Craig is a coder who creates a very significant game that ties into several narrative plots in The Consultant. The dark comedy series is streaming on Prime Video.
Craig Horne was a coder in CompWare who despised Sang for many reasons, one of them being the fact that no matter how many ideas he pitched for games, they were never given serious consideration.
When Regus Patoff comes in, he’s got very little knowledge of video games and the industry so he is receptive to one of Craig’s ideas. That idea begins to snowball into a huge venture that indirectly leads to Regus’s departure from CompWare.
Upskirt jungle
The first mention of the idea comes soon after Craig observes Regus from below the glass walkway and then asks his colleague what kind of weight it could withstand.
The colleague crudely refers to the walkway as an “upskirt gallery” and a casual discussion about the weights of different animals sprouts.
Craig designs a basic program to test the tensile strength of a glass surface by dropping different animals like elephants and rhinos on it and Regus walks up to him and asks him about it. Regus is impressed with the idea and asks Craig to actually build the game.
Going for broke
When Craig and Elaine learn that CompWare will shut down in six weeks unless they produce something big, Craig decides to go all in on “Upskirt Jungle”, the name he gave to the game.
When he goes to pitch it to Regus, he offers to install a demo on his phone so that he can test it on his own time. Along with the demo, he adds some stalker ware to code so that he can get some information out of Regus’s phone about Frank Florez.
He gets Frank’s contact but while he pretends to be sick and goes to see Frank, Regus has the other coders work overtime to finish building the game. Craig returns to work and tells Elaine that since they finished the game without him, the stalker ware was not removed.
During his meeting with Frank as well, he was attacked by goons in an elephant mask, a rhino mask, and a gorilla mask, the first three animals he showed Regus in the game.
He immediately got access to the phones of everyone who tested out the initial rollout of the game. They also changed the name of the game to something more appropriate that also pays homage to their former boss.
Mr. Sang’s jungle odyssey
Regus really pushes for Mr. Sang’s jungle odyssey to do well and Elaine helps him by observing the initial reports from the testers. She does discover a glitch at level 316 where players would find themselves unable to progress no matter what strategy they use.
Not being able to progress would frustrate them so much that many of them would hurt themselves by striking something nearby in anger. Craig also falls victim to this glitch and ends up with a couple of stitches as his game is slowly taken away from him.
When the game reaches the marketing stage, Elaine casually suggests letting out a wild elephant in the streets of Los Angeles near one of their billboards and Regus loves the idea. He tells Elaine to get it done by any means necessary.
She gets it done after enlisting the help of her criminal ex-boyfriend and it turns out to be a partial success. The game hits a million downloads on launch and Craig states that since they never removed the stalker ware, they are now in violation of privacy laws.
In the final face off, Craig wants to test Frank’s theory that Regus’s skeleton is made of gold. He begins smashing the glass with a hammer to compromise its integrity and Regus eventually falls through.
Craig grabs a severed toe and later confirms that the bones inside were made of gold, the ones that Frank had crafted. Elsewhere, when the boy who killed Sang-woo finally beats level 316, he reaches the prize in the center which is a giant egg containing a gold skeleton.
Also Read: The Consultant (2023) ending explained: Who is Regus Patoff?
