Richard Trager

"It's understandable, people get scared, they're as like to turn to God as anything else. God died with the gold standard. We're on to more concrete faith now.You have to rob Paul to pay Peter, there is no other way. Murder in it's simplest form, but what happens when all the money is gone? Well, money becomes a matter of faith. And that's what I'm here for..... To make you.... believe."

- Richard Trager's twisted philosophy

Dr. Richard "Rick" Trager is a major antagonist in the video game Outlast.

He is voiced by Alex Ivanovici.

Trager is an insane Variant who does experiments on patients in order to gain more knowledge about biology. A former employee of the evil Murkoff Corporation, Trager was eventually forcefully committed into Mount Massive Asylum after his insanity nearly exposed Murkoff's inhumane procedures to the world. During the incident at Mount Massive, Trager was one of the inmates to break free and started mutilating various former inmates, including investigative journalist Miles Upshur who arrived to find out the truth about Murkoff. However, when Upshur escaped from Trager, Trager attempted to recapture him and was crushed and killed by an elevator in the process.

Comics
A document shows that Trager was a former executive of Murkoff Corporation Research Development at Mount Massive Asylum before he became an experimenting surgeon. Occasionally, he played golf with Jeremy Blaire.

While investigating information leaks at Mount Massive, two investigators are called in by Murkoff. The investigators are sent to meet with Richard Trager. When they meet him, he is acting jovially, claiming to be "a team player" and wanting the two of them to be on "Team Rick". Rick also harasses the female investigator multiple times. Trager is claiming that no one in his department is responsible for the leaks. During the conversation, the male investigator, Paul, secretly signalizes his female partner Pauline that he considers Trager, who is still too desperately acting like everything is fine, to be "dirty as hobo shit". To get more information out on him, Pauline asks Trager whether the two of them could meet for dinner at his place. Trager accepts.

At dinner, Trager offers Pauline cocaine. When she declines they move to scotch instead. However, while drinking, Pauline recognizes a sour taste and realizes that Trager spiked her drink with Rohypnol. To prevent Trager from raping her, Pauline draws her gun and forces Trager to drink the rest of the drugged scotch. Trager passes out almost immediately. She then searches his house and finds a pamphlet about an abortion clinic.

She calls her partner and the two meet the pregnant Murkoff employee Michelle. They confront her as the source of the leaked information and Michelle reveals that Trager raped her and got her pregnant. Trager had then forced her to either get an abortion or to get fired. As the woman could tell no one without risking Trager firing her, and could not take care of a child without her job, Michelle had decided to send the leak e-mails with hope that Trager would get blamed and fired. Paul then made sure a severance package was made for Michelle in exchange for her silence. This way, Michelle was able to keep her child and would be able to take care of it without working for Murkoff. Michelle agreed, but when she visited Jeremy Blaire with the investigators to revoke her security clearance, a furious Trager stormed into the room, calling the two investigators "lying bitches". Claiming that Michelle cannot prove anything, he grabbed a pair of scissors from a nearby table and stabbed her into the belly multiple times, killing the fetus inside her.

Trager was tackled by the investigators immediately afterwards. In the hustle, Trager's long hair got caught in a paper shredder and was ripped out of his head. Trager was caught and was taken in as an inmate and used as a test subject for the Morphogenic Engine. Despite having been his friend, Blaire personally watched when Trager was dragged into the machine and sadistically smiled while watching.

Outlast
Trager is first encountered when Miles is fleeing from a group of Variants and comes to dead end room with a dumb waiter at the far side of it. A voice comes through a radio near the waiter and tells Miles to get in the waiter to survive and escape from his pursuers. Miles does so and is lifted up to the kitchen where he finds Trager, who then hits him twice to stun him and places him in a wheelchair with arm and leg restraints. He talks to Miles in a very calm way while doing this and sarcastically offers to take him out on a stroll in the Courtyard.

He takes Miles up several floors in an elevator and wheels him through several hallways with previously tortured victims. They enter a room where Trager proceeds to talk about money and Father Martin, nonchalantly examining several blades to decided which one is best suited for Miles' torture.

He decides upon a pair of shears which he uses to cut off Miles' right index finger and left ring finger, slapping him in the process. He leaves Miles to bleed but Miles is able to escape his restraints before vomiting on the floor and grabbing his camera.

Miles leaves to find a former executive on a hospital bed who states that Trager was an executive like him and says that Trager "got the treatment. He's too alive. Filled with Wernicke's nightmares." He starts to yell and as Miles hides, the victim is murdered by Trager who soon realizes that Miles has escaped, exploding in a fit of verbal rage upon finding out.

Miles sneaks his way around the area, carefully making his way past Trager and is able to to find an elevator that requires a key. Sneaking past Trager once more, he is able to find the key but as soon as he does, Trager stabs a nearby door repeatedly and kicks it down. Miles finally makes it back to the elevator and seemingly escapes.

Trager is not finished however and breaks into the elevator while it is moving down in an attempt to kill him. Miles resists him and pushes him back out of the elevator and then in his struggle to reach Miles, Trager foolishly allows himself to be caught between the elevator and floor, which crushes him to death. Miles exits through a ceiling grate in the elevator and leaves Trager's body to rot.

Outlast: Whistleblower
Trager's body is briefly seen during Waylon's final escape from the Asylum. As the Murkoff Tactical group storms the building, Waylon watches from behind a locked gate as the soldiers investigate his body, now pulled from the elevator. They question what kind of "sick fuck" would do this to someone. Ironically, Trager was the villain and brought his own death upon himself. Trager is never seen again.

Personality
"Hey, you're that little shit priest's guy aren't you? His... witness or whatever. You must be exhausted. Lets take a break, huh, buddy? The old two martini lunch, have a little confab."

- Richard Trager first scene into the game.

Trager is heavily psychotic and manipulative, but retains a great deal of intelligence. The only thing that makes him insane is his deep desire to hurt and kill people, making him a sadist and murderer. He is intelligent enough to simply open most doors, organize torture and speak coherently.

He speaks in a very calm manner, even when hunting Miles in the halls, using the nickname, "Buddy" frequently in reference to Miles. He speaks in a friendly tone and has a snarky, sarcastic way of speaking, even taunting Miles by showing him the exit and offering a stroll in the mountain air, even though Miles is totally restrained. This is later shown again when he states to a yelling patient that they weren't using their tongue anyway and quietly says that the truth is he was just tired of licking his own stamps.

He has high disrespect for Father Martin and his religious beliefs and refers to him as a "little shit" and says that he hopes Miles hasn't been confused by all his "holier-than-thou bible thumping." and says, "No offense to the man, but I sometimes worry he might be just a little bit crazy." while holding a blade to Miles' throat.

The inhuman treatment,executions and mutilations of Miles and other patients,or the when he punched an ex-executive of Murkoff only because he was bothering him proves he had no sense of empathy or morality. Even when he was a Murkoff executive, he was merciless with the patients, studying how a body can survive without lungs an other vital organs. However, the events of Murkoff changed him for the worst, turning him into a serial killer with no purpose or meaning in his life.

Characteristics
Doctor Trager, much like the rest of the asylum's inhabitants, is a sadistic and mass-murdering psychopath, but his psyche and mental ability appears to operate in a highly functional way that proves he still has a grasp of reality, even if only slight. Because of this, he is more than capable of thinking, planning, and other things such as tricking Miles into entering the dumbwaiter so he can gain access to him (it is possible that that's how Trager lures his victims).

Additionally, he is capable of both intelligent and coherent speech (much like Eddie Gluskin), speaking to Miles in a friendly tone and addressing him almost mockingly, as "buddy." He either enjoys pretending to be a surgeon or has been driven to believe that he actually is one, and has a habit of collecting body parts from his "patients", e.g. a tongue, and Miles' ring and index fingers because he desired to sell them.

He wears glasses, a machine-monocle, a bloodstained apron, and a torn up surgeon's mask. He also appears to have an accessory on his left arm made from a patient's drip. This drip could be used by him as a blood transport to survive.

Abilities
Trager does not seem to have any extraordinary abilities though he does possess significant intelligence when compared with that of the patients. He is able to track Miles very well through vision, hearing and common sense. He speaks coherently and intelligently and will calmly open most doors. He wields a pair of giant shears which he can use to easily impale and behead Miles as well as weaken doors with.

He seems to have a degree of enhanced strength as he is able to incapacitate Miles with two simple punches as well as bash down wooden doors. Though this strength seems to be ineffective when Miles is predicting an attack so this is questionable, though it could simply be due to Miles' anger and adrenaline. It is possible he may have somehow became a Variant since he seems to have been slightly augmented physically and driven mad by some outside source.

Trivia

 * The last name 'Trager' could be a reference to the Trager Approach.
 * Richard's email address is r.trager@murkoffcorp.lu, as revealed in a document that Miles can acquire.
 * It is possible to stop Trager from murdering the Variant by distracting him. If done so, Trager will chase Miles instead of impaling the patient with his shears, however, this will prevent the player from acquiring the "Dr. Rick Trager" note.
 * Trager's walking animation is bugged, causing him to move faster than his legs should carry him. This makes him appear to nearly float as he walks throughout the Male Ward.
 * There's a bug in which Trager will not appear to see Miles if the player activates a checkpoint, and returns to where Trager is.
 * In the game's configuration and on the soundtrack, Richard is dubbed as "Surgeon".
 * He is the only Variant not to be a patient.