, killing him. Leo shouts aloud that he won and is then awakened by Dr. Laura Whyte in Daniel's body, she explains she removed the Pickman Bridge, thinking he is Daniel. Leo tells her to gather the staff to resume work on the project.

Dr. Laura Whyte

High ranking medical practitioner within "The Pickman Project" and a friend of Danny. She often disagrees with Dr. Pickman's methods, including hiring mercenaries to kill Danny and Leo. She believes that Danny should be captured alive and cured of Leo with therapy sessions. At the end of the game she instructs Daniel to go into his mind and defeat Leo.

Dr. Pickman

Head of "The Pickman Project." The Project is named after him. After the government cut funding off for his work due to its inhumane methods, he went underground and continued his research. He is a heartless and cruel person, caring little about the suffering that his experiments cause on his test subjects. He created the "Pickman Bridge," the final product of the Project, which would implant a separate personality with an expertise in killing into an unknowing subject. Using codes hidden in the broadcasts of a television station that the Project runs, the subject's separate personality would trigger and perform their duty, afterwards reverting back to the subject's real personality. Danny was the first successful recipient of the Pickman Bridge, but after the bridge malfunctioned and Leo proved to be uncontrollable, Pickman ordered his capture. After Leo killed Danny's wife, the Project finally caught him. Daniel was then locked away into the Dixmor Asylum for six years while Pickman and Dr. Whyte worked to undo the damage. When Pickman is finally confronted, the player must sedate him with a tranquilizer gun, as he is needed alive.

Pickman wakes up strapped to a chair, and Leo demands that he remove the bridge so he can be free, not realizing that if this were to happen, Leo would die, as he is not the dominant personality. The doctor attempts to initiate a hypnotic state a second time, but Leo manages to grab a scalpel and stab him several times in the heart before succumbing.

upporting characters

Judy Sender

A fellow scientist that has connections with various clubs and brothels that recruit test subjects for the Project. Danny and Leo confront her for answers, but she is shot and killed by a sniper before revealing any worthwhile information.

Michael Grant

Danny's best friend and fellow scientist in the Project. He was murdered by Leo years ago because he informed the Project that Leo was taking over Danny's mind.

Gangs

The Asylum Staff

The orderlies at Dixmor Asylum. Being mostly unskilled, brutal thugs who were most likely hired by the Project to keep the Project's former test subjects quiet, they have little interest in the well-being of the asylum patients, and are not above using unnecessary physical force and excessive sedations. The orderlies have no weapons and no real talent for hunting, but what they lack in that, they make up for in brutality. They will be in big trouble should Danny escape from the asylum.

The Watchdogs

The Project's "clean-up" crew. They are sent to kill anyone who knows too much about the Project and destroy any evidence that may reveal the Project's existence. They wear black suits with various masks to conceal their identity, ranging from ski-masks, fedoras, black scarves, sunglasses, and surgical masks. Some even wear a "phantom of the opera" type mask. The watchdogs chased Daniel six years ago when the bridge first malfunctioned, and are no strangers to the violence he is capable of. Their dialog hints that all of the old squads have been reactivated this time, due to the severity of the situation.

The Pervs

Violent leather mask or animal mask-wearing sadomasochists who work in a sex club called The Honey Pot. They are hired by the Project to lure potential new test subjects to the "dungeon," a location beneath the club, promising more action. There, unlucky customers are tortured and killed in numerous ways, with video cameras on the other side of a two-way mirror recording it for unknown research purposes. What they lack in intelligence and hunting prowess they make up for with savagery.

The Red Kings

A local street gang. Danny and Leo are forced to trek through their turf at one point in the game. They have nothing to do with The Project.

The Project Militia

The Project's own private army. It is made up entirely up of former death-row inmates whose executions have been faked. In exchange for their continued existence, they have sworn duty to the Project. All identifiable marks are removed from their bodies, and fingerprints are removed. Even their dental features have been altered to further destroy any trace of their past lives, effectively making them ghosts. Project soldiers owe their lives to the Project, ensuring they remain loyal, as well as the fact that personal relationships are strictly forbidden. The Project Militia unsuccessfully attempted to kill Daniel when he first went berserk, resulting in heavy casualties.

The Bloodhounds

Southern United States bounty hunters who are hired by the Project to track down and kill Danny and Leo. They are very enthusiastic about their jobs and also sport air support from a chopper. They are portrayed as stereotypical far-right southerners and can be heard yelling pro-American, anti-liberal slogans. Some members can be seen sporting klan hoods, as well as tattoos which look vaguely similar to the Hammerskins logo (also featured in the Skinz gang in "Manhunt"), indicating the Bloodhounds may be immersed in white supremacy as well.

The Legion

A group of Dixmor Asylum inmates in the same part of the building as Lamb in "Awakening". They are seen with large bandages covering certain parts of their body and have gimp-like masks on and other leather like contraptions on their bodies. They wear the same inmate uniform as Danny and Leo. They also mock Danny by saying things like he can fix his brain and that the bridges in their heads are broken and are going to explode.

Pawns of the Project

Regular law enforcement that primarily appear in the flashback levels. They lock down an entire neighborhood in search of Leo, but presumably have no connection to the Project.