I genuinely love Franco’s character in Outlast Trials
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His design is so smart it’s almost funny. The first time you see him you clock him as short, ugly, and kind of pathetic. He looks weak. Then he pulls out that mf shotgun and you realize he’s one of the strongest and most dangerous Prime Assets mechanically in game.
Lore wise it fits even better. Franco is constantly compensating. He’s got erectile dysfunction, a ton of insecurity, and a whole mess of trauma from his childhood (the abuse, the stepmom situation, the complete lack of attention or care). His nerves are completely fried, which is probably a big part of why he can’t perform. The only way he could deal with his sexual frustration was paying prostitutes, and then he’d kill them afterward. My read on it is pure shame: he couldn’t stand the idea of someone walking away knowing how vulnerable and “unmanly” he’d just been.
What’s really interesting is the constant push-and-pull in his personality. He’s impulsive, angry, violent, and desperate to keep up this tough mafioso act… while also craving being babied, breastfed, treated like a child, and forced into submission. It’s canon that he age-regresses as a form of self-soothing. So you’ve got this guy who wants to dominate and be seen as this hard, powerful man, but the second he’s around a woman who feels safe he wants the exact opposite. That clash between the “dominating gangster” persona and the childhood/sexual trauma that makes him want to regress is what makes him so compelling.
He’s also the opposite of a character like Coyle in terms of discovery. With Coyle your first impression is “this guy is cool and intimidating.” You only start peeling back how messed up he really is if you dig into the voice lines and documents. Franco is the reverse: you meet him and immediately know something is very wrong. The way he looks, the way he talks, the constant objectifying and perverted energy… it’s all right there on the surface. Then the more lore you consume, the more you understand WHY he’s like that. You might end up hating him even more because he’s genuinely unhinged, but the psychological layers are just so amazing to analyze.
As someone who’s into psychology, he’s easily the most interesting Prime Asset to dig into. Mechanically he can be annoying as hell to fight, but he’s my favorite by a mile.