10 Best Silent Protagonists In Gaming History
9. Gordon Freeman (Half Life)
The second Orange Box mute in a row, and while it’s unlikely Gordon Freeman will ever get to finish his trilogy, he’s still done enough to solidify his legacy in the medium.
In the mould of the sorts of classic first person games Half Life went on to replace, Freeman’s complete and utter silence throughout allowed the player to push their own personality into him. Ironically, the narrative sharpness of Half Life opened the door for modern first person games at the turn of the century, and Half Life managed to be both the end of an era and the first of its kind.
Freeman is whatever you want him to be, and that’s one of the many, many things which made Half Life so iconic. Though some do see Freeman’s flatness as a weak point in a game so full of life elsewhere, it’s hard to imagine it being so successful with such a drastic change.
This counts double if they ended up giving him a personality which just didn’t mesh at all. With so much else going on in Half Life, when it comes to Freeman, less is certainly more.