Roy Campbell
- For the playable Fire Emblem character, see Roy.
Colonel Roy Campbell is a character in the Metal Gear series of third-party stealth games by Konami. Both a close friend and commanding officer to series star Solid Snake, Campbell is now well-known in the Smash Bros. community for appearing alongside Snake in the first trailer for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and effectively being the spokesperson to reveal to the world in 2006 that Snake will be a playable fighter in the game. He, along side Otacon and Mei Ling, makes a cameo apperance on Shadow Moses Island when Snake uses his Smash Taunt.
Character description
Roy Campbell's first appearance was in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX2 computer in 1990 as a typical commanding officer, and he reprised his role in Metal Gear Solid for PlayStation in 1998. His first chronological appearance in the series, however, is in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops for the PSP, which takes place after Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for PS2, which starred Solid Snake's father, Naked Snake, working for the governmental unit called FOX. As a young man, Roy Campbell was previously in the Marine Corps, where he and his younger brother Matt Campbell were in love with the same woman, and this woman dumped Roy before he went on to join the Green Berets, but not before Roy had an affair with his sister-in-law and conceived his daughter Meryl Silverburgh. When Naked Snake breaks away from the FOX unit, the FOX unit revolts and imprisons him in South America, while Roy's Green Beret unit is wiped out by an ambush by FOX members and he is taken captive and thrown into a cell right next to Naked Snake's. The two formulate an escape plan whose enaction is the gameplay of Portable Ops, and they realize that in order to stop FOX's revolt, they must form their own team of specialists. By the end of the game, Naked Snake and Roy form the FOXHOUND special forces unit seen in subsequent games.
After Naked Snake assumes the identity of Big Boss and creates a trio of genetic duplicates of himself as his sons, one of them who would be codenamed Solid Snake, the events of the original Metal Gear see Solid Snake tasked by Big Boss, commander of FOXHOUND, to infiltrate a stronghold of mercenaries named Outer Heaven and sabotage the nuclear Metal Gear weapon within. It turns out that Big Boss is the commander behind Outer Heaven as well, him having become maverick against the U.S. and willing to drop Snake into his trap, but Snake manages to defeat him. Roy Campbell assumes the empty position of commanding officer in Big Boss' place, and in Metal Gear 2 four years later, Roy supervises Snake's effort to perform a similar operation into the stronghold of a nation named Zanzibar Land to defeat its Metal Gear weapon as well. Big Boss is the leading man behind Zanzibar Land's terror plot as well, and Solid Snake defeats him for good; afterwards, both Snake and Roy go into retirement.
In Metal Gear Solid, when FOXHOUND operatives go maverick and threaten the U.S. with an assault from yet another Metal Gear weapon, Roy comes out of retirement to once again command Solid Snake in his mission to sabotage FOXHOUND's machinations. Roy has a more personal stake this time around, as his daughter Meryl Silverburgh (who Roy pretends to Snake is his niece to avoid shame) is held captive by the revolutionary force. His desire to help Snake by revealing certain secrets he is otherwised forced to keep lands him a brief period under arrest in the game, but he is exonerated by the time Snake completes his mission. Roy seems to make a return appearance in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty as the commanding officer for the FOXHOUND agent Raiden, but this is in reality an artificial computer AI called GW created by the antagonists to disorient Raiden. The real Roy Campbell appears in a trailer for the game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots in the future, giving the now-aged Solid Snake his next mission objective.
Having been established as the caring-commanding-officer-type in Metal Gear fandom, Roy Campbell was decided by Masahiro Sakurai's group to make a guest appearance in the first trailer for the Wii fighting game Super Smash Bros. Brawl to help humorously convey to the world that Solid Snake has been selected as a playable character for the game. He also appears as one of Snake's contacts on his Codec communication system in the Shadow Moses Island stage.
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Roy Campbell made his appearance to the Smash Bros. community in the first official trailer for the Wii fighting game. After displaying many other Nintendo characters throughout, the last part of the trailer depicts Campbell initiating a codec transmission with Solid Snake to provide the news that Snake has been invited to the game, but he is unaware that Snake is already hiding out at the Battlefield stage within a cardboard box, spying on a brawl between Mario, Link, and Kirby. The two men speak in their Japanese-language voices, but the trailer provides the following English subtitles:
- Roy: "Snake! Sorry to bother you, but I've got big news!"
- Snake: "What? Not another absurd objective, I hope."
- Roy: "Are you familiar with Super Smash Bros.?"
- Snake: "Ah... That Nintendo thing..."
- Roy: "Yes. Actually, we've received an invitation for you to join."
- Snake: [Oh-]
- Roy: "[Snake,] are you up for it?"
- Snake: "..."
- Roy: "Where are you right now, anyway?"
- Snake: "I'm on reconnaissance duty."
- Roy: "Reconnaissance?! Of what kind?!"
- Snake: "Knowing your enemy is the quickest path to victory."
Afterwards, Snake tosses aside his cardboard box to reveal himself to the brawling Nintendo characters, stating that "It's show time!"
More recently, it has been revealed that for the Metal Gear stage Shadow Moses Island, when Snake is in battle, he will call Campbell and other of his series team members, including Mei Ling and Otacon, by Codec to comment on and ask about the characters he's currently fighting. Campbell will talk to Snake about Bowser, Fox, Ike, Jigglypuff, King Dedede, Luigi, Mario, Ness, Pokémon Trainer, Wario, Wolf, Zelda, and even Snake.
