Overview
Would you believe me if I told you that this small gem of a game also has deeper lore? Well, I’m almost certain I’ve found some! (Unconfirmed by the developer(s) as of now)
Introduction
I didn’t want to put too much time into this nor bore you, so I’ll keep it to the point:
There didn’t seem to be much lore in the game, which was no surprise due to it’s size; however, something Gwen says at the ending cutscene of mission 7 caught my eye:
This immediately made me think: I wonder if John is on the stuff, considering that the player has full control of John?
I mainly thought nothing of it, and didn’t think much of it again until the final mission’s cutscene.
First Half (including the introduction)
It’s not until you’re near or at the end of the campaign when you find out that The police chief was behind each and every incident, which specifically the player, John, and his partner, Rick, were the only ones that responded to, and it’s only until the ending cutscene that you learn as to why.
Additionally, John also seems to be casually collecting what quite obviously must be drugs as “evidence” during gameplay, which most likely must be the supposed scopolamine that Gwen was talking about, especially since you also learn from Gwen that each and every goon is also being given scopolamine by whoever was behind it (you don’t learn from her that it’s the chief that’s doing so.) This doesn’t stand out, that is, until you learn that IRL, police and SWAT don’t typically take things as “evidence” at the scene, and instead let detectives do so once the situation is code 4. Now you might’ve already guessed that this is evidence that John is taking the drugs for himself and all that.. But there’s more to it. He’s collecting much, much more scopolamine than he would likely need for himself to stay high on it for the rest of his life, and is also collecting guns, as though he isn’t the only one that’s going to use them.
Second Half
During the final mission’s ending cutscene, the police chief and an FBI agent tell you that all of the incidents were for the greater good of the city, and that they were drugging small criminals with scopolamine to do all of the bombings, robberies, etc. for them, and that those small criminals didn’t matter as much as the people and places they sent them out to attack.
On top of that, John also seems to be overly aggressive during it, much more than I’d expect from him, as though He doesn’t want the chief and the FBI agent to explain it.
Rick goes on to explain to the journalist that the chief and FBI agent were not wrong about what it would’ve done.
Smaller details of the theory & conclusion
Then, suddenly…
John vanishes.
Anything else about him is of course a mystery. He may be involved in a sequel of the game’s campaign, or maybe not, but until a new game or campaign is added, or until a developer shares (clues about) what might’ve happened to him, I can’t say anything else about that.
To summarize the theory…
John is under the influence of scopolamine, intentionally being controlled by someone to try and sabotage the police chief and the FBI’s efforts to bring peace to the city. The player plays the role of the scopolamine’s effect and/or the person who would supposedly be controlling John throughout the game. Neither John, the player, nor the police chief and the FBI is the true villain of the story.
Who could they be, then?
There is no way to know yet, however my suspicions point toward that the person who controlled John using scopolamine was the same person who sent the sniper out to setup Rick to frame him for a police brutality because Rick, but not John, was effected by it, which I’m guessing was to hopefully keep people from believing and/or questioning him. And even though the chief was the one that sent them there, if he was trying to do good, why would he frame Rick, out of all people for something like this before he even knows what the chief is up to? What most likely happened there was that John told whoever he was being controlled by info about what was happening, and the mystery villain proceeded to bring the sniper in to set up Rick. The chief all that time, was just trying to get John and Rick to help in his schemes in a way that wouldn’t get him caught like he does at the end of the game.
Why would this person specifically choose John, and why would they not just have him be reckless?
John is a cop. He can sabotage the police chief and the FBI using him without having other police arrive there nor risk any of their more valuable people, which is also why you do the missions only with John and his partner Rick. They also have him act like an actual cop (even if you’re recklessly killing everyone in the missions which the game discourages, he still goes on to respond to nearby calls regardless of if they know it relates to the police chief and FBI’s plans or not,) to lower the suspicions of Rick and anyone that comes to the crime scenes of anywhere John visits (which, in turn, lowers our suspicions of him as well.) This could mean that John is still being used as a goon by the mystery villain once the game ends, considering how he vanished after all of it happened. Or he could’ve killed John, who knows.
Additional part of the theory:
Co-Op is NOT canon, and instead takes place in a universe where Rick was also being controlled by the same person with the help of scopolamine, as he can then do things that John could that Rick would never do, such as collect ”’evidence”’, yet in none of the cutscenes does he seem to be siding with whoever’s controlling John nor seem to act like he (secretly) knows about it. Despite that, my final bit of proof of this theory is that Rick doesn’t matter as much to the game as John; The game might show everything from his POV, but him going on to explain everything to the journalist 15 years later is not proven to be canon. Rick can die during gameplay, but it does not matter if he survives, however it does matter if John does, going to show that him surviving and successfully stopping the chief IS canon, as John, in an unshown timeline, likely would go on with stopping the chief without Rick’s support, because of the person who is controlling him.
That is the end of my theory. I’d love to see you add or disprove things about it, and since the developer(s) of this game is/are quite active in their community, I especially would like to see if they’d confirm, disprove, or give hints about this!
