If you’ve only played the main series Resident Evil games, you’ll likely wonder who Jack Krauser is and how he knows Leon. When the original Resident Evil 4 was released, Krauser was introduced and given a whole backstory with Leon that happened offscreen. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be until Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles released in 2009 that we’d get to see what happened to him in Operation Javier. However, things got a bit more complicated with the remake since it retcons some of the details of his past.
Who is Jack Krauser, and did his story get retconned in Resident Evil 4 remake?
The Resident Evil 4 remake retconned Krauser’s story to make it significantly easier for players to empathize with him.
In the original canon, he was paired with Leon on Operation: Javier and sent to take down a drug lord in South America that was selling Bio-Organic Weapons. During the mission, Javier becomes jealous of Leon’s favored status with the US government and feels brushed aside despite the fact he was an elite USSOCOM soldier.
Eventually, Krauser becomes obsessed with gaining more power and thinks that the right path is harnessing the virus to become stronger. While fighting Javier, Krauser is injured, and his arm is permanently damaged. After the operation, Krauser fakes his death and becomes one of Wesker’s agents. He’s sent to infiltrate the Los Iluminados and steal a sample of Dominant Plaga. He manages to gain Saddler’s confidence, but impressed by the power of the Plaga; he ingests the sample given to him.
On Saddler’s behalf, Krauser kidnaps Ashley to aid in his scheme to use her to spread the Plagas to the US. However, Saddler never fully trusts him, and he’s forced to call in Ada Wong to assist in his mission. He attempts to chase down Leon and obtain another Dominant Plaga specimen but is defeated. Wesker eventually obtained the sample he desired from Krauser’s corpse.
In Resident Evil 4 remake, Krauser is described as being a mentor to Leon. Instead of him and Leon participating in Operation Javier (which is described as a “mission to eradicate the drug cartels”), it was Krauser and a whole unit of special forces soldiers. However, something went wrong, and the only survivor was Krauser, whose arm was injured. Apparently, Leon heard about what happened during the operation but wasn’t a part of it.
Krauser implies that his unit was killed because the US government refused to evacuate them. As a result, Krauser desires revenge and seeks out a way to do so. Eventually, he fakes his death and joins the Los Illuminados. In this version, it’s implied he’s the mastermind behind Ashley’s kidnapping instead of Saddler. In the remake, it isn’t implied that he’s working with Wesker or Ada either. His desire for the Plaga seems solely centered around taking revenge for his massacred men.
