Prologue
A tape is shown of several test trials for the Respawn Machine, a device capable of bringing back humans after death. In each trial, the revived test subject begins displaying severe side effects.On October 31st, 1968, Fritz Ludwig, a Medic mercenary for Builders League United, or BLU, is sleeping in his office. He has a nightmare of a man shrouded in black and wearing a plague doctor's mask entering his office. As the man approaches him, Fritz is awakened by the arrival of Jeremy, BLU's Scout, for his check-up. As Fritz checks on Jeremy, the TV in the background broadcasts news of the kidnapping of Jules Archibald, a BLU executive and governor of New Mexico. Jeremy tells Fritz he's been having nightmares recently and feels as though he's being watched. Fritz assures Jeremy that he's just being paranoid and gives him a bottle of Valium to take. As he offers to take Jeremy home, Jeremy complains about being laid off and warns Fritz not to let BLU push him around. As they leave, a box containing several of Fritz's VHS tapes falls, and Jeremy takes one of the tapes before leaving.
Chapter One: Graveyard Shift
Jane Doe, BLU's Soldier, is sitting in a car when he notices a figure staring at him. As he grabs a gun, Jacques Morneau, BLU's former Spy now turned detective investigating Archibald's disappearance, appears and instructs Jane to stay in the car while he goes to meet with someone. When Jane turns back to the figure, it has disappeared.In a nearby alley, Morneau confronts the Heavy of Reliable Excavation Demolition, or RED, BLU's rival company. He questions the Russian man about Archibald's disappearance, but he claims to know nothing. When Morneau asks about the briefcase the Heavy is carrying, he attacks Morneau. Jane listens to police radio chatter about a stolen hearse. As he goes out to smoke, he notices the hearse park next to him. Jane's attention is drawn to the fight happening in the alley, where he intervenes and shoots the Heavy dead. Annoyed at this outcome, Morneau has Jane fetch his camera. While inspecting the briefcase, the Undertaker, the same figure in Fritz's nightmare, appears and knocks Morneau out before taking the briefcase.
Chapter Two: "Dinner's Ready!"
As Fritz and Jeremy drive to Jeremy's house, Jeremy, who previously had an accident with the Respawn Machine, asks Fritz about the previous accidents he's witnessed with it. Fritz explains that the Respawn Machine sometimes does not function properly, and the last accident he saw was so traumatic he refuses to go into detail. Arriving at Jeremy's house, Jeremy invites Fritz to come inside, but Fritz declines. Jeremy enters his house, unaware of the hearse parked outside. In his living room, Jeremy is watching the tape he took from Fritz's office when his phone rings. Answering it, he hears a recording of the conversation he had prior with Fritz, which disturbs him. Turning to his side, he sees his mother's decapitated head and an axe-wielding man in his house. Fritz decides to go back to Jeremy's house and sees that the door is unlocked. Entering Jeremy's house, he finds the living room in disarray and Jeremy gone. Going further inside, Fritz is taken aback by the sight of Jeremy's mother's dead body and the letter M drawn on the wall. When someone starts knocking on the door, Fritz faints.Jane and Morneau discuss the contents of Heavy's briefcase and its possible connections to Archibald's kidnapping. Jane uses the radio to trick one of the police cars into pursuing the hearse. When the cop confronts the Undertaker, he is killed, prompting Morneau and Jane to go to the crime scene.
Fritz awakens in his office with his hands bloodied. As he washes his hands, an unknown figure slides an envelope underneath his door. The envelope consists of a key and several photos secretly taken of Jeremy. When Fritz's phone rings, he answers it and hears the conversation Jeremy had with him at his office. Looking up, he sees the words "CONAGHER SLAUGHTERHOUSE" written on the wall.
Chapter Thee: Intel Hell
Morneau, Jane, and several police officers investigate the scene at Jeremy's house. Interviewing an injured police officer, the cop tells Morneau that he saw the culprit drive away in an ambulance. Finding a bloodied hacksaw, Morneau and Jane decide to go to Fritz's office.Fritz arrives at Conagher Slaughterhouse, and as he crosses the bridge to the entrance, it collapses behind him. Meanwhile, Morneau and Jane arrive at Fritz's office and begin to investigate it. When Fritz's phone rings, Jane answers it, and a recording of Fritz asks him who he is. Believing this to be Fritz proper, Jane threatens to find and kill him.
With the entrance of the slaughterhouse closed off, Fritz climbs onto an elevated floor and goes inside. Once in, the entrance behind him closes, and a large, imposing figure exits from a nearby elevator and chases him. Fritz manages to evade his pursuer and escapes into the basement of the slaughterhouse. In the basement, he hears noises coming from a chained-up coffin. Using the key from the envelope, he unlocks the coffin and finds a bound Jeremy. As Fritz frees Jeremy, Jeremy suddenly attacks Fritz and acts unusually hostile towards him. As he runs away, he is shot and injured by a sentry gun built by Maynard Conagher, an Engineer. Maynard's brother, Zed, takes Jeremy away to torture him.
Morneau and Jane arrive at Conagher Slaughterhouse. Noticing the collapsed bridge, Morneau initially wants to call for backup, but Jane instead retrieves a rocket launcher from the trunk of Morneau's car, where he plans to rocket jump over the moat. Annoyed, Morneau knocks the rocket launcher out of Jane's hands, causing a stray rocket to destroy his car. When the two are shot at, Jane grabs Morneau and jumps into the moat.
In the basement, as Jeremy is being tortured, Fritz attempts to steal Maynard's Wrangler when the phone rings. Maynard answers it, believing it to be his younger brother Dell calling from Dustbowl, only for an unknown voice to inform Maynard that Dustbowl is gone. Maynard asks about his brother's whereabouts, but the voice only instructs him to keep the briefcase secure. While Maynard plays the piano, Fritz sneaks up behind him and attempts to strangle him. Maynard overpowers Fritz and uses a shotgun to finish him off. As Maynard prepares to dispose of Fritz's body, Fritz suddenly comes back to life with his injuries healing themselves. Fritz, now sporting a Psychotic Smirk, sneaks up on Maynard and violently beats him to death. As Zed comes to check on the commotion, he is shot by Fritz using Maynard's Wrangler. The fatally injured Zed just laughs at this, defiantly boasting "I would've got you!" Fritz takes the suitcase and moves to finish off Zed. He dies laughing.
Chapter Four: Crossroads
Inside the slaughterhouse's sewers, Morneau complains about Jane's actions interfering with his investigation, and threatens to shoot Jane unless he leaves. Jane taunts Morneau when the two hear something coming from further into the sewer. Jane goes to investigate and is shot at by RED's Sniper. Tricking the Sniper into shooting his bulletproof vest, Jane fires a rocket at him, the explosion severing his leg. As the two leave the Sniper to bleed out, Jane is confronted by the Butcher, a Pyro donning a white mask, who forces him to disarm. Morneau confronts the Butcher, who shoots him in the leg, and Jane flees, leaving Morneau behind. As an emergency exit closes behind Jane, the Butcher goes to apprehend Morneau and hits him over the head, rendering him unconscious.Jane attempts to open the exit to save Morneau, but is unable to. He sees two people talking to each other, and as he approaches them, he sees the Creature, a deformed feral Scout, and hides. Using a crowbar, Jane breaks open a door to enter a nearby hallway, having a close encounter with the Creature. Traversing the hallway, Jane begins to experience a war flashback. Arriving at the other side, he notices RED's one-armed Demoman, "Cyclops", trapped behind a fence. Cyclops tells Jane about a cache of weapons located in a respawn locker upstairs and asks to be freed. Realizing that the two men he saw talking with each other were actually him and Cyclops, and that the Creature will start approaching them, Jane frees Cyclops and carries him upstairs. The Creature chases the two and grabs ahold of Jane's leg, so he plunges the crowbar into the Creature's head, seemingly killing it. Jane and Cyclops enter the respawn locker, which contains the dead bodies of several RED mercenaries, and arm themselves. As they do so, the RED mercenaries spring to life and attack them. Jane and Cyclops attempt to flee, but when the door closes on them, they dispatch the undead creatures.
In the basement, Fritz finds Jeremy's mutilated remains and is later confronted by an undead RED Medic. Fritz electrocutes the Medic and enters his office, where he sees a video of the Medic reviving the dead RED Heavy, causing him to go berserk and kill the Medic. The undead Heavy, "Stalingrad", approaches Fritz and begins to chase after him. As Jane and Cyclops mull over what to do, they hear Fritz call for help from behind a closed door. Stalingrad bursts through the door and attacks the two, pinning them under a statue. Fritz distracts Stalingrad long enough for Jane and Cyclops to free themselves, and the three enter the elevator and descend into the underground.
Chapter Five: The Doorway
A flashback shows Archibald instructing Morneau to execute several BLU mercenaries for treason in exchange for a promotion. Morneau complies, asking for several benefits in return. In the present, Morneau is woken up tied to a chair in the Butcher's lair. As he threatens his apprehender, the Butcher quietly removes their mask, showing their burnt, disfigured face.The elevator descends into a prison, and Jane and Cyclops decide to investigate it while Fritz stays behind. Walking past the prison cells, Jane discovers Archibald alive in one of them. As Jane and Archibald talk, Cyclops notices a door with the word "BAR" written above it. Seeing a wheelchair move on its own at a nearby hallway, Jane goes to inspect it. Finding nothing, he comes back to discover Archibald and Cyclops missing. Cyclops, his missing eye inexplicably healed, enters the bar and orders a drink from the bartender, Dell Conagher. The two discuss the Respawn Machine, with Dell recalling how he once talked to his late grandfather while respawning, who told him how it feels like eternity in there.
Fritz wanders off and comes across the terminal for the Respawn Machine, which activates and discovers someone that can be respawned, along with a warning that their data is corrupted. Hoping it's Jeremy, Fritz tells the machine to respawn them anyway, desperately pleading for it to work properly. His pleas are seemingly answered, as the respawn process goes off without a hitch... right up until the last second, when the machine experiences a fatal error due to the corrupted data and creates an "Entity Unknown". The "entity" lets out a scream of agony from inside the machine, and by the time the door opens, it has entirely dissolved into a liquid slurry of blood and guts.
Jane enters a command room, where he overhears a pre-recorded telephone conversation between Archibald and Blutarch Mann, BLU's founder. Archibald tells Blutarch that they were able to find ten test subjects compatible with the Respawn Machine, although one of them kills themselves during the phone call. After he's done speaking with Blutarch, Archibald calls up Redmond Mann, RED's founder and Blutarch's twin brother, and begins to advertise the Respawn Machine. Jane is suddenly attacked by the Hunter, the now-deformed RED Sniper, and flees into a laboratory.
At the Butcher's lair, the Butcher receives a phone call from the Hunter about Jane. This gives Morneau enough time to cloak, free himself, and knock the Butcher out before shooting him dead. As Morneau leaves, he flicks his cigarette onto the ground, which ignites some spilled oil. Morneau tries to flee, but is set on fire before falling into a sewer drain.
Fritz decides to enter the Respawn Machine, where he finds himself in Scout's house. Walking through the house, he notices a wall lit up and approaches it. Peering through a gap, he sees himself and Jeremy from earlier during Jeremy's checkup. As they leave, Fritz attempts to knock down the wall, causing the box of VHS tapes to fall down. When past Fritz and Jeremy exit, Fritz chases after them, only to come across a vision of himself standing over Jeremy's mother's dead body. When Fritz comes to, he sees the Butcher, alive and on fire, approaching him. Fritz flees into a nearby church and hides inside a confessional.
Jane finds himself in a cryogenics lab, where he discovers clones of himself in several tanks. He also discovers Cyclops' frozen corpse clutching a grenade. Noticing Stalingrad entering the lab, he arms the grenade and flees just as it explodes. The Hunter catches up to Jane and fires a rocket launcher at him. In the church, the Butcher finds Fritz and begins to burn his face when the two are knocked back by the explosion from the Hunter's rocket. Fritz manages to retrieve his gun and shoot the Butcher in the face, stunning them. Grabbing the Butcher's axe, he incapacitates them before finally decapitating them.
In another part of the basement, Archibald is speaking with someone on a payphone, revealing that he faked his death in order to escape charges regarding the construction and testing of the Respawn Machine. As he leaves, he is confronted by the heavily scarred Morneau. Archibald pleads for mercy and attempts to reason with him to no avail, as the enraged Spy shoots him dead. Jane flees into a nearby room, which plays a film made by Archibald to BLU's respawning mercenaries. He also discovers several photos from testing of the Respawn Machine, including one of Archibald seemingly executing Jane. The Hunter confronts Jane and prepares to kill him, only for Fritz to appear and incapacitate him. The Hunter accepts his death as Jane finishes him off. Before the two can leave, they are apprehended by Morneau.
Chapter Six: Katabasis
Fritz awakens in the execution room with Jane and a deranged Morneau, now going by the Smoker. The Smoker interrogates Fritz about the briefcase, who claims to not know what it is, and falsely accuses him of killing Archibald and Jeremy. Frustrated, the Smoker forces the three of them to play Russian roulette. Jane and the Smoker are safe, but Fritz ends up shooting himself. The Smoker takes the briefcase and allows Jane to leave before cloaking. Jane comes across a hole in the wall leading to a pit filled with dead test subjects, and jumps into it when someone begins trying to break into the room. Inside the pit, Jane finds a truck scooping up the dead bodies and jumps into its bed, where he is buried under dead bodies.Jane is freed when the truck falls to its side and comes to a broken bridge separating him from a staircase. He prepares to rocket jump over the gap when Stalingrad appears and attacks him. Grabbing his rocket launcher, Jane fires it at Stalingrad to fling himself to the other side. As he's about to climb the stairs, he's shot in the back by someone and falls into the gap. His flask having caught the bullet, Jane comes to and enters a nearby sewer pipe. As he exits the sewer, he sees himself inside Morneau's car from earlier, revealing his present self to be the mysterious figure from before. When the car explodes, Jane suddenly finds himself outside of Conagher Slaughterhouse, now on fire. As he leaves, a heavy injured Stalingrad appears and chases after him, only to be killed by fallen debris.
Some time later, Jane is interrogated by Stemmons, a CIA agent who was tracking Archibald's actions. Stemmons instructs Jane not to tell anyone what he discovered at Conagher Slaughterhouse, and Jane complies.
Chapter Seven: Blood Brothers
Archibald's funeral is held and attended by both Mann brothers, Jane, and Morneau, the latter now sporting a white mask and a voice changer. Morneau delivers a eulogy, where he claims that Archibald was killed in a botched rescue attempt. When Jane is brought up to explain what happened, rather than follow the script given to him, he laughs instead. Annoyed, Morneau claims that Archibald was murdered by Fritz, playing him up as a mentally unstable drug addict who also kidnapped Jeremy before taking his own life. As Morneau explains that he will be BLU's new Chairman of the Board, Jane prepares to kill the both of them with a grenade when Fritz suddenly rises from Archibald's coffin and shoots Morneau dead.During the ensuing chaos, Jane helps Fritz retrieve the briefcase and escape. As Blutarch and his driver flee, they run a red light and crash into another car. Jane approaches the injured Mann and kills him before walking off. Fritz hijacks an ambulance and drives away, running down Redmond as he gloats over his dead brother.
Fritz drives down a deserted road during night time, struggling to stay awake as his vision momentarily blurs. He comes across Dell Conagher's bar and decides to make a stop. As he enters it, he finds Dell seated behind a reception desk, reading a newspaper. Dell greets him, but doesn't look up from his paper. Fritz asks him if he can borrow a phone, but Dell replies that he doesn't have one. Fritz then complains of feeling sick, which prompts Dell to give him a key and directions to the restroom. Fritz accepts the key and moves towards the door labelled with an "M". As he does so, spots two indistinct figures hanging out in the dining area, who looks a lot like Zed and Maynard. Spooked by this, he rushes into the restroom and slams the door. As he does so, Dell reaches in under his desk, takes out a phone, and picks up the receiver...
In the restroom, Fritz stands bent over sink, as he suddenly loses a tooth. He proceeds to take his bottle of valium and takes a huge dose. He then notices that something is off with the bottle's label, which he pulls off revealing it to be Emesis-branded diazepam. Looking in the mirror, Fritz spots a fuzzy, grey figure standing behind him, before he hears someone flushing in one of the stalls. Archibald exits one of the stalls and starts washing his hands in the sink next to Fritz. Fritz stares at him in apparent confusion, while Archibald just silently stares back at him with an almost wall-eyed expression on his face. Archibald then gives Fritz a knowing smirk and chuckles, before he turns around and leaves, as the latter keeps looking at him. As Archibald leaves the restroom someone else enters off-screen, and Fritz appears to recognize them and his face cracks into a bright smile as he is greeted by Jeremy's voice. It's then revealed that Fritz was killed while driving on the road after crashing the ambulance into a pole. The briefcase, now opened, is shown to contain a glowing red orb.
