Kurt Hansen

Kurt Hansen is the colonel who rules Dogtown and a key antagonist of Phantom Liberty. A juvenile gang member before he enlisted in Militech’s armed forces, he made colonel young and ran covert operations around the world. In 2067 he took command of Barghest, an urban combat and pacification unit.

During Operation Midnight Storm, the NUSA’s last push on Night City in the Unification War, Barghest set up a forward base at the EBM Petrochem Stadium in Pacifica. When the assault was called off in June 2070, Hansen and his whole unit refused to withdraw. The area was walled off and Hansen renamed it Dogtown, funding his rule with smuggling, arms deals and a black market lucrative enough that the city’s powers leave him alone. Some call him a gangster or a deserter; others see the man who keeps corporations and the NCPD out, though most residents live near poverty.

V meets Barghest at the start of the expansion, when Space Force One crashes in Dogtown and the militia closes in on the president, and later comes face to face with Hansen at the Black Sapphire, the unfinished 99-story hotel he made his headquarters, with a rooftop club for powerful guests. The developers named South American drug lords as the main inspiration for Hansen and Barghest, and he also recalls Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now: his voice files are even tagged with Kurtz’s name.