Sundowner

"Like I said, kids are cruel, Jack. And I'm very in touch with my inner child."

- Sundowner

Sundowner was a cyborg mercenary who served as the unofficial leader of the PMSC Desperado Enforcement LLC. during their activities in 2018, as well as a member of the Winds of Destruction, alongside Mistral and Monsoon. His name was derived from the wind condition that occurs in Southern California. Donning a specialized custom cyborg body, the immense Sundowner wielded two high-frequency machetes known as "Bloodlust." In addition, the two machetes could also be merged into a scissors-like contraption to cause further damage to the enemy. His cyborg serial number is 978-AZQEE.

Early career
Sundowner was born in Alabama to a poor family. Although he had decent grades throughout school and was described as being a solid student, he never had the money to go to college, so he served in the military instead and participated in the Invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, and Afghanistan. By 2008, he dropped out of official military service and served as a mercenary for various PMCs up to and during the advent of SOP. He also had a habit of leaving a lot of blood from his enemies, enough to make it look like the sunset, hence why he had the codename "Sundowner." He was also forced out of the battlefield for a few years after being hit with an IED, although he regained participation shortly after gaining a cyborg body. He also ended up investigated by the U.S. Army for links to war crimes more than once, including the desecration of remains, torturing POWs, and causing unethical deaths on the battlefield, although he was never actually convicted. At some point in 2018, Sundowner had the LQ-84i prototype reactivated, apparently because he saw the humor in a machine having more concern for his fellow man than "an actual fellow man," although he quickly grew tired of it. After SOP was shut down in 2014, and the war economy waned along with it, he was unhappy because he felt participating in war and fanning it was his livelihood.

Africa
During his PMSC activities, Sundowner had arrived to capture the African Prime Minister, N'mani, with the intention of killing him in order to ensure that Africa descends into war once again. After Desperado's RAY arrived and attacked with a plasma cannon, flipping over the Prime Minister's limo, he attacked N'mani's bodyguards as they were attempting to help out the Prime Minister. He cut one up to pieces with both of his Bloodlust machetes, and the other he decapitated by turning the machetes into shears after disarming him. He then grabbed the Prime Minister, and was then confronted by Raiden, whom he recognized as Jack. After explaining his motivations, he assured Raiden that he'll spare the prime minister "while he's still useful" before making his escape. Sundowner drew Bloodlust but instead of fighting Raiden, set RAY on him. After Raiden defeated the RAY unit, Sundowner led Raiden on a pursuit, but got away after the still operational RAY attacked Raiden once more. Eventually, he was surrounded by several Maverick personnel. However, he managed to escape by jumping on to a passing train, completing a rendezvous with Samuel Rodrigues. Raiden just barely managed to board it as well and after his arrival, Sundowner cited that N'mani's usefulness had long been expended. Sundowner proceeded to cut N'mani's throat, strangle him, and after releasing him from his chains, impaled him through the back. Sundowner then let N'mani's body fall off the train near the tracks. Throughout all of this, he also got into a rant about how war had its benefits. He then made his escape via his tiltrotor, allowing Sam to fight Raiden. After Sam defeated Raiden, he sent the tiltrotor to extract him.

Mexico Investigation
Sundowner was not present during the investigation of the lab by Maverick. He did, however, visit the lab alongside Colorado Senator Steven Armstrong, the financial backer and unofficial CEO of World Marshal Inc., just a day prior to Maverick's arrival, to inspect the progress of the brain surgeries on kidnapped children for cyborgs as part of the Sears Program. He told the head scientist to hurry up with the brain removals and shipments before the lab's cover was blown, as he cited that his work was tardied and that there was an NGO investigating the sewers for the lab.

Raid at World Marshal HQ
Sundowner secretly observed Raiden as he made his way to World Marshal's HQ building in Denver, Colorado. After Raiden entered the building upon killing Monsoon, Sundowner contacted Raiden to congratulate him on killing Monsoon, and told him to "go wild." Raiden and Doktor managed to trace his call to the server room, and deduced that he was most likely lying in wait for Raiden. Eventually, Sundowner encountered Raiden at the server room. He explained his views that humanity at its core is cruel down to childhood, and explained that the Sears Program adopted VR training instead of the real thing since it ran into problems. He also hinted that even if Raiden saved all the brain casings, he won't stop their plan. Even at Mach 2 speeds, Raiden would not stop the event in under three hours that would reignite the War on Terror. Sundowner, not wishing to ruin the inventory of cranium canisters in their inevitable fight, then lured Raiden to the heliport on top of the HQ, and commenced a final duel with him using all available tools in his arsenal.

Eventually sensing that Raiden would win, Sundowner grabbed onto a Hammerhead after falling off the side of the HQ and fired missles at Raiden in a last ditch attempt to take him down. He succeeded in blasting Raiden off the building, but Raiden hijacked a nearby slider mid-fall and rode it back up to the HQ's roof. Raiden then threw the slider at Sundowner's Hammerhead and destroyed it, blasted Sundowner into the air and giving Raiden the opportunity to finish him off.

Prior to death, after praising Raiden for defeating him, he revealed that the event was called Operation Tecumseh although he did not elaborate any further as to what it was, and called Sam, telling him that it was all up to him. After Sundowner was defeated, his Bloodlust weapon was later copied after careful analysis of his battle data.

Personality and traits
Sundowner is best described as a blood-thirsty warrior, constantly desiring conflict and bloodshed, even openly referring to himself as a warmonger when meeting Raiden. Owing to his warrior-like nature, he frequently makes extremely graphic threats to his enemies when battling them, such as claiming that he'll "bathe in [his enemy's] blood." He showed his anger at the fact that the war economy had depleted significantly calling it his livelihood and told N'mani that war had brought humanity jobs, technology and a purpose. Sundowner had a very pessimistic view on humanity. His mentality was that of a classical realist, in which he believed that humans are inherently cruel and violent, only contradicting this violent nature through age due to the accumulated knowledge and morals learned over time. It is implied that his views stemmed from his rough childhood from a poor family.

When encountering Raiden, he commented that his group only acted as suppliers for war, as they did not create the environment that required their services before mockingly asking Raiden if every battle that ever happened was "all part of some big ol' conspiracy." He then stated that he liked child soldiers because kids could be molded into committing all sorts of atrocities, and that atrocities were effective fuels for wars. Sundowner displayed a sadistic streak, evidenced by his reaction to harming N'mani and his decapitation of one of N'mani's bodyguards as well as his claim to Raiden that he took pleasure in killing soldiers and laughs before he added "civilians" to that statement. Prior to fighting Raiden, Sundowner told him that he was "very well in touch" with his inner-child after relating to him that children can be crueler than any adult.

During his fight with Raiden he had a shield to protect himself claiming that he was invincible and that Raiden cannot destroy his shield. Sometimes, he even tried to bait Raiden into making contact with his shield's explosive reactive armor layering. Sundowner also had a penchant for fighting dirty, or desired the destruction of his opponents so much that he simply did not have any qualms against being provided with backup support from his subordinates. During his final fight with Raiden, he frequently had backup from the Hammerhead helicopters at all times while fighting Raiden, knocking down and swinging lamp posts at Raiden as part of "battlefield acquisition," and even ended up having one of the Hammerheads pick him up and fire missiles at the helipad just after Raiden knocked him off the ledge.

He enjoyed causing death and destruction as he describes that he is simply adhering to his inner nature. Sundowner showed glee at the fact that something that would rival 9/11 would occur. He didn't seem to care about whether he died in battle or not, as evidenced by his call to Raiden after being defeated, where he congratulates Raiden for brutally slaughtering him. He can, however, end up shocked when he doesn't anticipate the exact method of defeat that he'll face, as evidenced by his reaction to Raiden's actions of throwing a Slider at his chopper, just seconds before his death.

During combat, Sundowner was shown to be very coarse in his language, which is evidenced by his usage of the word "fuck," either in reference to his shield making him effectively invincible, or when angrily telling Raiden not to underestimate him during his fight with him atop World Marshal HQ.

Sam and Sundowner seemed to have been well-acquainted as implied by the casual tone of their conversation, most notably after Sundowner's defeat in which the two had conversed about Raiden's strength with Sundowner sarcastically laughing off at Sam's joke. After his defeat, he recognized Raiden's prowess, descibing him as "real good" while remarking that Sam would get his "wish" of having a worthy battle with Raiden.

When he was not undergoing combat instances that require weapons, he wore a trenchcoat that was matte black with red on the bottom. In addition, his custom cyborg body could mount six shield-like platforms in the sockets on his back. These shields were explosive reactive armor that could repel attacks and gave him a slightly similar appearance to a Japanese shogun. His most relied upon weapon, however, were a pair of high-frequency machete blades that could also form into a shears-like contraption, called "Bloodlust". Dubbed as pincer blades when used as a single weapon, they acted as Sundowner's signature weapon whenever he was fighting at his peak. The blades were also of the exact same length between the both of them, causing Boris to speculate that he fought in the Chinese style of swordfighting. In addition, Boris also speculated that his use of their combined form was because Sundowner's style was self-taught.

Behind the scenes
Sundowner (サンダウナー Sandaunā) first appeared in the E3 2012 trailer for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, which fans saw early on May 31/June 1, as part of Konami's pre-E3 show. His name was revealed in the September 2012 Famitsu issue, and his role was expanded in the TGS story trailer. He was voiced in the English version by Crispin Freeman, who previously did bit roles in the series. Freeman voiced him with a heavy Southern accent.

The late January 2013 issue of the Chinese version of Famitsu, a scan of which had been leaked earlier, depicting Metal Gear Rising coverage focused on Sundowner as well as the Jack the Ripper element of the game. In addition, some screenshots in the same scan have him fighting Raiden while the latter was enveloped in a red aura, hinting that Raiden would fight Sundowner while in his reemerged Jack the Ripper persona.

Sundowner's boss theme is "Red Sun." Its lyrics contain savage and violent imagery praising battle and carnage.

If the player replays the Sundowner boss fight with the Pincer blades equipped, charging the Pincer blades on Sundowner's remains will knock them off the building.

During Sundowner's rant in Chapter R-00, he says, "All we are saying... is give war a chance!" This is a paraphrase from a lyric from John Lennon's song "Give Peace a Chance."

Sundowner's choice of weapon, the pincer blades, was added into his character because director Kenji Saito was very fond of an old role-playing game where one character used a large one-handed scissor weapon, and also felt that it fit Sundowner's character. His character design was also based on a heavily armored samurai.

Although the player can optionally defeat Sundowner without removing all his shielding first, the immediate cutscene will still show Sundowner with his combined pincerblades and visor.

As of the Blade Wolf DLC, Sundowner is one of only two bosses of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance to not make an appearance in one of the DLC side stories (Jetstream and Blade Wolf), the other being Metal Gear Excelsus. Sundowner is, however, given a brief mention by Mistral in the Blade Wolf DLC.