An Ode to Vickers

Brad Vickers; coward, chicken-heart, hero? Come take a read as I explain my thoughts as to the new and improved Brad Vickers as portrayed in the new Resident Evil 3 remake. Minor spoilers for the first 15 minutes or so of the game, so reader bewaaaare!

​-By Richard Jewell

Brad Vickers as seen in Resident Evil 3 (2020)

​One of the best things that the Resident Evil 3 remake does? It redeems the character of Brad Vickers. It's no secret that after giving in to his fear and pulling away in the helicopter during the opening intro of the first Resident Evil, he left his fellow S.T.A.R.S. members to a fate worse than death. This action earned him the nickname Brad "Chicken Heart" Vickers amongst the gaming community. In the original PlayStation One release of Resident Evil Nemesis, the CAPCOM seemed to run with this idea. Poor Brad is seen running wildly around town like a chicken with his head cut off, running through a proverbial gauntlet of zombies and eventually being gruesomely slain by Nemesis in front of Jill for maximum shock value. It should also be noted that in the original Resident Evil 2 players also had the chance to find a secret zombie-Brad and dispatch him personally. I'll admit: as an edgy teenager at the time, I was glad to see Brad get his comeuppance. I do also know that there is a subset of the Resident Evil community who would say that Brad had already redeemed himself by returning to the mansion to rescue the stranded S.T.A.R.S. members. I do agree somewhat, but the argument is a bit weak. He knew that there were untold horrors in the woods, yet he made the conscious choice to come back instead of returning to base. Of course, he was way up high in a helicopter, circling the area from a safe perspective: you could hardly call that brave. On the other hand, he was instrumental in the defeat of Tyrant by throwing down the rocket launcher. Not to mention that without him the remaining members would have surely died, either by Tyrant's hands or the ensuing explosion from the Spencer mansion's self-destruct feature. So while I may not exactly think he's brave, he certainly was useful.

​Fair warning, here is where minor spoilers for the first 15 minutes or so of the remake begins.
 
Now skip ahead a few decades to CAPCOM'S freshly-launched Resident Evil 3 remake. I expected Brad Vickers to more or less act the same as he did in the original Nemesis version. I started up the game for the first time, enjoying the intro and taking in the whole spectacle of the Nemesis chase through Jill's apartment building. Then came the scene where Brad and Jill run inside a bar to get away from a horde of zombies. Brad is using the body to hold the door shut while Jill searches for an escape. Then a zombie suddenly bursts in through the door, grabbing hold of Brad and biting him. Jill helps fight the zombie off and now they're both trying to hold the doors closed while the zombies bang against it relentlessly. Brad looks her right in the eyes, and with a hint of sadness in his voice he asks "Are we still a team?" and without hesitation, Jill replies "Always". He then shoves Jill away from the door and yells after her "Go then, and don't fuck up like I did!" as she runs out the bar to the sounds of zombies smashing through the door.

​This surprising moment tugged on my heartstrings and got me thinking damn, Brad Vickers is a hero now. He fought against his deepest fears and faced them head-on, which one would say is the truest form of courage. Brad knew he messed up, knew what went on during the Mansion Incident and decided he would repent by sticking with Jill until the end. This ideal can be seen in action throughout the beginning of RE3. In Jill's apartment, you learn that Brad is keeping an eye on Jill and sneaking her notes via pizza delivery. He calls Jill on the phone to warn her to get out of town immediately. The phonecall is abruptly interrupted by a surprise Nemesis attack. You would have to assume Brad must have heard this since he was on the phone with her at the time. Once you escape the building and end up in the side alley, you can see Brad running towards the front entrance. He stops when he sees you in the alley and by the ensuing conversation you can tell that Brad has already encountered Nemesis, yet he was running to help Jill regardless. Some people may argue that Brad was simply running away and his encounter with Jill was by pure chance, but when the conversation with Brad ends, the two of them turn around and go back in the direction Brad was just seen running from. This detail would imply that Brad was only running this way to get to Jill. Shortly after this, a mass of zombies breaks through a barricade. Instead of running ahead without you, Brad waits by the bar entrance, making sure Jill gets inside first, slowing down the zombies by throwing a sign (a Darkstalkers-themed sign, no less) at the zombies in an attempt to slow them down, thus leading to his end.
 
Brad's actions here are a huge change from the original. While the first Nemesis game envisioned him as a man who had given himself over to fear completely and prone to impulsive flights of terror, I found that Resident Evil 3 painted him in a new light as a man who is cognizant of his past mistakes and refuses to make them all over again. In my opinion, this iteration of Brad goes from zero to hero and pulls off one of the most subtle character redemption arcs in gaming history.