Robert Kendo

Overview

Robert Kendo was the owner and manager of Kendo Guns and supplied the vast majority of the standard issue weaponry used by the Raccoon City Police Department. Along with those duties, Kendo also provided custom weaponry to the Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S. organization and was good friends with S.T.A.R.S. operative Barry Burton, with whom he often went with on fishing and hunting trips, even letting Barry refer to him as 'Bob'.

Resident Evil 2

In the A Scenario for both Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield, Kendo offers his store as a safe haven for survivors. It isn't long afterwards, however, that zombies burst in through the store's display window; Kendo is then quickly overwhelmed and devoured. If the player decides to prematurely leave his store via the backdoor, before the zombies break in, the zombies will still eventually smash through the window and kill Kendo, noted by his scream shortly upon leaving the store.

His legacy lives on throughout the game, as his death provides a shotgun for Leon and a crossbow for Claire, both of which are highly likely to be used consistently throughout the game by the player. If they missed the weapon, however, there was still another to be found in the locker in the S.TA.R.S. office.

Trivia

• The customization of the S.T.A.R.S. handgun, the Samurai Edge, was assigned to Robert. However the actual customization was carried out by his older brother, Joe Kendo.
• Kendo will respond differently to the player depending on which character they're controlling; as Leon, he will respond normally, though as Claire he noticeably acts much more patronizing, referring to her with such terms like ''girly''.
• The Resident Evil Archives book lists Robert Kendo as being 40 years old and of Japanese-American descent.
• His firearm store makes an appearance in the non-canon retelling of the events of the Raccoon City outbreak in Operation: Raccoon City.
• In the Resident Evil 2 prototype, dubbed Resident Evil 1.5, Robert was to have a much larger role and would star as a supporting character alongside Marvin Branagh in Leon S. Kennedy's storyline.