Raiden

Raiden is the codename of the rookie operative recruited by FoxHound to liberate Big Shell from the terrorist organization Dead Cell. While never experiencing actual combat, he is a veteran of over 300 VR missions, including simulations of the Outer Heaven, Zanzibar, and Shadow Moses campaigns. His superiors at Foxhound, including Colonel Roy Campbell, feel he has the potential to become the next Solid Snake. Which is ironic since Raiden shares similarities to Grey Fox.

Raiden is outfitted in a state-of-the-art stealth outfit known as a "Skull Suit," which is equipped with electro fiber technology and a large array of sensors known as "Smart Skin" that can detect injuries and communicate with the nanomachines in his body to create a feedback system. Raiden's intravenous nanomachines also serve to provide communications with Foxhound and access links to security nodes inside Big Shell.

Raiden has no known family and his only close acquaintance is his then-girlfriend, now wife, Rose, who acts as his mission analyst for the Big Shell operation. Eventually he found out that Rose gave birth to his son named John who's nickname is 'Little John'.

Before being recruited by FoxHound, Raiden was in the U.S. military as part of the Army's Force XXI trials. His past before joining the service is unknown, even to him, as he suffers from an unrecognized form of Dissociative Amnesia.

During Liquid's Insurrection, Raiden was outfitted with a highly advanced cyborg suit which gave him a higher degree of strength, speed and agility. He eventually fought Vamp in Shadow Moses while Snake was keeping the Gekko at bay. However, before these events happened Raiden saved Olga's daughter Sunny from the Patriots gave her to Otacon and Solid Snake to look after her.

Past Revealed

During the events of Big Shell, Solidus Snake recounts the events of Raiden's past. Raiden was born in 1983 and orphaned during the Liberian Civil War in the late eighties thanks to Solidus Snake and Solidus was quick to adopt the child. Jack along with other children of his village were trained to be deadly child soldiers. He was taught by Solidus himself extensively in unarmed combat, sword and knife combat and marksmanship. Jack saw the first death in his life at the age of six, when Solidus told him blades are "noble" compared to guns and cut the throat of a man with a sharp knife. By 1993, at only the age of ten, Raiden, thanks to Solidus private and heavy trainings, was a merciless child soldier, adept in the art of war and genocide. Gaining the nicknames "Jack The Ripper" and "White Devil". After sometime Jack without Solidus knowledge was captured by "global peace" soldiers along with his child-soldier comrades and were sent to care taking camps in U.S. and it took a few years until Jack and children were sent to U.S. Army; because of this Jack's name and other civilian data wasn't registered in any U.S. database like: CIA, FBI, NSA and etc. After being tested by U.S. Army with his comrades they were allowed to operate as Army's field operators but it was only Jack who succeeded to pass every test and challenge thus proving himself as a perfect soldier which caused Jack's automatic registration in U.S. Army's Special Forces unit XXI (the true reason was Jack's denial of his past and hating that life while others were proud of it, it also caused the leaders of FOXHOUND to sign him in). After serving for a few years with great results in Special Forces, Jack left the Army to live a normal life as an assistant in embassies. Jack met his future-wife, Rosemary the first time in an embassy and they fell for each other instantly. The next time they saw eachother they were completely shocked to find out they're working in same place. During this period Jack joined FOXHOUND (FOXHOUND was defunct and this one was a cover for the Patriots) and Rose were assigned to spy on him.

Raiden remembers none of his memories before immigrating to U.S. because he undergoes extensive treatment, such as drugs, brainwashing, and synaptic nano-manipulation to suppress these memories when he is taken in by The Patriots.

Games

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty the player takes control of Raiden in the Plant chapter; he is introduced as a newly recruited, virtual reality-trained member of FOXHOUND with no real field-combat experience before his current mission. Assisted via Codec by his commanding officer, the Colonel Campbell, and his girlfriend Rosemary, Raiden's initial objective is to rescue several hostages and U.S. president from a terrorist group known as the Sons of Liberty. Raiden is helped by the mercenary Solid Snake and the spy Olga Gurlukovich across his mission. As the story progresses, Raiden is revealed as a former child soldier for the Sons of Liberty's leader, Solidus Snake, during the Liberian Civil War. After the war's end, Raiden was given a normal life and tried to forget his past. An organization known as The Patriots is revealed to be controlling his actions, however, with his commanding officer revealed as their computer-generated AI. One of their spies, Rosemary, becomes Raiden's girlfriend, and the two fell in love for real. Raiden defeats the Patriots' enemy, Solidus, after being told by their AIs that his death would also trigger the deaths of Olga's child and Rosemary, the latter of whom was revealed to have been pregnant with Raiden's child during the mission. He later reunites with Rosemary, and both decide to stay together to raise their unborn child.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, set five years after Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2014, Raiden is said to have disappeared after rescuing Sunny, the daughter of the late Olga Gurlukovich, from the Patriots, and is searching for the corpse of Big Boss for Big Mama. The trauma of his breakup with Rosemary, coupled with the apparent miscarriage of his child, have made Raiden believe his only place is on the battlefield. Outfitted with a cybernetic exoskeleton as a result of The Patriots' machinations, Raiden joins Snake's group in their fight against Revolver Ocelot who wants to obtain the Patriots' powers. After several encounters with Ocelot's men, a wounded Raiden stays in the ship Outer Haven to protect Snake as he shuts down the Patriots' AIs. In an epilogue, Rosemary reveals to Raiden that their child was not miscarried; her marriage to Roy Campbell was a hoax to protect her and their son from the Patriots. Upon hearing this news, Raiden reconciles with Rosemary.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Raiden appeared as the main character in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Four years after Guns of the Patriots Raiden joins the private military company (PMC) Maverick Security, in multiple tasks while raising money for his family. However, they are attacked by a group of terrorists called Desperado Enforcement LLC that kill his protectee and leave Raiden near dead. Saved by Doktor, Raiden gets a improved cyborg upgrade and starts working with Maverick to fight Desperado. His already vengeful obsession with Desperado becomes even more personal when he discovered, during a mission into Mexico, that Desperado and World Marshal Inc had been kidnapping several children, surgically removing their brains to place them in cybernetic bodies, and were planning to subject them to VR similar to his own. This results in Raiden abruptly resigning from Maverick to pursue and retrieve the children's brain casings from World Marshal, having to battle his "Jack the Ripper" persona in the process. Although Raiden is successful in defeating Desperado, he learns that Steven Armstrong was using such PMC to distract Raiden as he attempts to start a terrorist event that would result in a global war. Raiden manages to stop Armstrong's actions and decides not to return to Maverick, instead he begins to fight "in his own war".

Statics

Real Name: Jack

Citizenship: Liberian-American

Identity: Public to high-ranking members of several military units and government agencies.

Occupation: Private security enforcer and body guard, (formerly) Soldier, Special Forces Operator, Commando, Embassy employee, FOXHOUND's field operator and spy, cyborg mercenary.

Marital Status: Married (one children)

Eyes: Bluish-Green (Blind in left eye)

Hair: Light Blonde

Height: Above average or fairly tall (approximate: 6' / 183cm or taller)

Weight: Above average (more than 165lbs in MGS2 and more due to cyborg body in MGS4 and MGR)

Powers and Abilities

Prior to the events of Guns of the Patriots Jack possessed no superhuman powers or anything that'll be considered as "inhuman". However Jack was an extremely experienced and highly trained soldier as a child thanks to Solidus. His skills increased noticeably later by his assignment in U.S. Army and Special force, turning him into a deadly expert soldier and black/covert ops operator. By his joining into the FOXHOUND Jack completed over 300 VR missions specially stealth mission 60 and weapons mission 80. Jack's training and experience as a child soldier, U.S. soldier, military special operator and an elite member of FOXHOUND with participation in the Big Shell incident gained the following abilities and skills for him.

Tactical Weapons Expert: Jack can operate efficiently with any form of weapon, ranging form firearms to Bladed ones. His proficiency in the use of firearms is only rivaled by the likes of Solid Snake and Big Boss themselves.

Expert Marksman: Jack can throw and use any projectile with great skill and a near-excellent aim. Even when inexperienced during the event of Big Shell Jack was able to control firearms with incredible proficiency and rarely missing his target.

Master Swordsman: Trained by Solidus, an expert swordsman himself Jack can use swords with ease to a point even defeating his ex-mentor, Solidus in a swordfight despite being at a heavy disadvantage. He even surpassed Solidus to fight superhuman cyborgs using nothing but his own sword. Sam Rodriguez, who defeated Jack in their first fight admitted he only won because Jack held back and having an inferior cyborg suit. He also acknowledged Jack as a lethal master swordsman.

Master Martial Artist and Combatant: Jack was a martial arts expert during his childhood, killing many adult enemy soldiers barehanded. His skills as of Big Shell incident and later on was on a top notch level, Performing multiple types of punches, backhand strikes, palm strikes, roundhouse kicks, spinning kicks, side kicks, knee strikes, elbow strikes, disarming, counter attacking, throwing, grappling, joint locks, pressure points and etc which resulted in knocking out his enemies for a long time or killing them instantly.

Military/Espionage Operations Expert: Jack was trained by U.S. Army special forces and FOXHOUND extensively in Military and Espionage fields respectively. Infiltrating and roaming heavily guarded facilities and headquarters without making his enemies aware of his presence.

Expert Acrobat: Compared to Solid Snake and Big Boss Jack is a far more agile and faster combatant and soldier. He can easily jump from grips with flashy flips or performing flips to bypass sensors and lasers.

Expert Strategist and Tactician: Jack can formulate battle plans to overcome over his enemies. After turning out his advisor was an AI trying to manipulate him, Jack easily made his own tactics without any kind of help to escape from prison core and fighting metal gears.

Expert Swimmer: Jack can swim faster than Solid Snake and even holding his breath for a longer time.

Professional Assassin: Evident by his conversations with Old Snake and Colonel Jack is also a trained assassin, who can kill a platoon silently. It's worth mentioning that Jack's nickname "Jack The Ripper" was made because of his assassination skills and body count.

Professional Driver and Pilot: Jack is also trained to use several types of cars, motorbikes, planes, helicopter and boats.

Highly Skilled in Demolitions: Jack took many high-level tips from demolitions master, Peter Stillman and later trained himself to defuse many types of bombs form improvised to military grade ones.

Multilingual: Jack can speak English and Liberian fluently. He can also speak some of middle-eastern and African languages. Jack has been shown to understand Russian informal conversations made by Russian soldiers too.

After gaining a cyborg suits and being enhanced by nanomachines Raiden possessed superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, endurance, agility and reflexes.

Other Appearances

Playstation Allstar Battle Royale

Raiden appears as a playable character in this game with his Metal Gear Rising Revengeance cyborg upgrades.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Raiden's MGS4 look appears as an alternative costume for Ezio. Despite showing Raiden's Sword and sheathe in switch model it's not present in the actual gameplay and it doesn't change Ezio's face and hair color. Though there is no connection between the two characters and their respective universes.