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Time Egg Fixer
Jack Joyce
Jack Joyce
- Portrayed by: Shawn Ashmore
The main protagonist of the game, the estranged brother to William Joyce and former best friend to Paul Serene, his exposure to the Fracture grants him time manipulation powers, the death of his brother motivating his quest to stop the Fracture and save the world.
- Action Hero: He has received weapons training in Laos which explains why he can go toe-to-toe with Monarch's Mooks even before he becomes aware of how to use his powers for combat.
- Alliterative Name: Jack Joyce.
- Big Little Brother: Jack is at least one foot taller than Will despite being the younger brother.
- Big "NO!": He lets out a damn powerful one when Beth is killed in Act 4.
- Blatant Lies: At the end of Act 4, Ogawa asks him during the interview if Beth's death really had nothing to do with his attitude during the assault on Monarch that followed. Over the scene of him utterly breaking down, he says he "barely knew her" and it definitely had no affect on him. Even Ogawa doesn't seem convinced.
- Bring It: In Act 5, when he/the player has full control of his powers and is in Roaring Rampage of Revenge mode.Jack: (Upon being faced with two heavy missile mooks) Is that all you’ve got?!
- Delinquents: According to narrative objects you can pick up and read throughout the game, Jack has lived a rather troubled life. His parents were both killed in a car accident in Christmas of 1999 and his only known relative is his brother, Will Joyce, but after the death of his parents, the two started to become rather distant. After his parents died, he decided to raise himself as he became more and more distant to his brother. He has been arrested on numerous charges of grand theft auto, simple assault and theft attempts. He was also arrested in 2015 for weapons-related charges but the charges were dropped for an unknown reason.
- Determinator: No matter how much he sees otherwise, he simply refuses to accept that You Can't Fight Fate. The closest he comes is in act 5: while rescuing Will from the library in the past, a stutter occurs and he sees Beth. He considers freeing her to save her from her death later on, but doesn't. And he still says to her, "I'll come back for you."
- Empowered Badass Normal: When Monarch comes to get him from the university, he puts up far more of a fight than they were expecting, even before his powers fully manifest.
- The Hero: The main character of the game.
- Narrating the Present: Much of the game is narrated by him in an interview.
- One-Man Army: He single-handedly kills dozens of Monarch's Mooks throughout the game.
- Screw Destiny: Unlike Paul Serene, he believes that time isn't fixed and that things can be changed. He's mostly proven wrong throughout the story.
- Ship Tease: His behavior when encountering Beth in 2010 after her breakdown, strong reaction to her death shortly after, and telling her he will "come back" for her after finding her during a stutter in Act 5 all point to this being the case. Notably, he leaves the last one out during his interview with Ogawa.
- Personality Powers: Jack Joyce says Screw Destiny because he's a Time Master. This bring him into conflict with Paul Serene, who believes that "time is a closed loop" because he can see the future.
- Superhero: While not exactly advertised as such, writer and creator Sam Lake does note that Jack's control of time essentially makes him a modern-day superhero
and thinks of this game as being an origins story for him. - Superhero Packing Heat: Jack uses plenty of guns in addition to his time powers, with both given roughly equal prominence.
- The Dulcinea Effect: Maybe. Jack ultimately knows Beth Wilder for less than twenty-four hours, yet by the end of the game, her death has a strong effect on him and he is determined to change immutable time to save her from that fate.
- Time Master: Jack's power. It manifests itself in the form of six different abilities:
- Time Vision gives him a sort of radar sense, allowing him to sense the locations of his enemies, objectives, and objects of interest from a distance.
- Time Blast breaks time in a focused area with destructive results.
- Time Rush allows running while time is frozen, escaping mortal danger.
- Time Dodge is a quick dash out of harm’s way.
- Time Shield is a protective bubble that can deflect bullets.
- Time Stop freezes time in a focused area, including opponents and objects.
- Walking the Earth: Did this for a while in earlier years, before being called to the university at the start of the game.
- We Used to Be Friends: Paul used to be best friends with Jack until the time travel experiment went awry.
Allies
William Joyce
Doctor William Joyce
- Portrayed by: Dominic Monaghan
- Ambiguous Disorder: He doesn't always keep a clear train of thought (a lot of his explanations about time travel keep coming back to eggs, much to his chagrin) and he sometimes behaves oddly (to the point of correcting a physics equation while in the middle of running from Monarch soldiers), but he's very intelligent. A Monarch dossier speculates that he has some form of schizophrenia, but nothing certain is ever said.
- Disney Death: Is caught in an explosion at the start of the game. Thanks to the wonders of time travel, he was actually saved at the last moment by a future version of Jack.
- For Science!: His original reason for building time machines.
- Metaphorgotten: His explanations of the current crisis involves something about time being an egg, which is fucked.
- Never Found the Body: Invoked in the final act. While the rules of You Can't Fight Fate are established firmly in the story, William himself points out that nobody actually saw him die which left the door wide open for Jack's future self to step in and save him upon returning to the time of the Fracture.
- Poor Communication Kills: Much of the events of the game could have been avoided if he had just explained the situation to Jack and Paul instead of waving a gun around.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Will inhabits the middle ground of the Screw Destiny and You Can't Fight Fate argument; the past is already fixed, but the future can be changed.
- Teen Genius: Discovered chronon fields at the age of 19 and proceeded to build the world's first time machine.
Beth Wilder
Beth Wilder
- Portrayed by: Courtney Hope
- Action Girl: She's a Monarch security agent, though that's just a cover. Beth starting training herself for combat from a young age in preparation for the events of the game, which were foretold for her by a future version of herself.
- Badass Normal: Is a force to be reckoned with despite having no time powers herself.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: She and Liam take down a team of armed Monarch guards all by themselves.
- Despair Event Horizon: Beth gets hit with this hard after being sent to the End of Time by Dr. Amaral. Seeing proof that the End of Time was coming, and with it the certainty that it couldn't be stopped and everything she's been training for since her childhood was in vain makes her extremely jaded and hardened when Jack finds her in 2010. She does begin crossing back courtesy of Jack unrelenting drive to save the future, and then she dies.
- Fair Cop: She's a security agent and is very attractive.
- Mission Control: Spends much of the game helping Jack via radio offscreen, though she spends a fair amount of time with him in the field herself.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Becomes this after going back in time and having to relive the disasters of the past without being able to avert any of them.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Paul had the CFR the entire time, and all of Beth's efforts throughout the past eleven years served only to put the device right in his hands in the first place, and ultimately result in her death.
- The Smurfette Principle: She's the only female Monarch security officer seen in game, though she isn't the only meaningful female character in the entire cast of characters.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Gains this attitude over time as a result of her experiences, especially after traveling to the future and personally witnessing the End of Time, then going back and having to relive the past without being able to change it.
Amy Ferraro
Amy Ferraro
- Portrayed by: Ameila Rose Blaire
- Deadpan Snarker: In contrast to Nick Masters' Cloud Cuckoolander, this is the type of humor she provides.
- Defiant to the End: In the Hardline timeline.
- Giving Up on Logic: The reason why she decides to just roll with the whole Time Stands Still aspect of the entire story, along with Time Travel, is chocked up to this. She stopped caring about things making sense when she saw Jack use his time powers.
- He Knows Too Much / Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: She's killed off in the Hardline timeline for this reason.
- Smart Girl: She's much less scatterbrained than Nick and knows her way around computers enough to steal pretty much all of Monarch's sensitive data, and thus proves to be a more resourceful ally for Jack and Beth.
- Soapbox Sadie: She's described as such in Charlie's profile of her, though knowing Charlie, he may be exaggerating. It is known that she led the anti-Monarch protests at Riverport University that ended at the start of the game.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Her fate after Dr. Amaral alerts Monarch to the swimming pool time machine is unknown, though her final dialogue with Jack indicates she managed to escape before their arrival.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: If the PR timeline is chosen, Amy is spared to broadcast a fake confession. Despite this, Monarch soldiers still plan to dispose of her.
Nick Marsters
Nick Marsters
- Portrayed by: Sean Durrie
- Cloud Cuckoolander: In contrast to Amy Ferraro's Deadpan Snarker, this is the type of humor he provides.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Very fond of his theories, and has some pretty crazy ones about Monarch. He's apparently a commenter on a conspiracy theory forum where he goes by the name Blanch McDougal.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Turns out his theories about the number 01122 turn out to be at least partially correct, since it actually appears to be integral to a great many events in the game, not the least of which is the correct equation that would have prevented the time machine from creating the Fracture in the first place.
- Eating the Eye Candy: When Beth snarks that she works for Monarch because she "likes the way their pants fit", Nick swiftly agrees with her.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Jack remarks on how well he appears to be taking the paranormal happenings of the game. Given that he's a nutty Conspiracy Theorist, he probably expected something like time travel to be real.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- His fate after Dr. Amaral alerts Monarch to the swimming pool time machine is unknown, though his final dialogue with Jack indicates he managed to escape before their arrival.
- If Amy is spared, Nick never appears at all in the game after the first act and his whereabouts is unknown.
Fiona Miller
Fiona Miller
- Portrayed by: Mimi Michaels
- Heroic BSoD: After Charlie doublecrosses her and Liam to get back in Hatch's good graces, Fiona attempts to contact Beth to tell her the mission failed, only to get no response because Beth is dead. She gets better when Jack tells her about the countermeasure.
- Morality Pet: Eventually becomes this to Charlie after he finds out about the End of Time and the Lifeboat, along with the Countermeasure.
- The Mole: Is infiltrating Monarch to find a solution to the Fracture.
Monarch Solutions
In General
"Time | The final frontier"
A tech organization at the head of research regarding Chronon energy, its applications and its relation to the End of Time.
- Butterfly of Doom: Its icon evokes that of a Monarch butterfly. Since its founder survived a Time Crash that Monarch Solution's technology set-off, this might have been deliberate.
- MegaCorp: They're a private institution with seemingly endless funding and manpower and behaves as though it's above the law.
- Non-Governmental Organization: Its subsidiary — Monarch Security — acts more like an occupying army, marching into any situation with extreme hostility, even willing to capture and kill witnesses to any of Monarch's shady dealings (should the player choose to, anyway).
Paul Serene
Paul Serene
- Portrayed by: Aidan Gillen
- Anti-Villain: Depending on which junctions the player chooses, Paul can become much less ruthless in his actions.
- Ax-Crazy: Depending on which junctions the player chooses, Paul can go completely off the deep and as a result of his untreated Chronon Syndrome, he ends up killing Sofia Amaral the only person who could've helped him, loses faith in the lifeboat project, declares everyone involved in it to be a traitor out of sheer paranoia and decides to destroy the countermeasure for no apparent reason other than to spite Jack.
- Big Bad: He's the head of Monarch Solutions and his You Can't Fight Fate attitude is the reason he refuses to accept that the Fracture can be fixed, putting him in direct conflict with Jack.
- Flash Step: Sometimes likes doing this when he wants to prove a point.
- Icy Blue Eyes: To match his calm and detached demeanor.
- Knight Templar: Depending on which junctions the player chooses, Paul can become absolutely unfettered in his quest to save the world at any cost.
- Large Ham: He tends to get very loud if he's pissed off.
- Narrating the Present: Talks about the current situation and his visions during junctions.
- Never Found the Body: He is briefly resuscitated after being killed by Jack in the final battle when the Joyce brothers activate the CFR, but is stopped when they finish using it to stop the Fracture, but as Will points out, he has disappeared, indicating he may not have died but become a Shifter.
- Personality Powers / Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Paul Serene believes that "time is a closed loop" because he can see the future, in contrast to Jack Joyce who says Screw Destiny because he's a Time Master.
- Rousing Speech: In the "Control" junction, he delivers one to Lifeboat passengers."My friends, we've changed things — the world, the universe. We're the first beings powerful enough to undo the very fabric we're part of. And now, we must believe we are powerful enough to set things straight again. We've all made sacrifices. We have ALL made sacrifices, but we're not just here to work for ourselves; we're here for our families, for mankind, to change history, to make history, right here, right now. I have some other matters to attend to so I will not be with you, but I know you will succeed."
- Sanity Slippage: The Chronon Syndrome is slowly eroding his sanity and is making him irrational and prone to bursts of anger and paranoia. His sanity all but vanishes if the player chooses the "Surrender" junction.
- Seers: His time powers extend to this.
- Ship Tease: It's not so subtly implied that he and Sofia Amaral have feelings for one another. It becomes more pronounced if the player chooses the "Trust Sofia" and "Control" junctions.
- Silver Fox: Pre-Fracture Paul doesn't have a gray hair in sight. Future!Paul, however, has a full head of it, and age has been kind to him.
- Time Master: To an even greater degree than Jack, his time manipulation powers are the same but far more powerful than Jack's and he can see into the future while Jack cannot. In the final encounter with Jack he is shown making time shockwaves which can kill him very quickly if he doesn't outrun them.
- Villainous Breakdown: In the "Surrender" choice, he loses all composure and decides to just let the end come without trying to save anyone, all to spite Jack, on account of his growing chronon sickness.
- You Can't Fight Fate: He views the universe as deterministic, everything that happened (or will happen) cannot be changed, and he has the proof to back it up as his attempts to prevent the future from happening only ensured to make it happen in the first place.
Martin Hatch
Martin Hatch
- Portrayed by: Lance Reddick
- And I Must Scream: His first evolution to a shifter is described as very excruciating. He was saved from his agony by the Time Crash, which might explain why he wants to sabotage attempts to stop it."I too became chronon active. I too developed Chronon Syndrome. And in time, I too lost control and became a shifter, became at once everything and nothing, was everywhere and nowhere, died countless deaths and was still alive, my every probability, every possibility happening at once.
"[...]the noise and the pain and the rage were more than anyone could suffer and not go insane. I burned in this fire a long time. There were brief moments of awareness in this endless nightmare - different versions of certain key moments in my life that I found myself reliving again and again. Trying to make things right. Like a puzzle. On and on and on." - Affably Evil: Can appear to be this depending on your choices during Junctions.
- Bad Boss: Is very quick to send his own employees to their deaths or even kill them himself in pursuit of his enigmatic objectives. An employee email in the Control timeline even compares him to Darth Vader.
- The Dragon: Mostly serves as Paul Serene's right-hand man and advisor, sometimes dealing with situations personally depending on the choices you make during Junctions.
- Dragon with an Agenda: Joyce finds evidence throughout the game that Hatch is plotting against Serene to take control of Monarch, although the exact reason why is unknown."This world you know, this world is ending! But one world's end is merely another's beginning. My world will bring renewal. My world will see balance!"
- Greater-Scope Villain: He's mastered his time manipulation abilities to such an extent that he can go anywhere, in anytime, in any timeline. His motives are extremely vague, and possibly incomprehensible, but it has something to do with ensuring the End of Time and evolving humanity beyond its current limitations. Given his Untitled Note, he also seems to be concerned with avoiding feeling the same agony he once did."I am convinced that the stutters and the End of Time saved me. For those were the only places, the only times, where I could even briefly stop and rest and slowly find focus and control again..."
- Humanoid Abomination: Is eventually revealed to be a Shifter, a being that exists both everywhere and nowhere, like a Schrodinger's Cat.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: At the very start of the game, turn around to find him standing under a streetlight. After a brief conversation, he will disappear once you move the camera off him and back.
- The Unfought: Only from a gameplay perspective, where he gives Jack a few jump scares in his Shifter form but doesn't really attack him for reasons that become obvious later. But technically speaking, he does give Liam Burke a tough boss fight in the final live action segment.
- Was Once a Man: Became a Shifter after finding a naturally-occurring time machine in a cave, or so he claims.
Sofia Amaral
Doctor Sofia Amaral
- Portrayed by: Jacqueline Pinol
- Asshole Victim: For sabotaging the time machine which led Beth to the End of Time and to the past where she gets killed by Paul, no one sheds a tear for Amaral when Paul murders her under the belief that she has betrayed him to join forces with Jack, should the player chooses to trust Hatch than her.
- Character Death: If the player chooses the "Trust Hatch" junction and/or the "Surrender" junction, she ends up getting either strangled or bludgeoned with a paperweight to death courtesy of an unhinged paranoid Paul.
- Ignored Expert: Despite continually providing evidence to Serene that the End of Time is going to occur much sooner than he predicted, he ignores her. Should he choose to trust Amaral over Hatch, he comes to agree with her conclusions and activates Lifeboat early.
- Ship Tease: It's not so subtly implied that she and Paul Serene have feelings for one another. It becomes more pronounced if the player chooses the "Trust Sofia" and "Control" junctions.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Sincerely believes that the only way to save the world is through Lifeboat and that any other option is doomed to fail.
Clarice Ogawa
Commander Clarice Ogawa
- Portrayed by: Jeannie BoletVoiced by: Jules de Jongh
- Mission Control: Has been overseeing Monarch's operations and deployments for years. Jack hears her nearly constantly giving orders over the radio.
- Narrating the Present: The entire story is narrated in-world through Jack's answers to her questions in an interview.
Charlie Wincott
Charlie Wincott
- Portrayed by: Marshall Allman
- Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: In the final FMV segment, if the Control Junction was chosen Charlie attempts to convince Liam to help Jack and Fiona. Liam, delirious from injuries and not inclined to trust someone who has already betrayed him twice, gives him the business end of his gun. Charlie is shot... not by Liam, but by Hatch. A closer examination of this scene shows Liam nervously lowering his weapon before Hatch slams the door on them both.
- Dirty Coward: Charlie will ally himself with anyone who will ensure his safety and survival. During his Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with Liam and Fiona, he betrays them several times to save his own skin. He does eventually get better, though.
- Hollywood Hacking: Employs a lot of it during the live-action scenes.
- Jerkass: Nobody really enjoys working with him because of his bitter and vindictive personality, but they put up with him because he's a really good hacker. Fiona says she could barely stand pretending to date him to try and break into Monarch's R&D's facility.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: What he ultimately turns out to be when he decides to help Jack Joyce, and also secures Fiona a space in the Lifeboat while he goes to assist.
- Insufferable Genius: See Jerkass.
- No Social Skills: Is lost in the middle of a social gathering and would have preferred to spend time by himself were it not for Fiona convincing him to attend.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gets one from Fiona after selling Liam out to Carlos, one of Hatch's thugs. She also slugs him.
- Redemption Equals Death: In the Control junction, he is killed by Hatch while trying to help Fiona and Jack.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: For Monarch. Spends an entire portion early on directing Mooks in a chase scene.
- Workaholic: According to Fiona.
Liam Burke
Liam Burke
- Portrayed by: Patrick Heusinger
- Alas, Poor Villain: While he could not really be considered a villain by this point in the story, Jack laments Liam as an unnecessary casualty of Serene's lies and manipulation after their fight.Jack: Seeing that face put it into perspective. They were all misled, manipulated into believing they were doing what was right.Clarice: Liam Burke made his choice.
- Ambiguous Disorder: Implied to be a Shell-Shocked Veteran, e-mails where Hatch bullies Liam's therapist into releasing his psych evaluation can be found during gameplay.
- Anti-Villain: Type IV. Only works for Monarch because violence was all he was good at, and dislikes having to kill.
- Badass Normal: Takes down loads of Monarch Mooks despite having no time powers himself.
- Dented Iron: In Act 3 he's shot by Carlos, one of Hatch's thugs. He gets a Heroic Second Wind and kills Carlos, but throughout Act 4 (and the showdown with Jack if the Control junction was chosen), he's showing the signs of delirium associated with blood loss.
- Don't Make Me Destroy You: Jack and Liam's pre-fight banter amounts to this, as neither really wants to kill the other.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Other Monarch grunts resent him because of his status as high command's Golden Boy. And after his Face turn, Beth still doesn't entirely trust him due to his instability.
- Heel–Face Turn: His primary character arc. Though in the Control junction, he still ends up fighting Jack due to Serene's manipulations.
- Morality Pet: Beth, who gets him to turn against Monarch. His wife is more like a Living Emotional Crutch.
- Papa Wolf: In addition to fighting for his wife, he also fights for the life of his unborn child.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Only works for Monarch for lack of an alternative.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: After sacrificing his career to help Beth and risking his life to save his family, Liam is either manipulated by Serene into making a suicidal last stand against Jack (Control) or coldly gunned down by Hatch (Surrender).
- Worf Had the Flu: In the timeline where he fights Jack, he's already wounded by the time they meetnote . This leaves him slightly more of a threat than the average Striker, but not as much as the live-action episodes suggest he would be if he were in top shape.
- Workaholic: His job consumes much of his life, leaving little time to spend with his wife.
- Uncertain Doom: During his fight with Jack in the Control ending, his Chronon harness is damaged, leaving him frozen in a stutter. Consequently, it is unclear if he is actually dead, though given the injuries he sustained prior to that point, it doesn't look good for him.
Brenner
Brenner
- Portrayed by: Matt Orlando
- Audience Surrogate: Is pretty much there just to prompt Charlie into explaining things to the audience.
- The Everyman
Henry Kim
Dr. Henry Kim
A doctor who was working on the Chronon experiments before his death forced Paul to involve Will in his research.
- Humanoid Abomination: Like Martin Hatch, he is a shifter. Unlike him, he doesn't seem to be capable of regaining his human form.
- Not Quite Dead: He never actually died. Instead, his research exposed him to a large amount of Chronon particles, and he has been kept imprisoned in a timeless chamber as a shifter.
Other Characters
Emily Burke
Emily Burke
- Portrayed by: Brooke Nevin
- Damsel in Distress: Used as a hostage in one scene.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Liam says she is this for him, especially due to his day job.
- The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Thinks Liam is just a field manager, and is upset when she discovers his true line of work.Emily: I thought I knew who he was.Serene: None of us ever know who we are.
