Riley Xiang

> "He's an innocent young man that was accused for having drugs. Maybe he should just leave it to the professionals." - The official OTR bio of Riley
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## Personal Information

### Age

20 (Normal)52 (Future)

21 (OTR2)

### Relatives

Emily Xiang (Sister)Blake Xiang/Haha (Brother)

Dylan Li Xiang (Daughter)

## Other Information

### Voice Actors

Tatsuhisa Suzuki (Japanese, Male)Joel Heyman (English, Male)

Rina Sato (Japanese, Female)

Laura Bailey (English, Female)

**Riley Xiang** is the main protagonist of DZ2K On the Run. He is a young man who was framed for drug charges 5 months ago.

## Personality

Riley is a normal, nervous and innocent man that always focuses on his life first, but as a result of the incident, of which he almost died, he fears getting arrested and executed. However, as the game goes on, he's gotten past it.

## Design

He was modelled after Tony Leung Chiu-Wai from Infernal Affairs. Kyle explained that it was his and Johnnie To's idea. For his female counterpart, she was modelled after Denise Ho from one of Johnnie To's movies, Life Without Principle.

## On the Run

### Framed

After escaping death by a car (The car actually hit him), Riley woke up in a hospital. From there, he met Timmy Choi, a Drug Lord who was in the hospital due to a failed drug operation. Riley was unsure about his methods, but chose to tag along with Timmy for their escape. Their escape was cut short after Isaiah Zhou found them and arrested the both of them.

### A Choice

Riley was arrested and was sent to the police station, where he was being interrogated by Isaiah Zhou and Lillian Ying, two police officers. Isaiah gave him two options: Join or stay for execution. Realising that he had no other options, Riley decided to join the Police force in order to clear his name.

### Path of the Zombie

Due to a deal from Isaiah, Riley was forced to use a VR device.

## On the Run 2

In a non-distant future, Riley is married and has a daughter, known as Dylan. He then lived a peaceful life with his wife, but 20 years later, tragedy struck: The Bandits have arrived. Riley tried his best to fend them off, but was severely wounded by the leader of the gang, named Zhang. His daughter, Dylan Li Xiang, found him, bleeding to death from his wounds. He then gave her a portal device in order to catch Zhang.

### Meeting Dylan

He met Dylan while he was in the Simpson's house.

## Reception

Riley Xiang was met with universal acclaim from all newcomers and critics. Fans call him the best protagonist since Helena Harper while girls call him the next King of Swag due to his unique traits. Joel Heyman was praised for his performance of said character, which led to Heyman being the official voice actor of Riley in Universe High School. Laura Bailey was also praised for her performance as well. Anime News Network named it one of her best roles since Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket.

Dave Meltzer called him an icon, saying that Riley has paved the way for new characters in a franchise. Oli Davis also commented that Riley has repaired the damages of previous protagonists in the DZ2K series.

## Leafy, RiceGum and Tana Mongeau controversy

Just about three weeks after the game's release, Leafy, a YouTuber who was infamous for bullying other people, criticised the character, saying that Riley was 'a fucking piece of shit with mental issues'. This led to an all out war between Leafy and the character himself. Joel commented that voicing Riley was the hardest thing he did since Leafy is not well liked in the internet. After a few weeks, Joel would eventually win the war, permanently damaging Leafy's reputation (Leafy didn't recover from the Content Cop video from IDubbbZTV prior to the event)

On October 17th, 2017, RiceGUM criticized the character for being irrelevant, which led up to a special appearance from Laura Bailey, Riley's female voice actor, on one of his videos. Laura's confrontation with RiceGum made people wonder if he would made a Diss track about her, which he actually did in retaliation. In response, Laura dressed up as Riley during an episode of Critical Role and criticized RiceGum for insulting a character and a voice actor for their work. RiceGum fought back with yet another response video that was released at the same time as Content Cop - AJP. As a result RiceGum lost almost 1 million subscribers due to his battle with Laura and IDubbbzTV.

Tana Mongeau also criticized the character in one of her videos. She said that Riley did actually nothing to save a crumbling franchise and threatened said character to kill himself in a similar fashion to IdubbzTV. However, she actually meant it for Laura, who was praised for the voice work, in an act of hatred and jealously. As of November 2017, there is no response from Laura or the voice actor community, mostly due to the Voice Actors Strike.

But Laura eventually responded in January 14th, 2018 after the Logan Paul Suicide Forest Controversy on her twitter page.

Since then, no one has ever criticised the character besides the trio.

## Trivia

* Riley Xiang is the first character created exclusively by Johnnie To, who is a fan of the series.
* Due to overwhelming positive feedback and reception, Riley now has two official voice actors. At the case, it's Joel Heyman, well known as the voice of Michael J. Caboose and Professor Oobleck, and Laura Bailey, well known as the voice of Tohru Honda, Rise Kujikawa, The Arisen, and recently Lillian Ying.
* However, there's still no confirmation on Riley's official gender as of November 2017.
* Riley is one of six people to meet Hurk. The others were Jack Carver, Jason Brody, Ajay Ghale, Takkar (Urki is Hurk's ancestor), and recently, The Junior Deputy.
* Since Hurk and Willis appeared in On The Run, it's possible that Riley is part of the Far Cry timeline.
* Riley was mentioned by Willis in Far Cry 5. He nicknamed him "An Pure American."