The Keeper (2024)

"That co*ckroach. That sycophant. Living off of me. Feeding off of my work. I'll have to figure out how he got the combination to my safe."

―Ruvik, furious at how Jimenez was using him

The Keeper is an enemy that appears inThe Evil Within, briefly in The Evil Within 2, and the villain/anti-hero protagonist of the DLC, The Executioner.

Description[]

The Keeper is a tall, large-built humanoid clad in what looks to be a butcher or slaughterhouse worker's attire, complete with tall rubber boots, gloves, and an apron. He has a safe for a head, which is completely featureless on the inside save for a mass of pulsing flesh where a face would be. A metal basket is worn on his back, though he never seems to deposit or remove anything from it.

His primary weapon is an oversized meat tenderising hammer with a large spike on the side opposite the head, used to impale a victim through their head. In his other hand, he is most often seen holding a sackfilled with the severed heads of his assumed victims; spikes and broken orbitoclasts (a surgical tool used for performing transorbital lobotomies) poke out of the fabric in various places.

While he may seem more mundane compared to Ruvik's other cronies, relying mainly on brute strength in his attacks, he has the ability to teleport to other safes by breaking his own neck. There are usually many spread throughout the area where he must be fought, allowing him to be virtually omnipresent and ensuring no place is safe. The visuals of repeated camera flickers and glitches along with pounding and scratching noises herald a Keeper's arrival.

Dark Keeper[]

A dark manifestation of the Keeper is fought as the final boss of The Executioner. He looks identical to his normal counterpart, although is wreathed in darkness, giving him a charcoal-purple coloration, and wields a large Sword in place of the hammer. In addition, he possesses the ability to summon Laura-like arms to pursue his adversaries, akin to those created by Ruvik's Doppelgangers.

Symbolism[]

The Keeper was born from a combination of Ruvik's memory of the safe where he kept his research, and his unbridled rage. The safe head represents the atrocities of Ruvik's past that he's trying to keep hidden, literally crushing anyone who comes near.

Plot[]

The Evil Within[]

The Keeper made his first "official" appearance in the game during Chapter 7, at the end of which he serves as a boss Sebastian Castellanos must defeat.

Sebastian will be facing off against the Keeper in a sealed chamber with toxic gas constantly pouring in. In order to progress and avoid death by suffocation, Sebastian must incapacitate the Keeper and close the 3 gas valves in the area. While not particularly tough himself, the Keeper can respawn from any of the safes littered about the area. After closing the three valves, the Keeper is seemingly destroyed after Sebastian threw his head safe into a spiked trap and crushed it.

Despite this, the Keeper makes a reappearance in Chapter 13 as Sebastian and Joseph Oda are making their way through an abandoned apartment building. While not directly fought, the Keeper resolves to hinder the duo's progress by setting numerous traps along their way before finally cornering them in a meat locker. Once again the Keeper can be fought or fled from, though killing him here won't prevent his later appearances.

Two Keepers make a final appearance at the end of Chapter 15 as a sub-boss fight before reaching Ruvik. These must be fought and defeated in order to progress.

The Executioner[]

As the Keeper is the avatar assumed by the protagonist of this DLC, he is not fought. The plot drops several hints that the controllable Keeper is one of many, however, and an empty chamber of what looks to be the previous Keeper can be found near the end of the DLC.

While the true Keeper is not fought, a dark manifestation of him is, and serves as the final boss.

The Evil Within 2[]

The Keeper briefly returns in The Evil Within 2 during the boss fight with Theodore Wallace, who uses Sebastian's memories of STEM to torment him. After Sebastian defeats The sad*st, he is pulled through the ceiling and dropped into The Keeper's domain, where three Keepers attack him. After the final one is defeated, its head lands on the floor with blood running out, only to have Laura crawl out of it.

Tips[]

The Evil Within[]

• If one has the patience and the skill needed, they can continuously farm trap parts from the Keeper in Chapter 7 after shutting off the toxic gas, as he drops the barbed wire traps indefinitely. If the Keeper does not seem to be dropping traps, this can be fixed by making the Keeper flinch using the shotgun.
  • Fully-upgraded Explosive bolts can kill the Keeper in one hit and two normal explosive bolts will kill him.
  • The Magnum is also a good choice against Keepers, capable of one-shot kills against them even with minor damage upgrades.
• The Keeper has a habit of banging on his head safe with his hammer whenever he spots Sebastian. As this makes a distinctive noise, it could serve as a warning for the player to start making some distance.
• If the player kills him enough times in Chapters 7 and 13, he will no longer have any safes to spawn from and will not antagonize them until they leave the area. There are 34 possible respawns for the Keeper during Chapter 7, but only 5 in Chapter 13.
• The Shotgun is actually very effective against him. The Keeper has to wind up slightly before attacking, leaving him exposed for a moment, which can be exploited to blast him full of pellets before backstepping to avoid his hammer. He is very easy to take down like this due to his center of mass being huge and not having any resistance, unlike his armored head which blocks nearly all damage.

The Executioner[]

• The Dark Keeper takes reduced damage from the Rocket Launcher, Dynamite and is stunned less by barbed wire traps. As such, melee weapons are recommended, although his own speed is something to worry about if the player cannot reliably dodge.
  • The wide swing arc of his Sword leaves the Dark Keeper vulnerable for a few seconds after a miss, which is ample time for the player to follow up with several hammer blows or grind on him with the Chainsaw.
  • If the player has already completed the DLC once, using the Sword on the Dark Keeper himself is also frighteningly effective, capable of taking off huge chunks of health off of him in just a few slashes.
• The Dark Keeper does not have to be incapacitated in order to crush his head safe in a trap. Just luring him under one and springing it on him is enough, and will directly skip to the next phase of the battle.

The Evil Within 2[]

• The Warden Crossbow is a good choice when fighting the three Keepers as it can stun/damage them effectively.
  • Fully-upgraded Harpoon Bolts can kill a Keeper in 2-3 shots, if well placed.
  • Despite this, it is best recommended to deploy tripwires after the first Keeper is killed, as two will spawn afterwards. Stopping to place direct hits on them is dangerous, as it will leave the player vulnerable to the other Keeper dealing damage from behind. Also, using Freeze or Explosive bolts on a charging Keeper or in close-range of one can damage Sebastian.
• Either the Sawed-off or Full-barreled shotguns would do fine against the three-Keeper rush. Invest into damage if needed.
• On a New Game+, the Magnum is an excellent answer.

Death Animations[]

• If Sebastian is caught in a barbed wire trap with the Keeper around, or his health is depleted by a hammer swing, he will fall down to his knees. Sebastian then looks up, only for the Keeper to ram the spike of his hammer directly through his head, killing him. He then walks away with Sebastian still hooked onto the hammer.
• If Sebastian's health is depleted via a neck grab, the Keeper will toss him to the ground and batter his head in with two hammer strikes.

Achievements[]

I Don't Have Time for This! 10 - It won't stay dead! Better only fight when I have to. Completed Chapter 7 having killed only 2 Keepers.

What's In The Box? 20 - Escape the Keeper beneath the catacombs.

Trivia[]

• The Keeper's design and character motif are heavily reminiscent of the Pyramid Head from the Silent Hill franchise. To elaborate: both creatures bear the same general appearance of a large, well-built man clad in an apron with a metal "helmet" and equipped with an oversized weapon based on a butcher's instrument, that they drag along behind them audibly as they stalk their prey.
  • During Sebastian's encounter with two of them during Chapter 15, camera angle and their apparition, each on the side of a door, are again very reminiscent of the fight with the twin Pyramid Heads before the finale in Silent Hill 2.
• According to The Art of The Evil Within, it was mentioned that The Keeper was intended to bea "brain-collector" of sorts, in that he murders those who are likely to uncover Ruvik's deepest secrets and extract their brains to cover them up, hence the sack. His MO is changed to head collecting in the final revision.
  • The Keeper was originally designed to fill the role of a butcher instead, as early concepts showed him wielding large cleavers while wearing (or perhaps having) a pig's head.
• A miniature figure of the Keeper can be found in The Evil Within 2 during Chapter 17. It will be kept in Sebastian's Room during subsequent playthroughs.
• In The Evil Within, a level consisting entirely of hanging versions of the Keeper's head was drawn out conceptually, but scrapped due to troubles visualising it.
• Ikumi Nakamura cites that physical inspiration for The Keeper's head was derived from the shape of the upper apparatus on the sensory deprivation restraint chair created by 17th century psychiatrist Benjamin Rush.

Gallery[]

Concept Art[]

In-game screenshots[]

Model viewer[]