Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix has worn its love of video games on its sleeve, bringing in quite a few characters created by Ubisoft into this world. While the animated series from creator Adi Shankar has its fair share of “blink and you’ll miss them” Easter Eggs, several familiar faces joined Dolph Laserhawk’s deadly mission. With the series now on Netflix, now seems like the perfect time to break down some of the biggest references to the video game medium that appeared in the show.
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Earlier this month, we here at ComicBook.com had the opportunity to talk with the show’s creator when it came to how the series worked when it came to bringing in Ubisoft characters, “The process was totally intuitive. This process was not forced but rather felt like a natural exploration and documentation of an already-existing alternate reality. There was a world unfolding in my head and I was transcribing what I was experiencing. The unfolding story of this alternative universe playing out in my head, allowed the narrative and character choices to be guided by a creative flow rather than a structured decision-making process.”
Have you had the chance to binge through Captain Laserhawk on Netflix? What was your favorite easter egg of the series? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of Dolph Laserhawk.
DedSec & Marcus Holloway
The organization known as “DedSec” is referenced quite a bit in Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix. Marcus Holloway also makes an appearance as a major supporting character, paying homage to the franchise known as Watchdogs. When DeadSec made its presence known in this recent animated series, they might exist in a far future but you can see several of the members, such as Holloway, were ripped straight from the Watchdogs series and given some updates looks for their new locales.
Beyond Good And Evil
Beyond Good And Evil has a passionate fanbase, and while the sequel might still be in limbo at this point, it’s clear that Captain Laserhawk remembered the main characters from the original game. Both the main characters, Jade and Pey’j, join Dolph’s crew as convicts attempting to fulfill a mission to secure their freedom. What might come as surprising is the fate of this duo considering their popularity in the video game community. Like DedSec, Jade and Pey’j are far different from their original iterations.
Rayman’s Breaking Bad Adventure
Rayman is a pretty big family-friendly mascot for Ubisoft so seeing him here as a hard-drinking, cocaine-snorting, terrorist in training is quite the departure from how he’s been portrayed in his video games. The grand finale gives Rayman an ending that can be seen as an homage to Walter White and how his tale drew to a close in Breaking Bad. While not being a part of Dolph’s crew from the very beginning, Rayman has quite the heartfelt journey as he struggles from being the face of oppression to attempting to bring down society thanks to his status as a being from another dimension.
Ubisoft’s Crazy Taxi
While this is never mentioned flat out like Rayman, the Rabbids, and/or Sam Fischer from Splinter Cell, it’s clear that Captain Laserhawk was harkening back to Sega’s Crazy Taxi with one of its wild set-ups. While the prisons of this futuristic dystopia tout that they aim to rehabilitate its prisoners, they instead have them operate robots to drive taxis and vehicles in the guise of artificial intelligence using virtual reality headsets. From the footage seen, it’s clear that the Far Cry series was paying homage to Crazy Taxi with how the nightmarish interface displayed.
Rainbow Six Ninjas
The Niji 6 appear as some of the strongest opponents in Dolph Laserhawk’s way and while they might not exactly make appearances in the Rainbow Six games, it’s clear that these “Power Ranger” style characters were given their name for a reason. The scene in question also is able to give viewers a scene that transitions into a 2-D pixel art style similar to that of Contra, showing how the Netflix series hasn’t been shy about presenting different animation styles to help offer fresh takes on the story they told.
Splinter Cell’s Sam Fischer
Sam Fisher makes a surprising appearance here, having quite the connection with the warden that saw Dolph Laserhawk and his new allies sent on their deadly mission. In a very unexpected scene, we see Sam linking up with DedSec and the resistance fighters there, crossing worlds that many never expected to see share a space. Like so many other characters that appear in this Blood Dragon Remix, Sam is given a makeover to better fit into the futuristic landscape than how he appeared in the Splinter Cell series.
