You- game- what- no- YOU SONOFA- ARGH WHAT THE HELL
You bastard, bastard game. For all that I'm enjoying it, this was an absolutely incredibly huge dick move.
And right now. Right now, I'm spoiling for everyone, because fuck that. UFO: Afterlight. A long damn way into the game. One of your characters ups and humps off into retirement -- not dies, or anything like that. Just stops being a soldier and offers up his daughter as recompense.
In this case? In this game? For my situation? The bastard was my dual-pistol doom monster (full spec'd -- full gunman, full ambidexterity, full suit wearing, athletics, minors in stalking, sniping, beastman anatomy... 12 trainings between it all, and flat supernatural everything. Level twenty freaking eight soldier). He had around 4-5 times more kills than anyone else on my team -- somewhere between 250 and 300, compared to 80 or so on my next highest killcount, and an average of around 50-60 between the rest of the old team.
To put it in perspective. The mission before he decided to bugger off. He did roughly double the amount of damage of the entire rest of my team combined. And they're not slouches! Killed 20+ beastmen. Held the line, murdered everything, death with two hands. He's consistently done this, and regularly more-or-less solo'd missions, just walking through and flat out gunning down goddamn everything. And then. Message pops up! "Yo' dawgs, I'm done. Peace out!" (paraphrased)
And just leaves. No warning. No hints anywhere that would happen. Just one of my most senior soldiers -- one of the ones that had been there since day one of the game, been in every single freaking mission I've had -- and without a doubt my most deadly, getting up and just walking the hell off.
So. The old dude with the striped face. Harald Zamyatin. Don't train that bastard. Don't do anything with him. Bench the sumbench and leave him there, because he's going to bugger off and spend what remains of the game twiddling himself in the corner, laughing at your despair, rage, and wasted training efforts and experience points.
Altar games? You made a solid game. You can also go freaking screw yourselves.