Franco Barbi

Franco Barbi
Alias	Il Bambino Lupa Lupara The Wolf The Opportunist
Career	Gangster Prime Asset
Affiliation	Don Salvatore Barbi (Father) Angelina Barbi (Stepmother) Martino Crime Family Ex-Pop
Status	Alive
Attributes
Gender	Male
Hair	Dirty blonde
Eyes	Blue
Appearances
The Outlast Trials The Docks Downtown The Suburbs Mansion
Outlast: The Murkoff Collections Issue 3
Game Information
Equipment	Sawed-off Shotgun
Voiced by	Daniel Brochu
Gallery • Dialogues

 

"It's mine. It's god damn mine, and I'll skin, salt, and fuck any ruptured scumbag that tries to take it!"

―Franco Barbi

 

Franco "Il Bambino" Barbi is a Prime Asset and one of the antagonists in The Outlast Trials. He is the outcast son of a Mafia Don who is a perverse gun-wielding man-child.

Background

Franco Barbi was born to a Louisiana mafia don and an unnamed woman. According to him, he never knew his birth mother and instead grew up with his father's numerous wives. He committed his first murder at the age of 12 and would later become a debt collector and hitman for the crime syndicate. He would become problematic for the Mafia due to his total disregard for human life, especially to those he attempted to engage in sexual activities with. Due to his impotency he would frequently murder his sexual partners for psychosexual reasons. Franco would eventually be sent to Miami, supposedly for Mafia business but the real reason was far more complicated. At some point, Franco engaged in a sexual relationship with his stepmother Angelina Barbi, as her degradation brought him sexual pleasure. Franco's father found out about the affair and severely beat him before exiling him, his life spared due to their blood relation.

Franco would eventually move his operations to Cuba and briefly become involved in CIA operations. He participated in numerous raids against revolutionary forces. However, he would once again begin to indiscriminately murder just as he did in New Orleans, seemingly for no benefit to the CIA, leading to his expulsion from operations. Franco would eventually catch the attention of Murkoff after he witnessed a Reagent commit an assassination. Seemingly inspired by the kill, he would go on to murder seven people, leading to Murkoff dispatch Clyde Perry to investigate. Perry would later track down Franco to a hotel where he was meeting a prostitute. Perry was alerted by the hotel clerk that there was an incident in one of the rooms, upon investigation he found a dead prostitute along with Franco's possessions, including his shotgun, Lupara. When Perry attempted to investigate, Franco emerged from the dead prostitutes chest cavity. Clyde Perry was nearly beaten to death and sent to Texas for leg reconstruction and skull surgery. Franco Barbi was later captured and sent to the Sinyala Facility.

Physical Description

Franco Barbi is a man of average build and height. His outfit consists of a dirty oversized white pinstripe suit, a purple dress shirt, and light blue bowtie, a common ensemble for gangsters of the time. He wears a brown ammunition bandolier around his upper torso that holds the buckshots for his shotgun. In contrast to this intimidating outfit, a pacifier dangles from said bandolier—its hue matching the color of his shirt—secured with a ribbon in the same shade as his bowtie. His skin is pale white, he has bulging blue eyes, and dirty blonde hair. Franco is mostly bald, with his remaining hair in disarray. His eyes are bloodshot, indicative of hemorrhage, or brain damage. The most prominent feature of Franco's is his extremely large cranium, nearly double the size of an average man's. The deformations of his skull and face are the result of both a birth defect, and frequent physical abuse from his father. The left side of Franco's skull is heavily mutilated from probable head trauma; visible sutures extend from the site of the injury toward his eye. Despite his disability and sustaining injuries through both his field of work and domestic abuse, he remains in otherwise excellent health and physical condition.

Characteristics

Franco Barbi poses a unique threat to Reagents due to his ranged shotgun attack. While he is still significantly dangerous up close, his ability to attack at a distance forces Reagents to break his direct line of sight or seek cover to avoid damage. His ranged attack has a short "windup" period where he aims his weapon before firing, which can give Reagents time to seek cover and avoid the shot. When Reagents are within his line of sight, Franco remains stationary and continues firing his shotgun twice before reloading. Once they break out of his direct line of sight, the Reagents can gain distance while Franco will attempt to catch up. When hit by the Lupara, Reagents become staggered and briefly deafened. The Lupara can also deafen any Reagents that are near the firing noise of Lupara, though it does not affect other Ex-Pop. Since the Lupara fires a spread of projectiles, each shot can hit multiple Reagents at the same time so it is best to split up while being chased. Due to the Lupara using tooth-filled shells instead of proper shot, it cannot instantly kill a healthy Reagent. However, taking a full spread of projectiles inflicts significant damage, with its severity increasing on higher difficulties. The firing shot damage from Lupara is not affected by the Deadly Prime Asset variator but a melee hit from Franco can still deal a maximum of four health bar damage on Reagents.

On top of ranged attacks, Franco's trigger-happy tendencies gains him the additional ability of being violently reactive to noise and sudden glimpses of Reagents. When Franco is alerted by noise within his vicinity or spots a Reagent while patrolling, he will immediately shoot at the direction of the sound or a Reagent that alerted him. This makes Franco extremely dangerous for Reagents who are too careless while sneaking past him, as they could instantly receive a full blast from the Lupara if they are too close to Franco and accidentally put their teammates in jeopardy. As such, Reagents are advised to avoid stepping on broken glasses and minimize noises from walking, jumping, and running if Franco is nearby.

In spite of his ranged abilities, Franco still behaves similarly to other Prime Assets. When in melee range, he will prefer to simply beat Reagents with the stock of the Lupara or his head, but his melee attacks do not have any additional effect. Like other Prime Assets, he is resistant to hits from throwable items, but the effects of rigs will work on him.

Franco can be somewhat difficult to track during a trial, as his weapon does not produce any kind of audible noise like Mother Gooseberry's drill and Leland Coyle's electric prod. Instead, his primary audio cue is his heavy breathing and constant dialogues while patrolling, which can reveal his approximate location to perceptive Reagents.

Story

Outlast: The Murkoff Collections

Appearing in Issue 3, after Clyde Perry narrows his location down to a hotel he was visiting while soliciting prostitute named Jenny. He finds her corpse on the bed and reaches for the phone, when Franco emerges from the stomach of the corpse (believing that Clyde was reaching for Lupara). He hits Clyde's gun out of his hand with a bottle before whacking him over the head with it. He then picks up Lupara and shoots Clyde in his right leg, which alerts a passer-by who comes into the room after hearing the noise.

Clyde is able to flee with the phone into a separate room as Franco shoots the other man to death.

The Outlast Trials

The Docks

Franco makes his first appearance in Poison the Medicine. He is first seen behind the glass window in shipping yard office where he sleeps and breastfeeds on Female Big Grunt's headless corpse. Upon activating the crane to lift the tanker, enraged Franco will yell about sudden awakening and then will first kill two dangling Mules before shooting the glass and running away. After the Reagents pushed the cart into the train depot and delivered the first drug packet, Franco will announce over the intercom that this is his property and will anyone who touches it. He will then start patrolling all over the train depot. When the Reagents regroup in The Angelina's control room, Franco will emerge from the bottom of the ship and furious that his drug supply was ruined will shatter the glass. He will then patrol the ship preventing the Reagents from hiding the drug packets in two other Mules. Once finished he will immediately rush to patrol the Docks' main gates to find the Reagents before they escape through the shuttle.

In Empty the Vault, Franco will occasionally enter any area of the Docks to look for Reagents. He will enter the casino through Ex-Pop insertion gate once the vault has been opened, and his items were taken by the Reagents. In Poison the Cattle, Franco will always patrol the train depot by milking machine with two Female Big Grunts. Once they have been poisoned, he will go to the escape shuttle to prevent the Reagents from running away. In Stash the Contraband, Franco will always start patrolling the shipping yard with drug packets before entering any area of the Docks to look for Reagents. In Cook the Informant, Franco will always enter the train depot once the Informant has been found and will move to area where the Informant has relocated.

Downtown

Later, he makes his second grand appearance in Pleasure the Prosecutor. Upon entering the plaza theater's second floor balcony, the Reagents will see Franco observing the four kinky prostitute mannequins pleasuring The District Attorney. Upon turning off the show, enraged Franco will start shooting at the Reagents and saying that they ruined his friend's good time before storming out of the theater. Upon throwing away the kinky prostitute mannequins he will appear on the television screens in a dressing room threatening the Reagents to stay away from The District Attorney. Upon killing first Scapegoat and obtaining the key to the Chinese movie theater, he will start patrolling every part of the Downtown looking for the Reagents. He is not seen again until after the Reagents placed all sadist prostitute mannequins in the theater and started execution, where he will be patrolling all the theater trying to prevent that. After The District Attorney has been executed, Franco will lament on how he failed to protect him and run to the subway for a final time at the end, waiting at the shuttle to attack the Reagents.

In Kidnap the Mistress, Franco will patrol the streets of the Downtown ocassionally going to the sewers and once the fourth clue has been discovered and the correct prostitute has been found, he will run towards the police station and patrol the area around it. In Spread the Disease, Franco will patrol the area around the community center but can go to the area around the king's motel.

The Suburbs

Finally, he makes his third grand appearance in Liquidate the Union. Upon entering the town hall and stopping The Union Boss' speech, Franco will run to the stage demanding to know who stopped the speech. He will tell that he just wants to get what is his and takes The Union Boss to the mansion for his safety. Once the Reagents dragged The Union Boss from his mansion and entered upper class neighborhood, Franco will patrol it checking between houses and stopping by the radios. Once The Union Boss has been transported to the Rare Horses Meat Plant and placed inside a tank, Franco will enter the factory to protect him and shoot at the Reagents who will try to hit the correct safety signs to drop the corpses to the grinder. Upon drowning The Union Boss, he will quickly retreat to Ex-Pop insertion gate and wait for the Reagents by the escape shuttle to kill the Reagents.

In Get Out the Vote, Franco will patrol all of the upper class neighborhood and checking every house he can. Upon delivering all the votes and getting the candidate back to school, he will appear by the escape shuttle.

Personality

Franco Barbi tends to act as a stereotypical gangster, using blunt threats and aggressive displays of violence to prove a point. Franco is also extremely sexually depraved in nature and takes pleasure in murdering out of arousal, killing one of the female Giants and engaging in necrophilia with her corpse. In particular, he has a fetish for being infantilized; in his origin comic, he goes so far as to sleep inside the torso of a prostitute's corpse to simulate a womb. He frequently expresses his fetish with a twisted sense of humor, sardonically and sadistically threatening Reagents while referring to himself as a "little baby" and using childish expressions such as "caught with your hand in the cookie jar". His compulsively infantile behavior causes him to bawl like a baby when he is frustrated, although he is embarrassed by his habit of crying and defensively claims "that's just water from [his] eyes". This defensive action is likely to protect his fragile ego.

His aggressive and explosive nature reflect a deep-seated insecurity, stemming from his abusive childhood and his feelings of sexual inadequacy. As a result, he views Reagents as interlopers who threaten both his territory and his ego, and he is determined to hunt, punish and kill them using blunt force and homemade buckshot from his shotgun. Franco does appear to possess a level of intelligence and craftsmanship, being able to produce his own ammunition within the trial environments as well as having instincts not dissimilar to a hunter. According to his own quotes and Dr. Easterman, Franco's ammunition is produced by using human teeth which is likely ripped from Reagents or anyone else foolish enough to approach him.

Player death animation

• Front: Franco approaches the Reagent and steps on their hand before hitting them in the face with Lupara's stock, forcing them to lie back on the floor. He plants his foot on their E.S.O.P. and removes the empty shells from Lupara, tossing them down at the Reagent. After reloading Lupara with fresh shells, he shoots them in the face.
• Back: Franco approaches the Reagent from behind and crouches down, making them turn around, and shoots their hand. As they fall back onto the floor in pain, clutching their hand, he shoots them in the kneecap. He taunts the Reagent by dancing around before jumping and stomping on their head.
• Right: Franco hits the Reagent with Lupara's stock, forcing them to lie down on the floor. He then jumps and lands on their hips, and beats in their face with the barrel of Lupara before flipping it around and shoving the stock into their face.
• Left: Franco pushes the Reagent onto their back and kicks them square in the crotch. He then shoves the barrel of Lupara into their mouth and runs his hand through his hair, before shooting them.

Patch notes

October 29, 2024 (Program Geister) Fixed a bug where Franco Barbi could not use his dialogues while he is patrolling. (Undocumented) September 9, 2025 (Deep Burn) Prime Assets now react correctly to projectiles with Strong Arms amp (stumble).

Trivia

• Prior to his reveal, Barbi was mentioned in the documents and appears as a silhouette mugshot for secondary objective TVs during the Prime Time event.
• Barbi is known under a number of aliases: "Il Bambino", "Lupa" and "Lupara".
  • "Il Bambino" is Italian and means "The child".
  • "Lupa" is also Italian and means "The Wolf". Notably, this is the feminized version of the word. Initially, Dr. Easterman assumes that this was Spanish - due to Murkoff's contacts being native Spanish speakers - for "magnifying glass".
    • Barbi being nicknamed "The child" and "The She-Wolf" simultaneously, as well as his apparent Italian heritage, may allude to the story of Romulus and Remus, the mythological founders of Rome.
  • "Lupara" refers to Barbi's weapon of choice, namely his sawed off shotgun, which is called lupara in Italian.
    • Said weapon saw prominent use among Sicilian gangsters and proves very useful for hunting in wooded areas and confined spaces, in which a regular shotgun is rather unwieldy. Weaponry of this kind has been highly regulated after 1934, whereafter a ban on shotguns with a barrel shorter than 18 inches - 45.72 Centimeters - had been put into place.
    • A lupara had also infamously been used to murder New Orleans policeman David Hennessy in October of 1890, in the culmination of an Italian Mob war between gangs of Sicilian Fruit companies.
    • Barbi's "Lupara" in particular differs from the more commonly seen guns of that type, being an "Over-and-Under" double barrelled shotgun rather than the more frequently encountered side-by-side barrel configuration. It also has an extremely, exaggeratedly short barrel in comparison to most "standard" sawn-off shotgun lengths.
• Barbi's midface hypoplasia, enlarged cranium, and laboured breathing are features reminiscent of those seen in people born with Pfeiffer Syndrome Type One.
  • Since Pfeiffer Syndrome was not properly medically defined until 1964, it makes sense that Franco's disability is not formally identified in documentation of him, or even by himself.
  • Pfeiffer Syndrome is a genetic condition. It may either occur from direct inheritance from one of the parents who already carries the gene, or develop by pure chance as a genetic mutation, where neither of the child's parents carried an already mutated gene to begin with.
    • Newer research into this condition suggests that advanced paternal age may increase the risk of a child developing Pfeiffer Syndrome. Since Salvatore Barbi's age is altogether unknown, it is not clear if this may have been a contributing factor in Franco's case, however keeping in mind that he married Angelina - a woman much closer in age to his son -, his preference for younger wives does pose a cause for concern.
• In the third chapter of Outlast: The Murkoff Collections, Barbi drinks a cocktail called "Wolf's Milk" and it consists of amaretto, egg white, gin, and milk. When it was recreated in real life, the drink has a yellow hue that makes it resemble colostrum, which is the first form of breastmilk that is released by the mammary glands after giving birth. It is nutrient-dense, high in antibodies, and high in antioxidants to build a newborn baby's immune system.
• Barbi collects nipples.
• Barbi's ammo being made of teeth could be a reference to the Montreal Mafia being known for collecting teeth.
• According to one of Red Barrels' founders, Franco Barbi was inspired as a collage of movie references and was created to represent the ideal son of the mother figure, Mother Gooseberry and father figure, Leland Coyle.
• Barbi is the second Outlast antagonist that possess a ranged attack. The first is Laird Byron.
• Barbi is the first enemy in The Outlast Trials that can attack Reagents from a distance. The second is the Pitcher.
• Like the rest of the Prime Assets, Franco gets his own unique ping icon instead of the standard skull icon for enemies. His icon is his pacifier.
• According to Hugo Richard (Red Barrel's Assistant Character Art Director) on X (formerly Twitter), Franco Barbi's height was originally going to be 4'5 tall instead of an average height. This was not possible due to the game's limitations.

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