Half-Life is home to many age-old debates—who the hell is G-Man? How does Magnusson know we ruined his casserole? Is Dr Breen out there somewhere as a big telepathic interdimensional slug? What was the Nihilanth trying to tell us?
All very interesting threads, except for the casserole. That one’s easy. A scientist snitched on us in the 20 minutes between mashing the microwave button and causing an interdimensional catastrophe. He was on a mission. But the one that still sticks with me all these years later is simple, does Gordon Freeman wear a helmet?
According to concept and 3D designer Chuck Jones, who created Gordon, he does. Case closed, let’s all go home. Maybe, but I have a 500-word minimum feature requirement to hit and, well, I don’t buy it. When Gordon goes to collect his HEV suit in the first game, someone has already raided the closet. Two of the three are missing (later revealed to be in Gina Cross and Colette Green’s possession in Decay) and his helmet is nowhere to be seen. Looking at the Gordon model in both Half-Life and Half-Life 2, he never wears it. Promotional art also heavily features him without one too. So what’s the deal, Valve?
Jones says that Gordon has to have the helmet because it’s why “headcrabs cannot latch onto his head”, but we see headcrabs grapple with Combine in Half-Life 2: Episode 1. Clearly, a helmet isn’t enough to stop the little buggers. And while not canon because it’s a fan-made remake, we see HEV zombies in Black Mesa—that lines up with the Zombines more than the immunity suggested here.
To add fuel to this age-old debate is Gina and Colette. Decay is a PS2 spin-off developed by Gearbox that was bundled with the original game, but importantly, it’s co-op. That means you can see each other, and neither Gina nor Colette are wearing helmets. It seems standard for scientists to wear nothing but a suit. Even in Kleiner’s lab in the second game, there is no helmet on display, and when he runs through diagnostics, he makes no mention of one.
Lead writer Marc Laidlaw chimed in, saying that because it gave Gordon a “really bad case of helmet-hair”, he ditched it by the second game. That does imply he has it in the original, but again, there’s no in-game sign of it. The only clue is the HUD that pops up. Some theorise that Gordon has an early prototype of Google Glasses that displays his health and ammo, which Laidlaw also suggested, but Jones shut this down because then the HUD would appear before you got the HEV suit.
But then we don't see the HUD until we get the suit in Half-Life 2 either, which doesn't have a helmet according to Laidlaw. The HUD doesn’t appear tied to the suit at all. But another key point in the debate is the oxygen meter that displays when swimming underwater. You’d assume that it's reading how much oxygen is left in the helmet, but given how little time Gordon can spend underwater, it’s probably just measuring how long before it gets dangerous without any protection. I.e., without a helmet.
The short of it is that Gordon’s designer himself says that he wears a helmet, but Half-Life fans are stubborn. And with one game in a decade that ends on the same cliffhanger as the one from a decade prior, we’re bound to get caught in the weeds speculating nonsense. So, here I am. Gordon probably does wear a helmet in the first game, but not the second. And yet I’m still not sold—as far as I’m concerned, he was late, rushed in, didn’t bother to find the helmet, and went straight to the test chamber. That’ll be why he can only hold his breath for ten seconds. As for the HUD… well, you’ve got me beat.