Prime Hall, Don Tran and Rick Briere all served together in the 1st Raider Battalion — a Marine Corps special operations unit that traces its origins back to World War II. Now, they’ve been reimagined as playable characters in the latest season of the popular first-person shooter, “Battlefield 6.”
The three former Raiders appear as playable avatars, which function as cosmetic “skins,” and are part of the game’s second season, dubbed Nightfall. The latest add-on brings in a new group of characters as part of a special operations force called the Strix Raiders. In universe, the team is brought in by NATO to help defend a base housing the alliance’s satellite operations center.
The Strix Raiders are modeled on, and physically played by the three Marine veterans, who appear as Douglas Pham, for Tran, Atticus Moore, for Briere, and Rob Brooke for Hall.
Hall, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2005 and served until medical retirement in 2017, including seven years with Marine Corps Special Operations Command, talked to Task & Purpose about how the three ended up in the latest season of “Battlefield 6.”
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Hall said that the opportunity came from work they were doing in Deep End Fitness, an underwater physical training program they developed to help with conditioning and mental performance. They connected with the game developers and found they were “aligned” with what the game makers were looking for in military authenticity, Hall said.
“It is also meaningful to see Marine Raiders represented more broadly,” Hall said. “Representing that lineage and history is something we take seriously.”
As such, the three Marines had to don motion capture gear and physically play the characters. They also worked with the developers in planning how the characters would maneuver and the tactics they would employ, in an effort to keep things grounded.
“It was about translating real-world habits into a digital environment. Posture, efficiency, how you carry yourself under pressure,” Hall said. “The small details are what make something believable. Not just how it looks, but how it feels.”
That kind of authenticity in gameplay helps build a connection with players, he said. And it’s something that gamers who also happen to be service members or vets will appreciate as well.
Though not a “hardcore gamer” himself, Hall said he appreciated the attention given to getting the small details right.
“If you portray high-stakes environments, you should also reflect the human side. The pressure, the decisions, the consequences, Hall said. “There is a difference between glorifying something and representing it with respect. That line matters.”
