Jack Krauser: Leon's Old Comrade Turned Kidnapper in Resident Evil 4

Jack Krauser is a US special forces veteran who served with Leon S. Kennedy in 2002 and came back two years later as his enemy. In Resident Evil 4 he's the man who kidnapped Ashley Graham, working inside the cult Los Iluminados, and the knife fighter Leon has to beat on Saddler's island. (Resident Evil 4; Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles)

Who is Jack Krauser?#

Krauser is a career soldier, a major in the US Army who lived for combat and didn't fit anywhere else. He prides himself on strength and close-quarters fighting, and he's at his most dangerous with a knife. (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles; Resident Evil 4)

He's also Leon's dark mirror. Both came out of a bioweapon disaster changed. Leon decided to keep protecting people. Krauser decided the weak can't protect anything, and that the power behind the monsters was worth having. (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles; Resident Evil 4 (2023))

Operation Javier (2002)#

The Darkside Chronicles tells how Krauser and Leon met. In 2002 they were sent together into a South American country, where a drug lord named Javier Hidalgo was buying bioweapons from a former Umbrella researcher. They found a village overrun by the t-Virus and a girl, Manuela, who turned out to be Javier's daughter, kept alive with the t-Veronica virus. (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles)

Krauser started the mission doubting bioweapons existed at all. By the end he was jealous of Leon, who had been sent personally by the President, and drawn to Javier's idea that you had to become stronger to survive. A creature, Manuela's mutated mother, drove a limb through his arm. The wound never healed properly and he was pushed out of active service. (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles)

Resident Evil 4: the man who took Ashley#

By 2004 Leon believed Krauser was dead. He was very much alive. He'd gone looking for Wesker, and Wesker had placed him inside Los Iluminados to get hold of a sample of the dominant Plaga. To earn Saddler's trust, Krauser kidnapped Ashley Graham, the President's daughter, on her way home from college. (Resident Evil 4; Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways)

He ambushed Leon on Saddler's island with a knife, and the two fought hand to hand until Ada shot the blade out of his hand. Krauser admitted he was the kidnapper, and that it was all to win Saddler's trust and get close to the sample. (Resident Evil 4)

Their second meeting was in the island's ruins. Krauser held one of the three insignias Leon needed to open the gate to Saddler's base, and he hunted Leon through the ruins with a gun, flash grenades and his Plaga-mutated arm, a huge blade. Asked what he wanted by bringing Umbrella back, he said: "To bring order and balance to this insane world of ours." (Resident Evil 4)

How Krauser dies in the original#

Leon beat him on the roof of the ruins, took the insignia and got out before the charges Krauser had set went off. He didn't kill him. Saddler later thanked Leon for disposing of an American he'd never trusted. (Resident Evil 4)

Separate Ways shows what happened next. Ada found Krauser still alive but badly hurt, and killed him. Like Krauser she had been sent by Wesker, though she was secretly working for another organisation. (Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways)

How the remake changes Krauser#

The 2023 remake rebuilds him from the ground up. After Raccoon City, the US government set up a secret programme to fight bioweapons and forced Leon into it. Krauser was the major who trained its recruits, and Leon was one of them. (Resident Evil 4 (2023))

Operation Javier is still the turning point, but now Krauser's whole unit was abandoned in the jungle by the government and he was the only one who came back. He told Leon he had a revelation there: what matters in this world is pure power. (Resident Evil 4 (2023))

• No Wesker. Remake Krauser is a true believer in power, not a spy. He joins Los Iluminados himself, arms the cult, fortifies its island and plans Ashley's kidnapping. (Resident Evil 4 (2023); Resident Evil 4 (2023): Separate Ways)
• He kills Luis. In the mines under Salazar's castle he stabs Luis Serra in the back and takes the Amber, the cult's prized Plaga sample. Luis, dying, drives him off with a shot before he can kill Leon. (Resident Evil 4 (2023))
• He takes Ashley to the island. Krauser collects Ashley from Salazar and carries her to Saddler's base. (Resident Evil 4 (2023))
• A different death. After a running battle through the ruins and a mutated final form, he lies beaten and asks Leon to finish it with a knife. Leon does. Krauser's last words are that he trained him well. (Resident Evil 4 (2023))
• Wesker gets the body. Separate Ways ends with Wesker standing over Krauser's corpse, a fallback in case Ada didn't bring him the Amber. (Resident Evil 4 (2023): Separate Ways)

The two versions of 2002 don't match. The Darkside Chronicles has Krauser and Leon as a two-man team and an arm wound that ends Krauser's career. The remake only refers to Operation Javier in dialogue and files, and there it's a squad wiped out and left behind by its own government. (Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles; Resident Evil 4 (2023))