Gordon Freeman never speaks — on purpose

Gordon Freeman, the protagonist of Half-Life (1998), does not say a single word throughout the entire game. Valve deliberately chose this approach to maximise player immersion: if Gordon had no personality of his own, anyone could be him. Marc Laidlaw, the game's writer, explained that any dialogue from Gordon would have 'broken the silence' and distanced the player from the narrative. This choice proved so influential it became a template for dozens of subsequent games, radically changing how first-person storytelling is conceived.