Cooper Redfield

## Cooper

**Cooper Redfield** is the protagonist of Playtest. He is portrayed by Wyatt Russell.

## History

As Cooper leaves his home to travel the world, he keeps ignoring his mother's calls, feeling unable to connect to her following his father having developed early-onset Alzheimer's and dying. In London, Cooper meets and spends the night with Sonja, a tech journalist. The next day, he learns his credit card number has been stolen, and he is left without money for a return trip. He returns to Sonja's and shows her Oddjobs, an app which lists jobs; he sees one nearby related to a video game company, SaitoGemu.

At the company, Cooper is guided by Katie to a white room to test a new technology. Despite her telling him to turn his phone off for security reasons, he switches it back on when Katie leaves, to send Sonja a picture of the technology. When Katie returns, she implants a miniature device into the back of his neck. During the initialization process Cooper's mother calls, but Katie cancels the call. Cooper plays a game of Whack-a-Mole, using the chip's 3D graphics technology, and then is invited to participate in a beta test of another technology. Katie introduces Cooper to the company owner, Shou, who presents the technology, which probes his brain for information on things that scare him. Katie then takes Cooper to a mansion, leaving him alone with just an earpiece with which to communicate with her. After enduring a few small jumpscares interspersed with nervous conversation with Katie, Cooper finds his earpiece malfunctioning.

Sonja shows up at the house unexpectedly and tries to convince Cooper that the game is dangerous. He initially thinks she is another hologram, but soon she stabs him with a knife. Cooper fights Sonja and manages to kill her, but not before he rips the skin off her face. Cooper, after experiencing mental and physical pain, suddenly notices that the knife and the wound have disappeared, as has Sonja. Katie resumes talking in Cooper's earpiece, telling him he needs to go to the "access point", as he wants the test to stop. He does as ordered, but Katie then reveals that there is no access point. She then starts asking him basic questions, and he realizes he is losing his memories based on his fear of ending up like his senile father. Desperately, he removes the earpiece, but he still hears her voice. He then smashes the mirror and attempts to remove the miniature device with a piece of glass. At this point, Katie and Shou appear, saying the technology has gone too far into his brain and cannot be shut off.

Cooper wakes up, back in the room where Katie and Shou started the experiment; according to Katie and Shou, only one second had passed since the experiment began. Shou apologizes for the terror he caused Cooper, saying the game was not designed to go that far. Cooper returns home to his mother, but she does not recognize him and starts dialing his number on her phone. It is then revealed that Cooper died in the white room because of his phone interference after a 0.04-second experiment and that he called out "Mom" as he died.

## Notes and Trivia

* Cooper's last name is a reference to the survival horror game series *Resident Evil*, which features the characters Chris and Claire Redfield as protagonists. Ironically, Hannah John-Kamen, who portrays Cooper's love interest, would be cast in the upcoming 2021 *Resident Evil* film adaptation as protagonist Jill Valentine.
* Cooper was initially written as an unpleasant individual who needed to be taught a lesson; Wyatt Russell proposed rewriting the character to be genuinely good and amicable so that the audience would be more willing to identify with him and his experiences.