The Free Man Abides

Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman won't be changing his stripes any time soon, Valve head Gabe Newell told the UK's Edge magazine in a recent interview. Asked about whether Gordon is likely to find his voice in Half-Life 2: Episode 3 (or Half-Life 3, as the next installment in the franchise has been rumored to be), Newell said, "We're not philosophically opposed to this, but we don't have any good reasons to do it. Right now making your companions more interesting and compelling seems a more fruitful avenue to explore."

The mute hero is a throwback to an earlier era of gaming, where the characters gamers assumed rarely had personalities of their own in order to let the player immerse him or herself into the protagonist's persona. How much personality Freeman is capable of expressing through his limited suite of interactions with the world (mostly, "bash with crowbar," "shoot with gun," or "fling sawblade at face through gross violation of physics") is another question entirely, but expertly voiced and scripted NPCs from Alyx to Eli and Dr. Breen can certainly elicit an emotional reaction from the player regardless.

The alchemical processes at Valve have resulted in a set of some of my favorite games of all times, so I'm not in a huge rush to second-guess the studio on this – in particular, a gruffly anti-heroic Gordon Freeman dropping one-liners and leering at the pretty ladies is the last thing that Half-Life needs. What about you? Would you change anything about the baddest scientist in the multiverse?

[via CVG]