Iconic Half-Life character isn’t who we think he is, Valve dev says

Half-Life characters are nonetheless, to today, hiding lots of secrets and techniques. We all know little or no about Gordon Freeman. G-Man is a complete thriller. And even with the newest entry within the Valve FPS game collection, we’re nonetheless studying lots about Alyx and her background earlier than the occasions of Half-Life 2. One latest fan concept, nonetheless, involving Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and one of many iconic scientist NPCs from Black Mesa, has led us to an surprising revelation. It seems one of the recognizable faces from Half-Life doesn’t belong to who we thought.

All of it begins with scientist_04, higher identified inside the Half-Life group as ‘Slick.’ You’ve little question seen him round Black Mesa – he’s the youthful scientist with the slicked again black hair. With the discharge of Oppenheimer, Half-Life gamers started to invest that maybe Slick was primarily based on the well-known physicist himself. Admittedly, there’s a resemblance.

Naturally, this warranted additional investigation. Enter The Gamer and Valve designer Chuck Jones. Jones labored at Valve between 1996 and 2003, and carried out a lot of the 3D modelling and character work for the unique Half-Life.

Although Jones doesn’t tackle the Slick/Oppenheimer connection, the Valve dev affords a startling secret about one other Black Mesa NPC, scientist_02, higher often called ‘Einstein.’ You possibly can guess why.

However right here’s the twist. It seems Einstein isn’t Einstein in any respect. He’s really primarily based on a really totally different, however equally important, historic determine.

“So far as the scientist [scientist_02] I took the largest visible cliche of what a scientist would appear like and went from there,” Jones says. “The one you talked about that appeared like Einstein? I feel I acquired the inspiration from George Washington.”

So Einstein is just not Einstein in any respect – he’s George Washington. We have to change the nickname. The entire material of what we thought we knew about Black Mesa might disintegrate. Is Gordon Gordon? Are headcrabs really simply cute? Are you able to really blow up a lamb casserole utilizing a microwave?!

Jones does affirm one factor all of us suspected about G-Man nonetheless, that he’s primarily based on the Cigarette-Smoking Man from The X-Information. “Gabe Newell talked about that’s what he needed to see,” Jones tells The Gamer. “X-Information was big on the time, so the design adopted.” So, not all the things has been flipped the wrong way up.

If all this Half-Life has your nostalgia going, try among the different finest old games on PC. You may also wish to discover out whatever happened to Half-Life 3, which we nonetheless imagine – nonetheless, nonetheless imagine – will in the future arrive.