Barry Burton

Barry Burton is a video game character in the Resident Evil survival horror franchise. A member of S.T.A.R.S. and the backup man of Alpha Team. He was a supporting character in the first game, appears in the ending of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and was one of the three main characters in Resident Evil Gaiden.

Background
One of the most experienced members of S.T.A.R.S. along with Bravo Team's captain, Enrico Marini, Barry has served in various armed forces since 1982. Before joining STARS, he was a SWAT team operative and briefly served in the U.S. Air Force during the mid-1990s, where acquainted with fellow S.T.A.R.S. operative Chris Redfield. He has a loving wife, Kathy, with two daughters named Moira and Polly. In the Resident Evil Gaiden storyline Barry adopts a girl, Lucia, as a daughter.

Barry is also a known gun enthusiast and NRA friend. When he came to Raccoon City to join S.T.A.R.S., he became friends with Gun Shop owner Robert Kendo. The two were close friends and often went fishing together in Stoneville. Due to their friendship, Barry commissioned Robert's brother, Joe, to modify most of S.T.A.R.S.' arsenal, including their side arm, the Samurai Edge.

Mansion Incident
Barry managed to escape to the mansion after the confrontation with the Cerberuses and escaped into the mansion along with fellow Alpha Team members Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. Afterwards, he helped Jill overcome several of the mansion's traps and creatures. However, Wesker, who was actually a spy working for Umbrella, blackmailed Barry to do his bidding by using his family as leverage. Barry began to eliminate any evidence that implicated Wesker and began luring Jill into traps against monsters. It was because of Barry that Wesker was able to track down Enrico and murder him. During the fight against Lisa Trevor, Barry intends to kill Jill, but she manages to talk him out of it. At this point, Barry did not tolerate the injustices that Wesker had committed against his comrades any longer and regained his sense of justice, managing to save Jill from Wesker at the last moment. Barry then escaped the mansion alongside Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield and Rebecca Chambers.

Raccoon City Incident
After the Mansion incident, Barry immediately moved his family to Canada, out of Umbrella's reach in order to ensure their safety. He then left them to rejoin Chris and Jill in their Anti-Umbrella efforts. During the T-Virus outbreak, when Raccoon City was facing nuclear annihilation, he took a civilian helicopter in order to locate Jill and extract her from the city. Barry came in contact with an Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service mercenary Carlos Oliveira (who helped Jill during the outbreak) and was able to locate Jill before the missile destroyed Raccoon City. Afterwards, the three participated in undisclosed anti-Umbrella operations until Umbrella's shutdown by the Government.

Starlight Cruiser Incident
Sometime in 2000, Barry, now a member of an underground anti-Umbrella organization, was called into the office of the organization's chief. He was informed that one of their operatives, Leon S. Kennedy, had been sent to the luxury ocean cruiser, the Starlight, to destroy a prototype B.O.W. that was supposedly among the ship's passengers and crew, but contact had been lost with him 24 hours ago. Barry was sent to find Leon and quickly discovered that there had been a T-Virus outbreak onboard. Soon, Barry found a young survivor named Lucia, who was being chased by a prime candidate for the B.O.W.: a large, grey humanoid who could produce tentacles from its abdomen and transform into an amoeba. After being separated from Lucia, Barry found Leon unconscious. The two joined forces and saved Lucia again. Barry left Lucia with Leon and made contact with Umbrella, who had apparently contacted him en route to the Starlight. When found by Leon and Lucia, Barry demanded that he hand her over and took her down to an Umbrella-owned submarine. Onboard, it was revealed that Barry used Umbrella to procure a means of escape from the Starlight, that Umbrella had no knowledge about the B.O.W. the three had been fighting (indicating the possibility of the involvement of Umbrella's competition) and that the B.O.W. in question was a parasite in Lucia's body. Barry demanded that the parasite be removed or else, he'd kill the captain. Upon removal, the parasite escaped and turned everyone on the submarine (except Barry and Lucia) into zombies. It was fully grown within minutes. When Barry steered the submarine back to the Starlight, the parasite jumped onboard. It used its unique ability to mimic Leon, who was in the engine room, having defeated the other B.O.W. In the end, Barry, along with Lucia and Leon, killed the parasite with a hail of gunfire. Afterwards, Barry took in Lucia as a stepdaughter, as per his accepted offer on the submarine.

[Please Note: Starlight Cruiser Incident is taken from Resident Evil Gaiden and not considered to be canonical]

Deaths
There are multiple ways for Barry to die in the various incarnations of the game. Most often, Barry will die after being mauled by Hunters. Although in the GameCube remake, if the player does not give Barry back his gun in Jessica Trevor's Tomb, Barry will be killed in a special manner by Lisa Trevor. However, he survives according to the official story-line.

Appearances
Barry made his first appearance in the original Resident Evil as one of the few surviving members of S.T.A.R.S. in the game. He would appear in various portions of Jill's scenario in order to lend a hand whenever the scene called for Barry's raw strength. Depending on the choices made by the player, one could finish the game with or without saving Barry at the end.

It's worth noting that Barry never appears in Chris' scenario after the opening intro and his disappearance is never solved in that scenario. Likewise, Rebecca (a supporting character in Chris' scenario) never appears in Jill's game, either. Despite the discrepancies between both scenarios, the series' canon suggests that both characters were involved with and survived the incident.

Barry is also famous for his awkward-sounding lines in the first game. Resident Evil notoriously suffered from a terrible and often laughable translation and much of the dialogue was reminicent of engrish. Out of all the characters, however, Barry is considered by far the worst and, at the same time, funniest. Some of his lines included "What?! What is this?!" at the sight of a giant puddle of blood, or his famous "The master of unlocking" line when referring to Jill's ability to use a lockpick well ["Jill, I found this lockpick downstairs. I figured the 'master of unlocking' could put it to good use" (?) ]. By far, his most famous bad line is the legendary "You were almost a 'Jill Sandwich!'" line. This is said to Jill after she is rescued from a collapsing room and has been lampooned countless times. Barry's dialogue is considerably improved in the remake, "What is this?!" and "Master of unlocking", as well as many other awkward sounding bits of dialogue, are completely cut from the remake and replaced by more natural-sounding speech, although a variation of the "Jill sandwich" line remains.

Barry is noted as a weapons enthusiast and NRA supporter, being the weapons specialist and Backup Man on Alpha team. His signature weapon is his .44 Magnum (it was the Colt Python in the original PlayStation version), which he uses as a side arm during the Mansion incident instead of the Beretta M92FS (or Samurai Edge) used by the other members. He also uses a flamethrower to save Jill if she gets attacked by Plant 42. His version of the Samurai Edge has been modified to fire .40 S&W rounds instead of normal 9mm parabellum rounds and is available (in the GameCube remake) as an unlockable weapon for Jill and Chris with unlimited ammo.

He was portrayed by an unknown actor credited as "Grégory" in the live-action sequences, and voiced by Barry Gjerde in the original Resident Evil. In the 2002 remake of the first game, he was voiced by Ed Smaron.