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| “ | The f-ck are you crying about?! You get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, YOU GET F-CKED SIDEWAYS TO HELL! Nobody touches my f-cking product! Waaahhh! Waaaahhhhh! | „ |
| ~ Barbi's first lines in his debut trial, also showing his man-child nature. |
| “ | It's mine. It's God damn mine and I'll skin, salt, and F-CK any ruptured scumbag that tries to take it! | „ |
| ~ Franco Barbi declaring his intent to hunt Reagents down for tampering with his narcotics. |
Franco Barbi, also referred to as Il Bambino, is one of three secondary antagonists (alongside Leland Coyle and Mother Gooseberry) in the 2023 survival horror video game The Outlast Trials, a prequel to Outlast.
Armed with his trusted "Lupara", a sawed-off shotgun, Barbi is a mentally disturbed man-child and a notorious mafioso for the Martino Crime Family. Due to his uncontrollable bloodlust, disturbing hobbies and a twisted affair with his own stepmother, his father Don Salvatore Barbi would completely disown him. Because of his disturbing nature, he gained the attention of the Murkoff Corporation, eventually making him one of the Prime Assets.
He is the first Prime Asset to be added after the game's release, being introduced in the Project Lupara update.
Biography[]
Background[]
Franco Barbi's early life is not known, but what is known, is that his father, Salvatore Barbi, was both a horrifically abusive man and one of the wealthiest men in Louisiana. Franco's birth mother died when he was still a child himself, resulting in him having never met her. The only maternal figures he had, were stepmothers, who - just like his birth mother - were killed by Salvatore. As the “don” of the New Orleans-based Martino crime family, Salvatore's offspring looked set to inherit rather comfortable positions for themselves within the organization; unfortunately, due to his rather obvious birth defects, outside of the near-constant physical discipline, Salvatore didn’t pay Franco much mind at all until he was 12, when he killed a man who owed money to his father. From then on, it seems his natural physically repulsive nature and brutally violent temper made Salvatore consider him something of an ideal debt collector, and so the “don” tasked his son with dispensing horrific violence upon those who refused to make good on their oaths, whether financial or personal.
After a lifetime of facing physical as well as verbal abuse and neglect from his father and peers - very liekly fuelles by period typical abelism -, Franco had developed something of an attraction towards belittlement, but also generally found the usual sexual attempts frustrating, often to the point that he murdered his partner in rage because of his inability to perform. By the time Franco had grown into adulthood, he truly hated his father for many years in private, even if he still desperately sook out his approval.
Angelina trampling Franco
After Salvatore went out to marry his fourth wife, one Angelina, who was only a couple of years older than Franco himself, the two of them entered into a scandalous affair where she indulged in Franco's sadomasochistic desires. In their dynamic, Franco was the submissive party, enjoying it when Angelina hurt and demeaned him, finding it especially pleasurable to have her trample him wearing high heels. This would be the first relationship of Franco's where he was able to perform sexually, as before it all he exclusively had intimate relations with prostitutes who likely did not indulge his desires in a way he found pleasurable. Salvatore Barbi eventually found out about his son's and wife's affair, and would go on to viciously beat Franco for this transgression within an inch from his life. The only reason Franco's life was spared, was because he and Salvatore were blood related, and presumably to spare the Don's blushes, as an elaborate cover story was thought up to explain Franco's disownment after the fact. Only a small amount of people are aware of the truth of what Franco and Angelina had done, one of these people being a mobster and CIA asset, who would later relay this story to Murkoff Collections Department Agent Clyde Perry.
Franco was exiled from New Orleans, but his vast personal wealth allowed him to quickly take over another mobster’s bookmaking racket in Havana. While in Cuba he was contacted by CIA agents what offered additional income in return for helping them launder their money coming from drug sales. Soon after, the Murkoff Corporation noticed Franco's actions after he was inspired to kill seven more people once he witnessed a Reagent committing an assassination. Murkoff dispatched Clyde Perry to investigate Franco, tracking him to a motel. When Clyde went to the room that Franco was staying in, Franco burst out of a dead prostitute and attacked Clyde so viciously that Clyde needed surgeries to fix his skull and one of his legs. After that, Franco was sent to the Sinyala Facility, the main location of the game, to be made a Prime Asset.
The Outlast Trials[]
Franco has the unique ability to attack at range with his sawed-off shotgun, which Franco names "Lupara". Since the Murkoff Corporation does not provide Franco ammo, Franco instead found something else as a substitute - teeth. Prime Assets provide lasting damage in some sense, as Coyle's electric baton disabling players' rigs temporarily, and Gooseberry's drill causes players to bleed out temporarily. When the player takes damage from Franco firing at them, they will stumble and be temporarily deaf, hearing only a ringing sound for a few seconds. However, Franco's melee attacks have no unique, additional debuffs. Like any other Experimental Population, he wanders around the facility during a trial, beating or shooting any Reagent he comes across without hesitation.
Since Franco has a ranged weapon, the player simply running away from him will not always evade damage, and instead must find a way to break line of sight completely. When Franco fires his weapon, he is always stationary, and never seen firing while walking or running, likely to maintain his accuracy, although it is more likely that this is the case for game balance reasons. If Franco doesn't see a target, but is startled by a sound, he may shoot in the direction of where he heard the sound. This means that stepping on broken glass or walking into noise traps can still end with a Reagent getting shot, even if one wasn't seen beforehand.
Even though teeth are used in place of shotgun shells in Franco's gun, players can still be killed if shot enough times. The fragments of teeth that are fired from the gun have the same spread as a standard shotgun shell, and can hit multiple players at once. Franco is arguably the "quietest" of the three Prime Assets, as he does not speak as often as the other two. It is unknown exactly where Franco gets the teeth for his shotgun, but it is implied that they are removed from his enemies, which is a common practice for some mobsters in real-life, as removing teeth rids the option of the deceased having their dental records looked at or compared. Franco never runs out of ammunition during gameplay.
Poison the Medicine[]
In this trial, the Reagents travel to a part of the facility made to look like docks. This trial is the debut of Franco. He is first seen breastfeeding on a female Big Grunt's corpse, cradled like a baby, and pretending the dead woman is a motherly figure. Once he is woken up, he shoots two hanging prisoners, threatens the Reagents, then leaves. He reappears soon after, constantly patrolling the area and attacking the Reagents on sight.
The Reagents must smuggle cocaine around the area, and end the trial with sticking packets of drugs into the bodies of living, tortured subjects while Franco tries to stop them.
Pleasure the Prosecutor[]
In this trial, the Reagents are taken to an area of the facility that looks like a large downtown area. This is the second trial to feature Franco as the main antagonist. The Reagents reach a theater by obtaining tickets, then interrupt a fake show for a trapped prosecutor, infuriating Franco, who was watching the show. The Reagents must then replace the sexually-designed mannequins that are surrounding the prosecutor by traveling around the city and unlocking them.
Once all four mannequins are replaced, each one will use a lethal tool installed in them to brutally torture the prosecutor in sexually charged ways, including ripping the prosecutor's penis off, then finally cutting his head off, all while Franco tries to stop them, failing to save the prosecutor in the end.
Personality[]
Being both a former mobster and a man-child, Franco displays both of those traits in excess, in that he speaks like a threatening mobster while exhibiting traits of a child or baby, even bawling when things do not go his way. Franco seems to carry some misogynistic and oedipal traits as well, as he has killed women he has had sex with, found arousal from being degraded by his stepmother, and has hidden inside a dead prostitute, mimicking an unborn baby. During the limited-time "Bambino" trials, Franco will fetishize Mother Gooseberry, falling in love with her motherly-themed persona. He notably has a strong desire to see what kind of shoes she is wearing, calling back to his trampling encounters with Angelina and his apparent shoe fetish.
On the other hand, Franco despises Leland Coyle, heavily projecting his own deviancy onto his fellow Prime Asset, and making remarks about how much vitriol he feels for law enforcement in genreal. Some of his comments also suggest a certain jealously, such as for the fact that Coyle is much more sexually dominant, aggressive, and - perhaps most importantly - virale than he could ever be, courtesy of Franco's own taboo tastes as well as his inconsistent ability to perform.
Franco, ironically, has a very fragile ego despite his childlike persona. He will advertise himself as a baby, yet make excuses that he is "not crying" as "that's just water from his eyes". His fetishes are vocalized in his sarcastic, twisted threats to the Reagents, even saying how Franco wants to "crawl inside" them and/or "drink them", always obsessing over wombs and drinking breast milk. His childhood abuse and sexual impotency are deep insecurities for Franco, and will fly into a rage when reminded of them.
There is a side of Franco that shows intelligence and craftsmanship, being able to craft his own ammunition out of human teeth and using tactics like a hunter. He is also known to collect nipples, further feeding into the childlike side of his persona.
Gallery[]
Images[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Before his debut in the game, Franco was seen as a mysterious silhouette on the televisions seen in trials during the Prime Time update.
- His appearance is reminiscent of Pfeiffer Syndrome Type One.
External Links[]
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 Villains
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Murkoff Corporation The Variants Testament of the New Ezekiel The Scalled Experimental Population Central Intelligence Agency Others | ||