CharacterProtagonists

Claude

Silent protagonist who is betrayed by Catalina during a bank job and works his way through Liberty City's gangs to get revenge.

Member of: Colombian Cartel
Nationality: United States
Status: Alive
Occupation: Career criminal
Family: 2

Background

Claude is the silent protagonist of Grand Theft Auto III. Almost nothing about his past is explained in the game: he is a career criminal who works with his girlfriend Catalina, and he never speaks a single line of dialogue. Players learn about him only through what other characters say to him and what he does.

The game opens in 2001 with a bank robbery in Liberty City. As the crew flees through an alley, Catalina turns on Claude, tells him he is holding her back and shoots him, leaving him for the police. He survives, is convicted and is sentenced to ten years in prison.

Events of GTA III

Claude's freedom comes by accident. While the police convoy is moving him over the Callahan Bridge, the Colombian Cartel attacks it to seize an elderly prisoner, and the bridge is destroyed. Claude escapes with 8-Ball, an explosives expert whose hands were burned in the attack, and the pair are stranded in Portland.

8-Ball introduces him to Luigi Goterelli, and Claude starts at the bottom of the Leone family: driving Luigi's girls, beating up a SPANK dealer and running jobs for Joey Leone and Toni Cipriani. He bombs Mike Forelli's car, kills Lee Chong, robs a Securicar and fights the Triads in a war that ends with the destruction of their fish factory in Blow Fish. Don Salvatore Leone notices him, and Claude exposes Curly Bob as a Cartel informer before helping 8-Ball sink the Cartel's SPANK ship in Bomb Da Base.

Salvatore then turns on him. Maria Latore, the don's wife, warns Claude that the car he has been sent to dispose of is a trap, and in Last Requests he escapes to Staunton Island with Maria and her friend Asuka Kasen. To earn the Yakuza's trust, Claude kills Salvatore outside Luigi's club in Sayonara Salvatore.

On Staunton Island, Claude works for Asuka, her brother Kenji and the corrupt cop Ray Machowski, who introduces him to media mogul Donald Love. Love has Claude rescue the Old Oriental Gentleman from the Cartel and then kill Kenji with a Cartel car to ignite a war between the Yakuza and the Colombians. After Love vanishes and Ray flees to Miami, Claude goes back to Asuka, who has captured Miguel. He breaks the Cartel's operations across the city, but Catalina strikes back: Asuka and Miguel are killed and Maria is kidnapped.

In The Exchange, Catalina demands $500,000 for Maria and tries to have Claude killed at her Cedar Grove mansion. Claude fights his way out, chases her helicopter to the Cochrane Dam, rescues Maria and shoots Catalina down. As the credits begin, Maria chatters on and a gunshot is heard.

Personality

Because Claude never speaks, his personality comes through his actions. He is cold, efficient and willing to take almost any job for money, switching between gangs whenever it suits him. He shows no loyalty to employers who betray him and he settles scores without hesitation. Other characters often remark on how quiet he is.

Relationships

Catalina: his former partner and girlfriend, who betrays him and becomes his final target.
8-Ball: fellow escapee who gives him his first contacts in Portland.
Maria Latore: saves his life by warning him about Salvatore's trap.
Asuka Kasen, Ray Machowski and Donald Love: his main employers on Staunton Island.