Gordon Freeman is the silent protagonist of the Half-Life video game series, created by Gabe Newell and designed by Marc Laidlaw of Valve.

Gordon is depicted as a bespectacled white man from Seattle, with brown hair and a signature goatee, who graduated from MIT with a PhD in theoretical physics.

Controlled by the player, Gordon is often tasked with using a wide range of weapons and tools to fight alien creatures such as headcrabs, as well as Combine machines and soldiers.

[3][4] Valve president and Half-Life director Gabe Newell coined the name "Gordon Freeman" during a conversation with the game's writer Marc Laidlaw in his car.

The suit is designed to protect the user from radiation, energy discharges, and blunt trauma during the handling of hazardous materials.

It features a visual zooming capability, limited sprinting, an anti-venom injector, an optional ammo and a health counter on the crosshair, and has been modified to use Combine power nodes to charge the suit.

In the Half-Life saga, Gordon Freeman is a silent protagonist who, despite lacking formal weapon training, survives a chaotic inter-dimensional incident at the Black Mesa Research Facility.

In Episode One, Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance work to stabilize the Citadel's core to prevent a catastrophic explosion.

In 2008, The Age ranked him as the 16th-best Xbox character of all time, adding that "no one has done more for the reputations and street cred of theoretical physicists than Valve.

"[13] He was also ranked 14th on UGO.com's list of top 100 heroes in all media, with a comment that "an MIT graduate, donning black-framed glasses and a goatee, he's not the guy you'd picture decimating the alien threat.

[15] On the other hand, 1UP.com's Marty Sliva included him among the most unrelatable narrators, stating, "I'm sure some people love the fact that they can become Gordon Freeman -- I just think I'd be a little happier if there was anything there to become.