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"Hey mate, the lads in black, they on your side?"
British Army sniper in Nottingham
BlackOpsR2

Two Black Ops soldiers and Nathan Hale in the intro of Resistance 2.

Black Ops were the elite light infantry arm of the Special Research Projects Administration.

Overview[]

Serving as the military arm of the Special Research Projects Administration, as depicted in Resistance 2, Black Ops were almost always seen either patrolling in SRPA facilities, or actively assisting Echo Team during their operations in Gray Territory. Often wielding the M5A2 Folsom Carbine in battle, specialized units were occasionally equipped with experimental weapons including the V7 Splicer.

Despite being equipped with extensive CBRN gear specifically tasked with preventing Crawlers or other Chimeran strains from infecting them, Black Ops units have been noted to fall victim to Spinners, as noted by the discovery of Dr. Fyodor Malikov's Black Ops escort by Victor Company in Bryce Canyon.

Resistance: Fall of Man[]

Following or prior to the events of Operation Deliverance, Black Ops soldiers were covertly dispatched into Chimera-occupied England and were conducting operations to study the Chimera, with explicit orders to remain discrete from British and regular American forces.

Nathan Hale only encountered the presence of Black Ops from finding their corpses, along with experimental weapons such as the XR-005 Hailstorm and the XR-003 Sapper. Radio messages or an encrypted Morse code message can often be heard from the deceased soldiers' radio headset. It is revealed from these coded messages that the Black Ops have been trailing Hale since the beginning of Operation Deliverance. Following the aftermath of the Battle of London, a Black Ops squad confronted Hale at gunpoint and extracted him out of England.

Black Ops seen in Fall of Man wear specialized airtight suits, green armor vests, helmets with gas masks, backpacks with what seem to be their air supply and apparently providing energy or even a signal for their chest-mounted video cams to transmit to HQ, silver armguards, various pouches on their utility belt (likely for ammo), black leg pads, black assault boots, and two ammo pouches strapped to their right thigh.

A Black Ops skin can be unlocked for multiplayer by completing the game's campaign on Superhuman difficulty.

Resistance 2[]

The Black Ops play a much larger role, serving in fighting alongside Nathan Hale. As revealed in the aftermath of Fall of Man, the Black Ops purposely extracted Hale for his induction into the Sentinel Program. During the invasion of America in 1953, the Black Ops serve to supplement the United States Army as the main fighting force in Gray Territory. Throughout the campaign, the Black Ops are often overstretched and suffer heavy casualties, largely due to the burden of having to combat the Chimera throughout the country. Victor Company is the most notable Black Ops unit that accompanies Lt. Nathan Hale throughout the campaign. Additionally, aside from fighting in Gray Territory, elements of Black Ops have also been assigned to the LDP. By the events of Operation: Black Eden, the LDP had been destroyed, and Black Ops units could only barely afford to protect the last remaining Protection Camp in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Additionally, the destruction of the LDP had left their manpower sapped, and Black Ops units have been reduced to a handful, most notably with Victor Company having been reduced to team-sized level and only Victor Team and X-Ray Squad are noted to be active.

Like in Fall of Man some Black Ops are found dead with weaponry that the player may use such as the Splicer. They wear a more streamlined uniform giving the soldier better maneuverability in combat. As noted below, they don't appear to wear airtight suits, and instead wear olive drab uniforms complete with armor vest, leg pack, hip pack, backpacks with the chest-mounted video cams and a radio, white leg pads, white armguards, and green boots.

In the game's competitive mode, the Black Ops suit is unlocked at level 10 and the Black Ops helmet at level 12.

Resistance 3[]

Corpses of Black Ops appear in New York City in the years following SRPA's botched mission in attempting to attack the New York Chimeran tower. Throughout the campaign and while never actually seen in game, radio broadcasts and collected intel mention units of unidentified dark clad military personnel moving through Chimera territory and aiding with the evacuation of civilians. A radio transcript can also be heard during the end credits, elaborating on a group of soldiers bearing a similar description to SRPA's Black Ops defending a civilian field hospital in Charleston, South Carolina against a Chimeran onslaught. This suggests that SRPA and to a lesser extent the US Army is still operating, albeit in a significantly diminished capacity.

With the destruction of the Chimeran tower in New York, it is heavily implied that the United States Armed Forces had been reconstituted and that Black Ops would have been reintegrated.

The Black Ops multiplayer skin can be acquired and used, as a pre-order bonus, which has now been made available for public purchase on PlayStation Network.

Resistance: Retribution[]

Similar to their presence in Fall of Man, Black ops troops never actually take any major part in the main campaign. However, their corpses can be found littered throughout the events of Resistance: Retribution including inside the Rotterdam Gun Towers and in various locations throughout the Allied Base in Luxembourg.

An British Ministry of Defense Intel can be found documenting repeated intrusions by these operatives on major Maquis operations up to and including the events of Operation Overstrike as well as the latter's growing distrust and agitation of the former. While the overall relationship between the Maquis and SRPA is never made completely clear what can be gathered is that Black Ops troops were secretly attached to Operation Overstrike as part of an agreement coordinated between the US Chief of Staff and Colonel Rachel Parker to observe James Grayson and oversee his eventual extraction at the hands of SRPA, similar in fashion to their interest in Nathan Hale in Fall of Man. Why this doesn't occur at the end of the game is unknown.

Resistance: Burning Skies[]

Black Ops troops participated alongside regular Army troops in the failed defense of SRPA Station Kali at Ellis Island. By the time Tom Riley and Ellie Martinez arrived at the base, most of them were killed. They also defended the Union City Protection Camp and evacuated civilians to the radio tower after the Chimera broke into the camp. While most of the Black Ops troops died in the defense, one surviving Black Ops soldier directed Tom to the radio tower to find his family. Black Ops soldiers are also playable in the multiplayer mode.

List of known Sentinel units and personnel[]

Unit Status Personnel Notes
Keystone Company KIA
Oscar Company KIA KIA during SRPA's doomed assault on the New York Tower.
Research Team Delta Unknown
Salvage Team Alpha Unknown Participated in Operation Allied Shield and Operation Crucible.
Salvage Team Bravo Unknown Participated in Operation Viper Pit and Operation Crucible.
Salvage Team Charlie Unknown Participated in Operation Crucible.
Salvage Team Delta Unknown Participated in Operation Allied Shield, Operation Viper Pit, and Operation Crucible.
Salvage Team Fox-Trot KIA KIA during Operation Shadow Strike; massacred by Grims.
Victor Company KIA
X-Ray Squad KIA KIA during Operation Black Eden
Yankee Company KIA Decimated at Station Genesis while escorting Dr. Fyodor Malikov.[1]

Others

Gallery[]

Resistance: Fall of Man[]

Resistance 2[]

Trivia[]

  • The Black Ops were voiced by Steve Blum in Resistance: Fall of Man, and Travis Willingham, Rick Pasqualone, David Paul Olsen, and Grant George in Resistance 2.
  • In the original development of Resistance: Fall of Man (known as I-8 at the time) Nathan Hale accompanied the Black Ops as they did suicidal raids through cities and towns, but this idea was scrapped after the developers realized that the story didn't really have a plot. Insomniac also used Black Ops for testing their new Chimeran creatures in the making of both games.
  • Interesting to note is that their uniforms change from Fall of Man to R2. The soldiers are slimmer in Resistance 2 compared to those in Resistance: Fall of Man. No explanation was given for the sudden change, but it can be presumed that the Black Ops have varying uniforms depending on the environment and area of operations.
    • Though it can be noted that the Black Ops that surround Hale don't actually get on the VTOL and those in the new uniforms stay on the VTOL.
  • The Black Ops are considered the redshirts of Resistance 2 as they are often killed in scripted events that emphasize the dangerousness of new enemies. For example, a Black Ops soldier was gruesomely ripped in half when the Chameleon was first introduced.
  • In Resistance 2 Online Co-op, Special Ops were originally going to be Black Ops.
  • Though it's rarer than their Hybrid counterparts, in Resistance 2 Black Ops can explode into a mixture of blood and body parts if hit by a grenade.
  • The way Black Ops soldiers support Sentinels is similar to how Army Rangers support Delta Force and other elite CT units in real-life.
  • Even though they can supposedly be infected by Spinners, in Resistance 2 when they walk past them, the Spinners will not attack the Black Ops or try to infect them. Also it would be hard for the Spinner to pierce the suit and infect the soldier. Another account of Black Ops soldiers not being infected is when they slaughtered the Spinners at the Lincoln Memorial in Resistance: The Gathering Storm.

References[]

  1. ^ Resistance 2, campaign level Bryce Canyon
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