Francis

"He needed to feel huge, fit believably into the world and read well as a silhouette."

- Jeremy Bennett, Valve. "*phew* Good thing I'm indestructible."

- Francis

Francis, is one of the four playable Survivors in Left 4 Dead. He is a tough man with tattoos covering his arms and neck. In official media, he can usually be seen wielding either the Pump Shotgun or the Auto Shotgun.

Francis, along with Bill and Louis, appears in Left 4 Dead 2 in the downloadable campaign The Passing as they meet with the Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors. Nick and Francis bicker with each other a lot due to their brash natures, although Rochelle finds herself strangely attracted to him.

Francis' facial features are portrayed by Taylor Knox and he is voiced by Vince Valenzuela.

Background
At one point, Francis was employed by the shipping company Hersch but was presumably fired after assaulting a man.

Francis attempted to steal a flat-screen television two days after first Infection. When he is caught, his claim that he is a cop gathering evidence for a crime is not taken seriously. He is next shown in a bar boasting to his friends about why he is going to jail. When one of his friends reveals to him that Pennsylvania jails do not allow conjugal visits, Francis' presumed girlfriend Sandra then says "better not waste anymore time" and grabs Francis' arm and pulls him into the bar's back room. Francis and Sandra begin kissing in the back room when she gets sick on his vest. He almost leaves, but she convinces him to stay and then promptly bites him. She is about to attack him when Francis's paranoid friend, Duke, shoots her. Realizing that this is no ordinary flu and that most people cannot be considered human anymore, Francis realizes the possibilities of the lawlessness the outbreak has brought, and has Duke and Danny lug a jukebox to the roof where he grabs a shotgun to begin picking off Infected one by one with Duke, Danny and a few other barmates.

It is unknown what had happened to his friends, but it is most probable that he either left them or they weren't immune or carriers and succumbed to the flu at one point of time before Francis had joined the group. In the Sacrifice, Francis admits to Zoey that he finds his old friends more fun to be with during the apocalypse but would not have lasted two weeks if he hadn't met the group.

Relationships with other Survivors
Of the four original Survivors, Francis is the most cocky and insulting leader of the group. Dream sequences and dialogue in the third and fourth episodes of The Sacrifice comic provide evidence that Francis has a well-developed alpha-male self-image. Despite this, the other Survivors may sometimes look down on Francis for his stupidity at times.


 * Bill
 * Francis and Bill tease each other a lot. On some occasions he flat-out insults him and often makes sarcastic retorts to his comments. Francis also shows that he would rather live and let Bill die Bill is quick to let Francis know that the feeling is mutual, and dislikes his pessimistic and rude attitude. The arguing and teasing is likely just joking around between the two; if Bill dies, Francis is quite shaken up. It is not known whether it is because he cares for Bill or if he is disturbed at the nature of his death.


 * Louis
 * Francis doesn't seem to talk to Louis much, but when he does, it is mostly in form of sarcasm and insults. Francis dislikes Louis' optimistic outlook on The Infection and perhaps the way Louis perceives Francis himself. Francis' deep-seated alpha-male contempt for Louis is revealed during his dream sequence (refer The Sacrifice comic, Part 4) when his unconscious mind exiles Louis to a separate island from whence he vainly calls out to the beer girls to come and join him there. When Francis does throw out a sarcastic remark directed at Louis, he either doesn't get the gist of it, turns it back on Francis or breaks from his kindly attitude to give Francis a barbed rejoinder. They are also known to bicker about whether the Infected are zombies or vampires. If it comes to Louis' death, Francis is quite shaken and, while he does make a joke about his profession, he also says that Louis had started to grow on him. When Louis is incapacitated outside of the safe room, Francis doesn't seem to be above abandoning him if it was a unanimous team decision. However, his other response indicates that it could just be reluctance on his part to show that he cares for Louis.
 * In The Sacrifice comic  , when Louis gives up after the bridge stops and says he has a bad feeling, Francis tells Louis that they've survived worse in an attempt to convince Louis (unsuccessfully) that they will survive. This hints that, while Francis might not show it, he cares about Louis, or at least his state of mind.
 * In The Sacrifice comic  , when Louis gives up after the bridge stops and says he has a bad feeling, Francis tells Louis that they've survived worse in an attempt to convince Louis (unsuccessfully) that they will survive. This hints that, while Francis might not show it, he cares about Louis, or at least his state of mind.

When asked by Bill if there's anything he doesn't hate, he replies "You know what I don't hate? I don't hate vests." In Crash Course, Francis states that he loves lasagna, and when Zoey walks past the steam pipe and sarcastically moans, "I love steam," he mutters, "Yeah.... Steam's all right, I guess." This is a reference to Valve's gaming software, also called Steam. In the same level, the crash leaves him so dazed that he blurts out "I love helicopters!" raising genuine concern for his mental health before he snaps out of it. From the tone of his voice, his statement that he loves helicopters may also be sarcasm that the other Survivors don't pick up on. During The Passing, Francis states, "I love that car!" referring to Jimmy Gibbs Jr.'s stock car. Despite the fact that he hates cops, he often claims he is one when attempting to call a Rescue Vehicle, the Church Guy (who said he didn't sound like one), or when talking to the Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors, where he claims that he, Bill and Louis are all cops (Nick, however, sees through this ruse), even yelling to the new Survivors who are escaping from the Port that they were cops. It is also pretty obvious that he does not hate Rochelle.
 * Zoey
 * In beta testing, Zoey and Francis were to share some sort of affection towards each other, but this was cut. Nonetheless, Francis seems to like Zoey more than the other Survivors, and shows extreme sadness if she dies. Zoey isn't as keen on Francis as she was originally intended to be, but they still get along well. At the start of Crash Course, Francis is fairly annoyed at Zoey for causing them to crash-land as a result of her deliberately shooting their Infected helicopter pilot in mid-flight. Thereafter, during The Alleys, he directs pointed comments to her over this incident. Nevertheless, they still crack jokes together and Francis eventually warms up and puts the episode behind him. *:In The Sacrifice comic, Francis defends Zoey when Bill is mad at her, (despite insulting her several times in the build up to it) by saying that "Zoey doesn't always do the right thing but does it for the right reasons.
 * There is a noticeable change in tone when he talks about losing Zoey in The Passing, and he hated the idea of lowering the bridge when Zoey was the one who gave her life to raise it, hinting that he had a large amount of respect for her.
 * }
 * }

Quotes and Captions
"See: Francis/Quotes and Captions"

Behind the Scenes
Francis' original beta design was quite different from his current appearance. Originally, Francis had slightly long, black hair with a beard, blue jeans, and appeared overweight. His tattoos, and clothing style remained about the same, however, except for the vest which appeared to be a denim one instead of his current leather one. The in-game Developer Commentary states that Francis is 6 foot 5 inches tall.