Colonel Roy Campbell


 * For other characters with the name Roy, see Roy (disambiguation).

Colonel Roy Campbell (, Colonel Roy Campbell) is a character from the third-party developer and publisher, Konami.

Origin
Campbell is a recurring character from the stealth-action video game series,. Starting his long military carrier in the United States Marine Corps under the , he left at some point to join the Green Berets. Campbell also was caught in a love triangle with a woman and his brother, Matt. He backed down and let the other two get married, but his love never fully went away. In 1970, while on a mission to investigate an alleged Soviet missile sighting at the San Hieronymo Peninsula, Campbell's team was ambushed by the FOX Unit, which previously went rogue and defected from the CIA. As the only survivor of the attack, Campbell was thrown in a prison cell where he met Big Boss as a fellow prisoner. Together, they broke out of prison and escaped the FOX unit, and later joined forces to stop them from firing the missile at the Soviet Union, which belonged to them the whole time. After successfully stopping the missile and taking down Intercontinental Ballistic Metal Gear, Campbell spent a long time in a hospital to treat the malaria he contracted during his mission.

After recovering, Campbell would serve in Delta Force and would eventually rise in rank to be the vice commander to Big Boss in FOXHOUND. Campbell would also have an affair with his brother's wife, which created a daughter named Meryl. However, neither of the brothers realized this, and Matt died believing Meryl was his daughter. After Big Boss' defeat at the hands of Solid Snake during the events of the original Metal Gear, Campbell was appointed as commanding officer of FOXHOUND and completely reworked how the unit operated. By Snake's retirement in 1999, the unit was almost unrecognizable from its time under Big Boss. Campbell was the officer that later enlisted Snake to infiltrate Zanzibar Land to defeat the forces within during the events of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which including the surprise return of Big Boss. Future titles elaborated that the previous Big Boss was a body double acting as the public figure while the real version worked behind the scenes. Campbell was also informed by his brother's wife that Meryl was his daughter around this time.

In the year 2005 during the events of Metal Gear Solid, Campbell more or less coerced Snake into returning to the front lines when FOXHOUND, now led by Liquid Snake, took over Shadow Moses Island and its nuclear disposable facility and took several hostage, including Meryl as a form of blackmail. During the mission, Snake learned of that Campbell lied about the true motive of the mission and he was injected with the FOXDIE virus, which strained their relationship. Campbell also suspected he was being lied to about the true nature of the mission and concluded the Patriots were the true culprits. This suspicion was confirmed when the man who claimed to be Master Miller was revealed to be Liquid Snake the whole time. He also learned of an airstrike on the island and successfully called it off, but was subsequantly arrested by the secretary of defense for treason. While in prison, Campbell makes contact with the president, who is actually Solidus Snake, and informs him of the situation. The president pardons Campbell and arrests the secretary for stepping out of line. In case anyone involved is accused again, Campbell backs up all the data from the mission as proof of innocence. At some point after these events, Campbell reveals to Meryl that he is her real father, who now resents him for the burden he indirectly place on herself and her family her whole life.

In the year 2009, during the events of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, an impostor Roy Campbell that is actually an A.I. replica becomes the commanding officer to Raiden as a way to throw his trail off of the Patriots during their take over of the Big Shell decontainment facility. However, this replica was later exposed and taken down.

By the year 2014, Campbell became a member of the United Nations oversight committee responsible for tracking PMC activities. During the events of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Campbell discovers the whereabouts of the previously missing Liquid Ocelot. However, the U.N. did nothing about this discovery. Dissatisfied with this lack of action, Campbell contacts Snake, who has aged rapidly due to his engineered genetics, and his partner Hal Emmerich (Otacon), to perform an assassination. During the mission, Snake again meets with Meryl, who has not spoken to her father in years and calls him a "womanizing piece of shit." This was spurred on by Campbell staging a marriage between himself and a woman named Rosemary to protect herself, Raiden, her former lover, and their son, John, who Raiden believes was a miscarriage at this point. Learning about Meryl's feelings visibly upset Campbell, but had to keep up the act to protect everyone. After the mission concluded, Campbell attempted to reconnect with Meryl, with him congratulating her on the upcoming marriage between herself and Johnny Sasaki. This attempt was initially met with heavy resistance to the point of Meryl unholstering her gun, which Campbell put against his throat as an ultimatum. Meryl did not go through and instead demanded Campbell walk her down the aisle to his amusement. He was last seen listening to Otacon and a young girl named Sunny, where he thanks Snake for all the work he has done.

Roy Campbell appears in the first SSBB trailer, during which is officially announced as a playable character. Like Otacon and Mei Ling, he also appears in a number of Snake's Codec Messages, which can be seen and heard mid-game on the stage Shadow Moses Island. Colonel's frequency in the Metal Gear franchise is 140.85 (although the frequency changes often in Metal Gear 2), and the same frequency is used in Brawl.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
At the end of the first official Brawl trailer at E3 2006, which only has Japanese dialogue (but English text and subtitles), Solid Snake is shown receiving a Codec message from Roy Campbell, inviting him to join Smash. Snake, however, was already undercover on under a cardboard box.

On the stage Shadow Moses Island, players using can activate a Smash Taunt by pressing the button for a down taunt very quickly. Executing this correctly displays a Codec message in which Snake speaks with Otacon, Mei Ling or Colonel Roy Campbell about a character he is fighting during the match. He speaks with Roy Campbell about, , , , , , , , , , , , and when he fights another player who is also using Snake. Originally intending to call the Colonel, Snake talks to Slippy Toad when discussing with him about. Slippy Toad's frequency is also 140.85, but this is simply because Slippy had overridden Campbell's frequency, a recurring element in the Metal Gear franchise.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Campbell returns in Ultimate as they reuse the old Codec Conversations used in Brawl. Roy Campbell's Japanese voice actor, Takeshi Aono, passed away in 2012, and, as a result, future Metal Gear titles did not feature the character out of respect for Aono. This is likely why no new Codecs were recorded, and the ones from Brawl were simply reused. Campbell also appears as a spirit, based on his appearance in .