Marcus Holloway

Marcus Holloway
Watch Dogs character
3D render of Marcus Holloway's default appearance from Watch Dogs 2
First appearance	Watch Dogs 2 (2016)
Created by	Ubisoft
Portrayed by	Ruffin Prentiss
In-universe information
Nickname	Retr0
Gender	Male
Origin	Oakland, California
Allegiance	DedSec

Marcus "Retr0" Holloway is a character from Ubisoft's Watch Dogs video game franchise. Marcus first appears as the player character of the 2016 title, Watch Dogs 2: he is presented as a young hacker based in the San Francisco Bay Area who is wrongfully flagged with a criminal profile by ctOS 2.0, the electronic mechanism employed to manage the region's infrastructure and surveillance network. Marcus succeeds in infiltrating a facility to wipe his profile from the system, and joins the hacktivist collective DedSec to raise social awareness about the risks posed by ctOS 2.0 and expose the corruption of its creators, the Blume Corporation. An older Marcus makes a cameo appearance in the 2021 downloadable content (DLC) expansion for Watch Dogs Legion, Bloodlines. Marcus is portrayed by American actor Ruffin Prentiss.

Marcus was first revealed along with Watch Dogs 2 in June 2016 by Ubisoft. He was intentionally designed to be very different in terms of personality and gameplay utility when compared to Aiden Pearce, the player character of the first Watch Dogs. The developers of Watch Dogs 2 encouraged collaboration with African American professionals within the entertainment industry to avoid turning characters like Marcus into caricatures. In keeping with the general shift in tone of Watch Dogs and expansion of its protagonist's abilities, the developers suggested that Marcus' intended playstyle mostly involve stunning enemies using nonlethal weaponry or using hacking skills to create distractions. Marcus has been the subject of generally positive reception following the release of Watch Dogs 2, with many critics recognizing the character's importance as an unusual representation of African Americans in popular media as well as black people in the video game medium as a whole.

Concept and design

Marcus Holloway was first revealed during the Watch Dogs 2 world premiere video uploaded on Ubisoft's official YouTube channel in June 2016. He is designed to be an athletic player character. His approach to navigate the game world of Watch Dogs 2 emphasizes fast-paced parkour maneuvers similar to other video games like Mirror's Edge. Marcus' gadgets, which help extend his ability to hack electronics, include a tiny remote control car which can conduct physical hacks and divert enemies with high-pitched insults, and a drone which scout from an elevated position and help plan his moves. Marcus could also using his hacking skills to create proximity triggers on electronics and place traps for his enemies.

Although Marcus is presented as an antihero hacker like the protagonist of the first Watch Dogs, Aiden Pearce, he is designed to be more expressive and charismatic by contrast. According to Watch Dogs 2 producer Dominic Guay, Marcus is "an optimistic man. He needs people. He sees good things in people, he’s young, he’s funny, he’s charming". Marcus goes by the handle Retr0 due to his appreciation for the nostalgic aspects of popular culture, such as old-school hacker culture and "classic" songs from the R&B, hip hop, and electronic music genres. Marcus' background is conceptualized as an individual who is raised in Oakland, California. This became crucial to the story as the character is likely to have experienced social injustice early in his life as a member of a marginalized community, which informs the character's motivations throughout the story.

Unlike the first Watch Dogs, it is possible to play the entirety of Watch Dogs 2 as Marcus without killing any enemies, which Guay explained is informed by the game's setting and lighthearted tone. Most of the Marcus' abilities result in rendering his enemies unconscious on the floor with little "z"s floating from their bodies for a time in the aftermath. Marcus takes down enemies within melee range in a brutal but non-lethal manner using the "Thunder Ball", a makeshift weapon made from a billiard ball strung on a chain. The developers' desire to balance player agency with the coherence of the narrative meant that there are certain decisions the character would and would not make, and that there are no cinematics or predetermined moments in the game where Marcus shoots or kills a non-player character as it would be inconsistent with his personality. Although players may equip Marcus with conventional firearm weapons, electroshock weaponry could be acquired through 3D printers in DedSec hideouts or "hackerspaces" However, the game only featured two non-lethal weapons at launch until a major content update released on April 2017 offered more nonlethal options for players.

Portrayal

Marcus Holloway is portrayed by Ruffin Prentiss through performance capture in Watch Dogs 2. The developers noted that they had a responsibility to ensure Marcus resonates with players as an authentic character as opposed to being a caricature. To accomplish this, Ubisoft actively sought out African-American script consultants and actors for their involvement with finding the characters' voices and encouraged improvised dialogue to make them feel real. Watch Dogs 2 Creative Director Jonathan Morin said the team encouraged the actors to embrace the natural synergy that spontaneously happens during their interactions with each other, noting in particular that the actors who played Marcus and another African American character named Horatio Carlin had a natural way of saying things to each other due to their similar cultural backgrounds.

Prentiss said his work experience on the game was positive: in an interview with IGN in October 2020, he praised the game's developers for the opportunity to "play a character in a video game that was brave enough to tackle such tough topics" as well as their willingness to not only explore issues of racism, but also give him creative freedom to interpret certain scenes from his perspective as a black man. Prentiss also acknowledged the positive fan reception to the close friendship between Marcus and a DedSec team member named The Wrench, which had been likened to a "bromance". According to Prentiss, the writing team for Watch Dogs 2 had considered the idea of implementing crossover storylines featuring characters from other titles like Marcus in an Avengers-like coalition for future work in the Watch Dogs series.

Prentiss did not hear from Ubisoft before or shortly after the announcement of the then-upcoming Bloodlines even though Wrench was confirmed to appear, although he did express an interest about reprising the role as it is one of his favorite roles. Prentiss was eventually contacted by Ubisoft late in the development of the Bloodlines DLC to provide several voiced lines, which he was happy to oblige.

Appearances

Watch Dogs 2

The story of Watch Dogs 2 begins with Marcus infiltrating a ctOS 2.0 server facility owned by Blume, a security company that operates a surveillance network spying on the populace of the San Francisco Bay Area and stores their personal information on a cluster of servers, as members of the hacktivist collective DedSec observed his actions remotely. Marcus hacks into the relevant server and removes incriminating information which is wrongfully placed on his data profile, then flees the facility with the help of DedSec members, who invite him to join the collective. Together with his newfound team members, they celebrated his successful infiltration of a highly secure installation near the facility, where they cross paths with Blume chief technology officer (CTO) Dušan Nemec by chance.

As part of his efforts to neutralize DedSec as a threat to Blume, Dušan executed automated social media accounts or bots to artificially inflate the popularity of DedSec's presence on social media, and exploited paranoia over the perceived security threat posed by DedSec as leverage to promote the widespread adoption of ctOS 2.0 to deter hacking attacks. Marcus is soon lured to the Blume CEO's office, where he is confronted by Dušan and narrowly escapes an ambush set up by him in collaboration with the police. Marcus regroups with the core group members of DedSec, gains an ally in the notorious hacker hacker Raymond "T-Bone" Kenney, and soon rises to a leadership position within the collective as they attempt to fight the undue influence of Blume and its allies throughout the Bay Area. Dušan eventually succeeds in having Marcus placed on the FBI's most wanted list, but DedSec retaliates by publicly exposing Dušan's illegal dealings retrieved from the ctOS 2.0 network, leading to the latter's arrest by the authorities.

Watch Dogs Legion

Marcus plays a prominent role in Wrench's story arc in Bloodlines, a 2021 downloadable content expansion to Watch Dogs Legion. He makes several cameo voice appearances throughout the expansion.

Reception

"But Marcus is different because we don't get to see Black characters who are doing something out of the norm for what pop culture says Black people are cool for. So to see him be a hacker, I had people reach out that work in Silicon Valley. I had people reach out that were studying coding and programming and say it was so cool to see someone who looks like them, and has a similar interest, be represented in video games."

— Ruffin Prentiss on the feedback he received regarding Marcus Holloway.

Marcus has received a generally positive reception from video game critics. In a preview article about Watch Dogs 2 written for PCGamesN, Kirk McKeand liked that Marcus has more imaginative and varied tastes in music and fashion, exhibits a wider range of emotions, and better gadgets compared to Aiden Pearce. Both IGN's Dan Stapleton and Joe Skrebels liked Marcus as a video game protagonist; Skrebels in particular thought Marcus "felt notably like a person, not just a collection of voice lines designed to string missions together". Polygon ranked Marcus Holloway among the best video game characters of the 2010s, with Jeff Ramos praising Marcus as a "more engaging and relatable protagonist" whose leadership role serves as a "rallying point who inspires and enables others to fight back" against systematic oppression. George Foster claimed that he is the Watch Dogs franchise’s best character, and expressed displeasure in an editorial published by TheGamer that Marcus was seemingly left out of the then-upcoming Bloodlines DLC for Legion. Foster further criticized the procedurally generated player character approach adopted by Legion in lieu of a clearly defined character like Marcus and that it ended up being an inferior game in his opinion.

Several critics have positively assessed Marcus within the context of how black representation is handled by developers in the history of the video game medium. In an article published by Paste Magazine, Jeremy Winslow was pleased that Marcus is portrayed as a compelling character with a multifaceted, rounded personality. Winslow argued that Marcus' overall depiction in Watch Dogs 2, particularly with his disadvantaged background, disrupts the typical norms and stereotypes surrounding the vast majority of black video game characters, particularly with his atypical visual design and reliance on intellect as opposed to physical brawn. Skrebels agreed that Marcus' story is groundbreaking in how it presents a narrative about a black man’s experiences without relying on cliches. Writing for Polygon, Tanya D said she was impressed by a scene where Marcus interacts with Horatio Carlin, another core DedSec group member who is also African American, while on a visit to the latter's workplace, a prestigious company in the information technology industry located within Silicon Valley. She believed that their conversations are an authentic depiction of code-switching between standard American English and African-American Vernacular English among members of the African American community. Citing Tanya D's opinion on the scene, David J. Leonard agreed that the scene's boldness in challenging existing stereotypes of African Americans and vocalizing the daily realities of racism is not only disruptive but a source of pleasure. Leonard further argued that its importance extends beyond its edifying and truth-telling conversation about racism and the lack of diversity within workplaces in Silicon Valley, and that it also connects the racial injustice perpetuated by Silicon Valley throughout society to the hegemony of white masculinity.

Not all reception towards Marcus' depiction in Watch Dogs 2 have been positive. Vice Waypoint staff commended the game's early attempts to engage with questions of identity and marginalization through Marcus and Horatio's interactions, but were left disappointed when Horatio is found murdered by a local street gang midway through the game's narrative. They felt that Marcus' drive for revenge in response to Horatio's murder compromised the character's integrity, and that Horatio is treated as an expendable afterthought since the game made no further attempts to commemorate his significance to Marcus and the rest of the team once the specific questline has concluded. Some reviewers also questioned the ludonarrative dissonance surrounding the potential in-game use of lethal firearms by Marcus. Wesley Yin-Poole from Eurogamer said it felt "off" to him that he could make the "likeable Marcus Holloway shoot to kill", a sentiment also shared by Stapleton who described the "weird disconnect" as feeling different than roleplaying as a violent criminal like the player characters of Grand Theft Auto V. Stapleton observed that Marcus' personality is the only motivating factor that pushes players toward a non-lethal playstyle of stealth and silent takedowns, as it may become impractical during intense combat situations. Phillip Kollar from Polygon criticized the ease of access to firearms in the first place as "a complete failure of imagination" on the part of the game's developers.