Gordon Freeman vs Isaac Clarke (Half-Life vs Dead Space) VS Prediction Blog

 

"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world…"

Gordon Freeman, the physicist turned resistance legend from Half-Life
Isaac Clarke, the engineer turned necromorph survivor from Dead Space

Player characters in video games have come from all sorts of walks of life, whether that be hardened space marines, destined warriors of legend, or people that chose to become heroes on hearing the call. However, that doesn’t go for everyone, as these two were once just ordinary scientists dealing with day to day life. That is, until some freak accidents caused by negligence left them facing beings from beyond the stars and our comprehension, which they had to deal with with nothing beyond their wits and whatever equipment they could get their hands on. This led to them becoming legendary figures within their settings and were forced to tussle with plenty of other threats both beyond the stars and more close to home, which was often less by choice and more due to their will to survive. So, which of these scientific survivors could find a way to make the other flat line for good? Let’s find out.

Before We Begin

Gordon will be drawn from information from his mainline titles (1, 2, Episode 1 & 2, and Alyx), along with supporting evidence from the other expansions, manuals, and anything else that’s within the canon storyline of Half-Life. And while they may be shown with credit for the sake of better visual representation, there will be no feats from any fan mods and animations, whether those be ones that are well respected or those that are… less so. 

Isaac will similarly be drawing mainly from his mainline titles, that being the original Dead Space trilogy and the recent modern remake of his first game, along with supporting evidence from the various spin off games, movies, comics, and other media within the Dead Space franchise. However, he will not be getting any scaling from any of the various crossovers he’s been in, so there will be no Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, Fortnite, or MySims Sky Heroes stuff here. 

Both characters will be given their maximum naturally possible arsenal of equipment, and will be treated as if they have their best possible upgrades. Though neither will be given access to vehicles, temporary amps from specific circumstances, or any other equipment that explicitly would require prep time. Additionally, spoiler alert for all of both of these series, along with a general content warning for depictions of body horror and gore, mainly in regards to Isaac. 

Finally, I feel the need to mention that this match was selected by votes in a tourney where I left the option of the match up to several servers I’m on. As such, I’m going to do my best to be as thorough as I can be here, especially given there are some recent developments about the match which I’m going to have to break down. Thanks again to everyone who voted for this, I hope I can do this match justice, as it is one I find very interesting, and going over these series for research has given me plenty of appreciation for both of them. 

Background

Gordon Freeman

“So, wake up, Mister Freeman. Wake up and… smell the ashes.”

From a young age, Gordon Freeman had always been interested in the sciences. Not too much is known about his personal life, but his earliest heroes were Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Feynman, and when he became an adult he’d get a PHD in theoretical physics from MIT. Seeing promise, Gordon would end up getting recruited by the Black Mesa Research Facility, a facility full of promising scientists working on experimental teleportation technology.

Using this, some of the scientists of the facility had found an alternate dimension known as Xen, which was full of strange alien creatures and materials, which would be researched by those lower in the chain who were unaware of their sources. While the realm was dangerous, samples brought back from it offered revolutionary potential, which led to the higher ups not caring for the danger. This would continue until one fateful day when Gordon’s team was instructed to plug one of the samples into an Anti-Mass Spectrometer at a higher power level than was safe. 

While this may have seemed like a small change, this would have catastrophic results, as it led to the machine exploding and rupturing the space-time continuum, creating a direct portal to the alternate dimension. The alien creatures of this world would rampage through Black Mesa, indiscriminately killing any humans they could find. Gordon was left to fight his way through the facility, taking on the alien invaders alongside more human threats from military personnel sent to keep the incident under wraps by silencing all witnesses. Gordon would defend against these threats, saving and impressing his fellow scientists as he went.

Eventually, Gordon would end up venturing into Xen himself, fighting through the aliens until he took down their leader, a mysterious psychic alien known as the Nihilanth. Gordon managed to take down these odds, with the alien letting out some cryptic dialogue all the while, but before he could puzzle that out, he would be accosted by a mysterious man with a briefcase. This was the G-Man, and while not too much about him is known for certain, he had been observing Gordon throughout the game, and ended up “employing” him under threat of being stranded.

Gordon would end up being stuck in a weird stasis dimension for a while, during which Earth ended up having a bit of a rough spot. As it turned out, in the fallout of the Black Mesa incident, the earth ended up ravaged by a “portal storm” which led to Xen’s inhabitants becoming common wildlife of the planet. However, this also drew the attention of the Combine, a massive interdimensional alien empire which had been conquering worlds and forced the intelligent life of Xen into hiding there. The combine would come to Earth, completely crushing the forces of the Earth in a brutal 7 Hour War, before enslaving humanity as part of a brutal and oppressive police state as they began draining the planet of its natural resources. 

After 2 decades of this rule, the G-Man would release Gordon back onto the planet, at which he’d end up caught in the middle of insurrection at City 17. Gordon would end up joining the human resistance against the combine, in which he’d meet with former colleagues like Barney Calhoun and Eli Vance, along with his daughter Alyx. Gordon would lead the charge against the Combine’s rule, becoming public enemy number one of the Combine and one of the resistance's premiere fighters, which combined with his previous fight in Black Mesa, would propel him into the status of a living myth. 

Eventually, Gordon would end up leading the charge against one of the Combine’s Citadels, destroying its teleportation technology and dealing a major blow to the Combine’s rule of Earth. While Gordon did end up caught in the blast of this, the G-Man once again interfered, believing his job to be done. However, this time the G-Man was accosted by the vortigaunts, another alien race from Xen which would do… something to the G-Man that made him release Gordon.

After this, Gordon would end up having to escape City 17, as their actions had seemingly caused a chain reaction down to the Citadel’s reactor, which would lead to an explosion that would destroy the entire city. Gordon would end up delaying the Citadel’s meltdown for long enough for the City to be evacuated. In the process, he’d discover that the core overloading was actually because the  Citadel had sent a distress call out to the rest of the Combine using it, with the destruction of the City being an acceptable outcome. 

Gordon would narrowly end up escaping the blast, before they’d end up journeying to a distant base to regroup with the rest of the resistance. After a long journey to get there, fighting through remnants of the Combine forces attempting a counterattack all the way, Gordon would end up at White Forest, a base where the group would be forced to defend themselves during a rocket launch, which sent a satellite that would shut down the Combine’s method of teleportation, preventing a second full scale invasion. This would not come without cost, however. During the fighting, Eli Vance received a critical injury from their forces, leaving him to die in his daughter’s arms. Gordon could do nothing but watch as this happened, much like the audience who was stuck with this moment as a massive cliff hanger for 13 years. 

However, things would end up changing in an unexpected and kind of convoluted way. 5 years earlier, Alyx would be caught in a massive Combine attack, during which she’d come to learn of her father’s future death. She’d end up journeying to release a powerful Combine prisoner who she thought was Gordon, but was actually the G-Man, who had somehow been captured. The G-Man would give her the chance to prevent her father’s future death, but this came at a cost. The G-Man had grown tired of Gordon’s lack of progress in completing his mysterious goals, so he would release Gordon from his service in exchange for employing Alyx, removing her from the timeline in the process. 

With this change in the timeline, Eli’s life would be saved, but he’d end up swearing revenge on the G-Man, as he deduced he was responsible for her disappearance. What this ultimately means for the future of Gordon or the Combine still has yet to be seen. But if his past could offer any way to predict the future, then they better watch out. As the One Free Man is not a man who will just lay down and let humanity die out. 

Isaac Clarke

"Good men mean well. We just don't always end up doing well."

In the far future of the 26th century, Isaac Clarke didn’t start life in the best place. His father was often absent from his childhood due to his work as an engineer, and his mother ended up turning to the Church of Unitology due to the stress of raising him alone. That all didn’t stop his career, with him ultimately following in his father’s footsteps and becoming an engineer. He’d try to get his mother on psychiatric help, which helped for a time. He even found a girlfriend there in Dr Nicole Brennan, whom he helped find a career on the USG Ishimura. 

However, Isaac’s life would change forever when the Ishimura put out a distress call, and Isaac happened to join the team sent to investigate in order to make sure Nicole was alright. However, when he ended up on the ship, he found it in disarray. As it turned out, due to the extraction of an alien artifact known as a Marker, many members of the crew ended up killing each other through sudden bouts of insanity, and a virus ensured the corpses left behind would mutate and come back to life as violent monsters known as Necromorphs. 

Isaac would end up separated from his crew, and would end up being forced to fight through the Ishimura to bring the ship back online and find Nicole. He’d end up seeing plenty of good men dead, and also ended up betrayed by one of his crewmates, Kendra, who intended to take the Marker which had caused all the chaos back to Earth for study. Isaac would end up reuniting with Nicole, who instructed him to bring the Marker back to the planet it came from, which Isaac managed to do for a bit. However, when this happened, Isaac ended up fully exposed to the Marker, which ended up having some… unfortunate effects. 

Though as it turned out, he had already been affected by them. As it turned out, before leaving for the Ishimura, Nicole has discharged Isaac’s mother from psychiatric care, believing her to be fine. However, she’d end up having a mental breakdown, and would end up killing Isaac’s father before taking her own life. In his grief, he’d call Nicole and blame her for his parent’s deaths, and he had joined the rescue to make sure that his last words to her weren’t so grim. However, Isaac would later end up getting another message from Nicole, this time of her amidst the Necromorph outbreak, where, believing her situation to be completely hopeless, she’d give him a goodbye before taking her own life. 

In his grief, Isaac ended up repressing these memories, which the Marker would take advantage of to create hallucinations of her to use him as a pawn. While he ultimately managed to destroy the Marker by plunging it into the planet’s surface which it had come from, this had come at the cost of his sanity. After this, he’d end up taken in by EarthGov forces, who’d end up confining him to a mental institution on Titan Station. While there, Isaac would end up scribbling various paranoid illustrations, which as it turned out were a signal implanted in his mind from the Marker. The EarthGov forces would use these illustrations in experiments to recreate a new Marker, and would subject Isaac to memory blockers to keep him under control.

This new Marker being made, of course, led to another necromorph outbreak happening, during which Isaac managed to escape captivity to try and regain his memories. He’d end up caught up in a conflict between the EarthGov forces, who wanted to kill Isaac and hijack the power of the Markers, and zealots of the Church of Unitology, who worshiped the Markers and wanted Isaac to make more for them. Isaac, now recognising that the Markers were bad news, instead looked for a way to destroy the Marker he had created. He’d also end up meeting another survivor, Ellie Langford, who he’d form an uneasy bond with. 

During this time, he had also been forced to come with terms of the death of Nicole, with an odd apparition of her guiding him throughout the station. This was once again the Markers attempting to hijack his mind and make him willingly die, as their goal was to kill all of humanity and make them one with themselves through an event known as the Convergence. However, Isaac managed to fight back against their control, ultimately managing to destroy the Marker. Fairly broken up by the whole experience, he’d sit down and wait for death amidst the Marker’s collapse, only to be saved by Ellie, encouraging him he still had something to live for. 

The two were then forced to go into hiding, and they’d even end up starting a relationship. However, it wasn’t meant to last, as Isaac had become broken by his experiences and essentially gave up on the world, ultimately leading to her leaving him when she felt he couldn’t improve. Isaac would continue to live in hiding, as tensions between EarthGov and the Unitolgists eventually escalated into a bloody civil war. During this, Isaac ended up accosted by John Carver of the Earth Defense Force, who wanted Isaac to help find a way to destroy the Markers for good. Isaac initially refused, only to agree upon learning Ellie had gone missing looking for it.

He’d join Carver’s squad on their journey, ultimately managing to save Ellie from an extremist group of Unitoligists. They’d end up finding the planet that the Markers had originated from, as well as a Machine which could shut them all down. After a crash landing to the planet, Isaac and the team would fight their way through it, at which they’d discover that the Convergence would end up creating a large Brethren Moon that kills everyone, and that the machine they found was from an ancient race who used it to freeze their world to stop the event. 

Isaac would end up uncovering a Codex which could end the event, but due to the previously mentioned Unitolgists taking Ellie as a hostage, he’d be forced to give it up to them, which they used to undo the freezing and reawaken the incomplete Leviathan Moon. Now faced with a cosmic scale horror of a literal kind, Isaac and Carver would end up letting Ellie escape before taking down the moon monster themselves by restarting the machine, seemingly ending it and the threat of the Markers at the cost of their lives. 

However, they’d end up barely surviving the event, and would be forced to scavenge through the ice planet and the remnants of the Unitoligists to find a ship to get back to Earth. However, when they returned, they’d witness that the Earth had been attacked by other Leviathan Moons, one of which would attack their ship before the game cut to credits, only letting them get one final scream before this. 

Yeah, due to Dead Space 3 flopping and killing the series until the remake came out, that is the rather grim way the series ends at the moment. We can only speculate on how the moons ended up on Earth, and it would be easy to assume that this would simply be how humanity ends, crushed without resistance by beings beyond the stars. However, as Isaac himself had shown, it is not in the nature of humanity as a species to lay down and die without a fight, so perhaps they were ultimately able to repel this unimaginable force. All I know for sure is, while it might be true that no one can hear you scream in space, there’s also no one to stop you from surviving it. 

Intelligence & Skill

Gordon Freeman

Gordon is a fairly intelligent scientist, as you might expect from his choice of career. Even at a young age, he showed plenty of interest in quantum physics, having created a butane-powered tennis ball cannon at age 6. He’s received a PhD in theoretical physics from MIT, was the employee of the month for Black Mesa at some point, and even before shit went down with the Resonance Cascade, other scientists had heard of him and envied him for working with other scientists that were at the top of the field.

Beyond his skill in the sciences, Gordon has shown quite a bit of skill in fighting. He’s taken on a wide variety of alien monsters during his original adventure through Black Mesa, ranging from basic zombies, headcrabs, and grunts, to large creatures like Gargantuas and Tentacles, to even the leader of the forces, the power psychic alien Nihilanth. He’s also dealt with plenty of aliens of the Combine, which is a race so advanced and powerful that it’s takeover of Earth only lasted 7 hours, and has dealt with their forces, which range from infantry made up of humans who were upgraded both willingly and less so, and more advanced creatures such as the large tripedal Striders and packs of the dangerous and possibly sociopathic Hunters. He’s also shown to be able to keep up with more human foes, such as the HECU and Black Ops soldiers of the original game, and while he has had some moments of attacking with allies, for the most part he’s taking on all of these foes just on his own. Though it is worth pointing out that it’s implied the G-Man’s stasis dimension wouldn’t give him the chance to develop his skills, meaning his on-screen fights are likely all his experience consists of. 

Isaac Clarke

Isaac is a fairly skilled engineer, having served as one for nearly 20 years by the time of the first game’s events. He was intelligent enough to be hand selected to attend a prominent engineering college, and while he was forced to go to a lesser known one due to his mother spending the family’s funds on the unitologists, he still managed to graduate with high honors. While he doesn’t seem to have received any explicit combat training, being forced to defend against the necromorphs has given him plenty of experience in keeping himself not dead. He’s managed to take down the many different types of necromorphs, and has also kept up with more humanoid opponents, mainly in regards to Danik’s unitologist extremists. He’s also very resourceful in a fight, often directly focusing on the weak points of enemies to take them down efficiently, and is willing to use anything he can get his hands on in a fight, with much of his arsenal being originally intended as tools. 

Equipment

Gordon Freeman

Crowbar

Likely Gordon’s most iconic weapon, this is a tool mainly used for prying apart objects. It’s lightweight enough to be used as a pretty fast melee weapon, and acts primarily as his fallback for if he runs low on ammo.

Pistol

Based on the Glock, this is a 9mm pistol mainly used by Black Mesa security. Its 17 round clip can fire quickly or one at a time for more accuracy, and its range makes it ideal for picking off weaker foes at ranges they can’t fight back from. In the second game, he gets a functionally identical one, though it was based on the USP Match and carries 18 bullets per clip.

Revolver

Based on the Colt Python, this .357 magnum revolver can hold 6 rounds in a chamber, and while it has a fairly low rate of fire, its damage makes it a force to be reckoned with.

Submachine Gun

Based on the Heckler & Koch MP5SD, this is a rapid fire gun mainly used by HECU forces. Its rapid fire and 50 round clip makes it dangerous, though the fact it shares an ammo pool with the pistol does mean its damage isn’t the best. It also has alt fire where it fires a grenade, which can carry up to 10 in reserve. In the second game, he has access to a somewhat similar one. This one is based on the MP7 submachine gun, can carry 45 bullets in its clip, and uses a separate ammo pool to the pistol. Though it can only carry 3 grenades in reserve.

Assault Shotgun

Based off of the SPAS-12 shotgun, this is a pump action shotgun which is another common gun used by the HECU and it can fire up to 8 shells in a clip. It also has an alternate fire mode in which it can fire two shells at a time for double damage, but with a lower rate of fire. In his fight with the Combine, Gordon would make use of a different shotgun also based on the SPAS-12, which was functionally identical beyond its ammo clip being downgraded to 6 shells per clop.

Black Mesa Crossbow

This somewhat more primitive weapon fires tranquilizer bolts, which travel silently and can take down most foes in a shot. However, the fact it doesn’t fire bullets does make the projectiles slower, which makes it less effective on foes who are aware of Gordon. 

Hivehand

A biological weapon wielded by the Alien Grunts, this is actually a hive for an alien hornet, which can home in on enemies to damage them. They can carry 8 rounds before needing to reload, and does not run out of reserve ammo somehow. It can also launch the hornets more rapidly, but these ones won’t home in on enemies.

RPG Launcher

Based off of the Armbrust rocket launcher, this rocket launcher can fire rockets which explode on contact. By default, the rocket can be guided via a laser sight in the rocket’s tip, and can even be used to guide rockets from other sources. Gordon can carry up to 5 rockets at a time. In the second game he got an RPG which was functionally identical beyond the total ammo being dropped to a maximum of 3.

Tau Cannon

An experimental weapon developed at Black Mesa, this is a particle accelerator which can fire a beam of Tau particles on enemies to blast them, and is powered by depleted Uranium-235. The main fire can launch beams at a moderate pace to blast through unarmored opponents, but Gordon can also charge the beam up to fire a more powerful beam which can pierce through targets and kill most foes in a single shot. Though he can overcharge it and cause damage to himself if he’s not careful.

Gluon Gun

Another experimental energy weapon developed by Black Mesa, this fires a constant vortex of spiraling energy beams which destabilize Gluon particles in things it hits, making it capable of destroying anything that it connects with in seconds. The beam can deal massive damage and wide ranges, and can strike through bulletproof armor. However, this does mean it burns through ammo quickly, which is the same depleted Uranium as the Tau Cannon.

Frag Grenade

This is an MK2 grenade that explodes after five seconds when the pin is pulled. They’re good for flushing enemies out of locations, but Gordon can only carry up to 10 of them at a time.

Laser Tripmine

This is an anti-personnel mine which emits a laser about 3 seconds after being placed. If something disturbs the laser, the mine explodes. The mine can be placed onto any non-moving surface, and Gordon can carry up to 5 of them at a time.

Satchel Charge

This is an explosive which can be placed, before being remotely detonated. They can be more damaging than a standard grenade, but Gordon can only carry 5 at once.

Snark

Snarks are small, beetle-like creatures with four legs and a single bright glowing green eye. Gordon can find and use egg sacks containing 5 of these guys, who he can toss out. When tossed, the Snark will look around for enemies and attack them for 20 seconds, and if they die or that time runs out, they explode into a bunch of acid. However, if it can’t detect a nearby enemy, the snark will instead attempt to attack Gordon. 

Gravity Gun

Probably Gordon’s second most iconic weapon is this. Possibly based on some retrofitted Combine technology, the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, more commonly known as the Gravity Gun, is a gravity based device originally intended to help handle hazardous materials and moving heavy objects. The primary fire can shove objects around with a discharge of energy, sending even heavier objects like cars back a distance. The secondary fire instead grabs an object to hold it in front of Gordon, after which it can be dropped or sent flying forward as a projectile with the primary fire. The secondary fire can’t carry heavier objects however. 

Pherapods

These are glandular sacs (gross) harvested from dead Antlion Guards and used to control Antlions, which are blind bug monsters who identify threats based on smell. As such, using pheromones from these allows people who hold them to trick the bugs into following commands. Gordon can squeeze it to summon 4 antlions to his location to follow him, and he can toss them at things to command them to attack those enemies. He also doesn’t have to worry about his supply of them for some reason. 

Antlions themselves are vicious pack predators. Their favored method of accosting prey is to bury themselves in soft sand, sense for vibrations around them, then emerge and ambush the intruder. They can be rather dangerous groups to even highly skilled fighters, and are able to fly at opponents attempting to get higher elevation. Using their sharp teeth and claws, they will fearlessly attack any foe until either it dies or they do. Also while there are numerous variants, Gordon is only able to control the most basic antlions with this method.

Resistance Crossbow

Gordon’s other crossbow, which was made by the resistance of the combine. Using a battery pack installed under it, this takes spikes of steel rebar and heats them up to the point where they’re red hot, before launching them. As it fires, enemies hit by it will end up taking damage, and will end up getting pinned to whatever surface happens to be nearby.

Overwatch Pulse Rifle

The standard issue firearm of the Combine’s Elite Soldiers, which Gordon can take for himself. Its primary fire releases energy projectiles at a rapid pace, with a main clip of 30 bullets per magazine. The secondary fire releases a ball of dark energy, capable of vaporizing any creature it comes into contact with, which can be fired up to three times. 

HEV Suit Mark V

Gordon’s iconic armor of choice, the Hazardous EnVironment suit is a full-body hazardous material suit developed by Black Mesa themselves. It’s mainly designed to help protect scientists from hazardous materials and conditions, but as Gordon found out, it is just as useful in protecting from active combat. Gordon originally donned the Mark IV version in the original Black Mesa incident, only to upgrade to Mark V during his time against the Combine. This new suit was explicitly an upgrade to the old one, so it should logically be capable of everything the old one provided. Some of the features it gives wearers include:

• Combat Assistance - His suit has an on board computer which can inform Gordon of certain things midfight, including when his weapons are low on ammo, what types of damage he’s being hit by and from where, and what types of injuries he’s received.

• Damage Reduction - His suit allows him to take 20% of the damage while half of the remaining 80% is transferred to his armor, draining some of the shield’s charge. When the charge runs out, he’ll need to get a recharge.

• Automatic Targeting System - His suit has a system which can automatically identify friend from foe. While it is an option you can turn on or off, certain versions of the game have acknowledged it in-universe.  

• Pain Reduction - The suit can administer morphine to act as a painkiller.

• Underwater Breathing - His suit can provide oxygen at the cost of Aux Power.

• Flashlight - It has one, which runs on a different power source than the main suit and recharges when not in use.

• Stealth - Crouching causes the suit to enter stealth mode, which reduces the sound of its wearer's movements.

• Audio Communication - The suits are able to transmit broadcasted audio to the wearer, which Gordon can also use to tap into Combine radio chatter to detect enemies.

• Enhanced Vision - Is able to zoom in his vision thanks to the suit’s zoom function 

Long Jump Module

The Long Jump Module is a device used by the Black Mesa survey teams to achieve large distance jumps on Xen while within their HEV Suit. Using it, Gordon is able to jump further, allowing for easier navigation of the many floating platforms of Xen.

Isaac Clarke

Plasma Cutter

Isaac’s main and most iconic weapon, which is not actually intended to be a weapon at all, but so many survivors of the necromorphs end up picking it up and using it as such that it may as well be a secondary function at this point. Isaac has wielded 3 different types of this tool. The first was the 211-V Plasma Cutter, which is mainly used for mining operations. The second was the Makeshift Plasma Cutter, which Isaac had pulled together from various medical equipment. The third is unnamed, and presumably was modified by Isaac himself at some point. There’s also numerous variations provided by DLC, but regardless of which you go with, they tend to be pretty similar functionally. 

The Plasma Cutter is typically used as a close ranged pistol, firing ionized plasma quickly to slice apart limbs from incoming monsters in either a horizontal or vertical line, which can be swapped between. This makes it ideal for taking down faster monsters, though the lack of splash damage does mean you have to stay calm and aim carefully. It can be upgraded to hold up to 23 rounds before needing to reload, and can be further modified with the Heat Accumulator to set enemies on fire and the Weighted Blades which can make its melee attack stronger.

Motorized Pulse Rifle

The standard-issue ballistic firearm used by PCSI and CEC security forces, this is a triple barrel rapid fire assault rifle which fires low caliber bullets, as to not accidentally burst the hulls of ships if misfired. Bullets fired from this can put out the hurt so badly that if it hits an unarmored opponent, they’ll be incapacitated out of hydrostatic shock if they somehow aren’t killed by it. However, this does mean it can be rather ineffective against more armored opponents. 

Each of the games has treated the primary fire of the gun identically, with it having up to 175 rounds in the chamber and a very high rate of fire. However, the secondary fire has differed, as depending on the game doing that either caused the barrels to turn 90 degrees outwards to hit opponents all around Isaac, firing a grenade at the cost of 25 rounds, or firing proximity mines that explode when an enemy steps near them for 25 rounds. The rifle can also be upgraded with the Kinetic Autoloader to increase its rate of fire further and the High-Yield Grenades which increase the blast radius of the gun’s explosives.

Remote Control Disc Ripper

This is a handheld cutting tool mainly used for cutting through rock faces. Its primary fire sends out a rotating diamond-coated tungsten blade a bit in front of it, which is connected to the device via a miniature gravity tether and can spin at nearly 17,000 RPM. As you could imagine, this makes for a rather deadly weapon when used as the sci-fi equivalent of a chainsaw. Its secondary fire causes the blade to be launched out, making for a deadly disc of death which can be upgraded to ricochet around the room. 

Hydrazine Torch Flamethrower

Another tool intended for use in mining, but as you might expect, Isaac was forced to get a bit creative by using it as an actual deadly flamethrower. The main flames launched by it are liquid hydrazine, burns from 500 to 4,000 degrees Celsius, and can hold a maximum of 250 flame fuel at a time. It’s secondary fire has also changed game to game, and it’s been shown to either shoot a ball of flame that explodes on contact, forcibly eject its fuel canister to act as a makeshift firebomb, or create a wall of flame that incinerates foes on contact. It can also be upgraded with the Gellified Hydrazine to make the walls burn longer and the High-Pressure Nozzle to increase its effective range.

Handheld Ore Cutter Line Gun

Essentially the Plasma Cutter’s big brother, this fires the same general “plasma in a line” thing as the Plasma Cutter. While it does have a lower rate of fire, it compensates by being far more deadly, able to slice through several necromorph limbs in a single shot. Its secondary fire launches a timed mine, which will explode into a blast of lasers when detonated. 

Supercollider Contact Beam

A heavy duty particle accelerator cannon intended to blast apart tougher rocks, which is about as devastating on things that aren’t rocks. When not charged, it's a relatively short ranged continuous beam, but after charging, it’s powerful enough to blast apart most necromorphs in a single shot. Its secondary fire can create a small shockwave on the ground to knock away most enemies that get in close.

Handheld Graviton Accelerator

Also referred to as the Force Gun, this is a short-range kinetic booster device which is typically used for blasting rocks in situations requiring more precision than explosives. In combat, it acts much like a shotgun, offering the most damage on foes at short range by firing a blast of kinetic energy with a wide spread. Its alt fire is able to either launch a projectile which explodes on contact, firing a narrow beam which can penetrate through foes, or creating a gravity well to contain foes, depending on the game.

Javelin Gun

Originally designed for the use in seismic surveys, Isaac has used this as a weapon because as it turns out firing titanium spikes at something tends to hurt. When an enemy is hit by this, they’ll end up getting pinned by the spike to any nearby surfaces, though it won’t work on larger enemies. Its alternate fire causes the spike to become electrified, shocking anything nearby.

Detonator

This gun fires sensor-tipped mining charges, which honestly just sounds like an OSHA violation just waiting to happen, though I suppose that would also apply to most of his other weapons. These laser trip mines can be placed onto any flat surface, and if anything happens to pass over the lasers, it explodes. If the surface it lands on isn’t flat, then the mine simply explodes, making it a good improvised grenade launcher as well.

Seeker Rifle

This is a sniper rifle designed for riot control, which I’ll just let the implications of sit. It packs a decent punch but is slow on its rate of fire, like you would expect a sniper rifle to be. Also despite what the name might imply, it cannot fire homing shots.

Rivet Gun

This is basically a nail gun which can fire projectiles as fast as you can pull the trigger, and it’s also capable of pinning enemies to walls. The gun’s high rate of fire is also stifled by high rate of consumption for its ammo and low damage per individual shot. Its secondary fire can cause up to five of the rivets to be detonated, bouncing around the room to hopefully take out other enemies.  

Hand Cannon

Unlocked after beating some of the games on their hardest modes, this is a foam mascot finger which Isaac can use to finger gun enemies. It has infinite ammo, can fire as fast as you pull the trigger, and any enemy hit by it will instantly die. It is glorious, absolutely mood shattering, and almost definitely not canon in the slightest, but it is funny. 

Submachine Gun

A standard issue firearm used by many, this is a reliable sidearm mainly used for dealing with foes with easy to hit weak spots to quickly rack up damage. 

Blueprint Weapons

In Dead Space 3, Isaac can find numerous blueprints, to which he can take parts of weapons that he finds to create new weapons out of their combinations. He has access to a lot of them, but I feel they aren’t worth their own sections, so here’s a more brief summary of most of them:

• ... and Tubes: A stasis-amplified Galvanizer and Force Gun, modified to slow enemies down with each shot.

• Bolas Gun: A dual bolas gun that fires bouncing bolas and anchored bolas that stick to surfaces and spin for a few seconds. The bouncing bolas are capable of cutting off both arms/legs at the same time if timed/aimed correctly. Since the bolas bounce once, even if they miss, it still has a chance of bouncing off the wall and hitting a necromorph.

• Codecow: A simple one handed submachine gun that fires acidic bullets at high speed. It lacks a lower weapon in which any tool can replace.

• Desperation: A co-op enhancing Submachine Gun and Suspended Ripper, modified to inflict electric damage.

• Disemboweler: A co-op enhancing Ripper that can emit a modified electric charge within its suspension field.

• Heavy Metal Thunder: A devastating Rivet Chain Gun and advanced Rocket Launcher; modified to minimize damage to the user.

• Hot Death: A compact Ripper and advanced Blowtorch, modified with an Ammo Sweeper.

• HUN-E1 Badger: An advanced Rivet Shotgun and Hydraulic Eviscerator, modified for flame damage and ammo conservation.

• Identify and Destroy: A Javelin Gun modded to detonate the last shot fired, combined with enhanced explosion damage.

• Infected Dissolver: An upgraded Flamethrower and Cryogenic Torch, modified to inflict acid damage on enemies.

• Intimid8r: A stasis-amplified Galvanizer and Shotgun, modified to slow enemies down with each shot.

• Medic Support Handgun: A compact Rivet Gun and Hydraulic Knife for quick accurate triage; modified with two co-op support attachments.

• Mjölnir: Named after the Norse mythological weapon, Mjölnir. It is a combination of a Chain Lightning Gun and a Hydraulic Hammer.

• Pitch Black 392: A stasis-amplified Chain Gun and Force Gun, modified to slow enemies down with each shot.

• Ship Repair Tool: A compact Rivet Gun and Hydraulic Knife modified for rapid reloads and co-op damage support.

• Shocker: A timed Line Gun Mine that can be detonated at will with both electric and fire damage.

• Shootbanger: A Bullpup Rifle and Grenade Launcher modified to protect its user from damage and grab ammo.

• Show Stopper: A Galvanizer and Cryogenic Torch, modified with two stasis attachments.

• Slam Cho: A co-op enhancing Ripper and Ground Diffractor that inflicts acid damage with each blast.

• Sweep the Leg: A co-op enhancing Assault Rifle and Anchored Bolas that inflicts acid damage.

• Tre Pound Seven: A customized military Revolver with Hydraulic Knife, significantly upgraded with circuits.

Upgrade Chips

The third game also allows you to upgrade most of your weapons with various attachments, which can all help the effect of the weapons to be more beneficial to a particular playstyle.

• Scope: The Scope zooms in to allow an easier view to distant enemies and objects when aiming.

• Damage Support: Increases damage done.

• Ammo Support: Increases clip size.

• Explosion Amplifier: Increases the radius of explosions.

• Safety Guard: Prevents user from taking splash damage from explosive weapons.

• Stasis Amplifier: Stasis shots have a larger radius.

• Full Zoom Scope: Prototype military scope for advanced long-range aiming.

• Ammo Sweeper: Automatically picks up nearby ammo.

• Flame Gaze: Modifies projectiles to inflict minor fire damage.

• Ammo Box: Instantly reloads weapons after emptying clip.

• Electric Charge: Electrifies projectiles to cause small amounts of voltaic damage.

• Stasis Coating: Coats projectiles with a very small amount of stasis.

• Acid Bath: Coats projectiles in acid that does damage over time.

The Devil Horns

Dead Space 3’s equivalent to the Hand Cannon which is also unlocked by beating the game on it’s hardest difficulty, this similarly is able to kill enemies instantly with finger gun motions and completely ignores the intended horror tone of the series even more than the addition of microtransactions did. The one difference is that whenever he “reloads”, Isaac headbangs to a spontaneous bout of rock music, thereby making it objectively cooler. 

RIG Engineering Suit

Isaac’s armor from throughout the series, which we’ve seen numerous variations of, but they all share the same main functions. The Resource Integration Gear offers a way for wearers to easily keep track of their own health and that of their allies, thanks to their distinctive spine mounted displays which directly interfaces with the wearer’s nervous system to detect their wearer’s health. Other major functions the suits offer include:

• Health Restoration - If the wearer of the suit happens to be harmed, they can apply any health packs they possess to the affected area.

• Holographic Displays -  By utilizing a Holotech Operating System, wearers are able to project a holographic display in front of them, which can also follow the wearer around. These screens are mainly used to communicate with others through either live video chat or live audio, and the suit's built-in memory can store text logs and such the wearer can download from other devices. This also allows Isaac to manage his inventory and swap between various weapons he carries.

• Navigation System - It’s able to load up a 3D map of the environment and can help its wearer navigate to objectives via a colored line that can pop in, which can also be used to navigate to save points, workbenches, stores, and suit kiosks. 

• Self Sustenance - The suit is able to become airtight when entering the vacuum of space or other environments with toxic conditions. The suit can provide air to the wearer which is automatically refilled on entering a safe area or finding an oxygen resupply in the environment, and as of the third game, the suit is able to contain enough oxygen to last up to seven minutes unhindered.

• Zero Gravity Boots - These are magnetized boots able to stick the user to metal surfaces when in zero gravity situations.

• Maneuvering Thrusters - These are jet boosters found throughout the suit which can allow the user to fly around in zero gravity situations.

• Radiation Protection - They offer a natural amount of protection from radiation, and come inbuilt with geiger counters.

• Cold Timer - When in situations where the wearer is in danger of freezing to death, the suit can monitor their internal temperature to inform them when they need to heat up.

There’s also a whole bunch of variations on the suit which Isaac can swap between, but given there’s not much functional difference between them beyond a few minor bonuses, and it’s pretty questionable if he’d even be able to swap between them mid-fight, especially on neutral ground, I’m not going to list them all out here. Here’s a link to all of them listed if you’re curious.

Stasis Module

Worth its own section is this device, which is able to launch a ball of energy that, when hitting an enemy, projects a field of energy which can basically slow down time for whatever is in its field. While Isaac could only carry a certain amount of charges at a time before needing a recharge in his original game, later games allow him to recharge it over time on its own. Some have suggested that the blue glow of targets indicates the process is done via Cherenkov Radiation, but that’s just a fan theory, as I could find nothing in-universe confirming that is how it functions. Also worth pointing out is that the target’s biological functions will also slow down relative to their perception of time. This means that it can’t be used to, say, make someone bleed out by slowing down their perception while they still bleed in real time. 

Kinesis Module

The other major on-suit device worth its own section, this is a device which allows its user to pick up whatever object they want. It works by projecting an artificial gravity field from the user’s palms, allowing them to move very easily. It tends to be used on objects that are too heavy to carry normally, and can be used to lift objects out of the way or fling them as projectiles towards opponents. Though the field isn’t strong enough to rip down things that are attached to other objects, like shutters. Unlike stasis, kinesis is directly powered by the RIG’s internal power, meaning it can be used as much as the wielder wishes. And while in Isaac’s gameplay it’s unable to be used on live beings, other media has shown it being used freely on them, meaning that’s likely just a limit for the sake of gameplay

Scavenger Bot

This is a drone Isaac is able to deploy to search an area for resources. Isaac can carry up to three of them at once, and they stay active for at least 10 minutes. They’ve been allegedly used for surveillance and assassination, but Isaac only uses them to find things, so they probably are not too useful in a fight scenario. Though they can be “upgraded” to talk in a British voice, so maybe they’d be good as a distraction?

Abilities

Gordon Freeman

Weapon Mastery

Despite the fact that before the events of the first game he had never used a gun before in anything besides brief training exercises, Gordon has shown a remarkable amount of skill in their use. He’s also quickly taken to wielding the far more alien weaponry of the Xen and the Combine, and he’s even shown the skill to gun down people while driving. 

Resistances

(fan animation credit)

• Acid - Can take hits from Antlion's Acid Spit, which can melt stone

• Poison - The HEV suit can administer antidotes to poisons

• Radiation - His suit shields him from radiation and let him survive the core of the Citadel.

• Electricity - Can survive being blasted by the Vortigaunts’ electric attacks

Isaac Clarke

Engineering Skill

As you may expect from his choice of profession, Isaac has shown a lot of skill in engineering. He was able to put together a working plasma cutter just from some scavenged medical equipment, has shown plenty of skill in hotwiring machinery to hack doors open, and he was able to restore several critical systems on the USG Ishimura during his time there.

Marker Affinity

The standard horror series “thing all evidence shows you should not be fucking with but everyone can’t take a hint” of the Dead Space series are the Markers. These things are able to induce all sorts of things in the mind of intelligent life that come in contact with them, using their signals to send victims into vivid hallucinations that make them lose their grip on reality and go insane, and passively turn corpses into necromorphs to kill everyone more directly. Even small segments of the markers have been shown to send seasoned veterans into bouts of paranoia, and very few characters in the series have managed to come in contact with them and come out with their sanity somewhat intact.

Isaac is, of course, one of these people. Isaac’s intelligence made it so he was compatible with the signal, and it meant he was not immediately driven insane by it. Rather, the Markers would attempt to use him as a pawn in their goals of wiping out humanity, and while he was initially suffering from various hallucinations, he was able to fight back from their attempt to kill him through these, even managing to destroy a Marker he had inadvertently created through his sheer willpower. By the time of the third game, he’s far more resistant to the effects of them, with the madness instead taking the form of an affinity to the effects of them. While he’s not outright immune to their effects, he’s far more resistant than practically anyone, to the point where he managed to fight through their effects while on a planet practically full of them.

Resistances

• Radiation/Poison - See segment on the RIG Suit

• Mind/Madness/Biological Manipulation - See segment on Marker Affinity

• Sleep - The Flight Suit is able to inject him with stimulants to prevent fatigue

• Extreme Conditions - His suit’s protected him from the vacuum of space. Similar suits have protected their wearers from being on the surface of planets covered in magma.

• Heat - Was fine being in close proximity to thermite which completely melted through a barricade. 

• Acid - Can survive the Puker’s corrosive acid attacks, which have been shown to melt flesh

Feats

Gordon Freeman

Overall

• Survived the catastrophic Resonance Cascade at the Black Mesa facility

• Stopped the invasion of Earth by slaying the Nihilanth, the leader of the Xen forces

• Outmaneuvered and defeated the Combine forces of City 17, and later attacks after the city’s destruction

• Survived the zombie-infested town of Ravenholm with help from Father Grigory

• Became legendary figurehead to the resistance

• His games have been massively influential to the first person shooter genre, and has set precedents that even modern releases are still taking notes from.

Power

(fan animation credit)

• Fucked up Mitchell Shepard’s face- wait no that was some other dude pretending to be him shit uhhh

• Rocket Launcher could blast through a metal gate (0.168 Tons of TNT)

• Pulse Rifle’s alt fire can completely vaporize people (0.068 - 0.073 Tons of TNT)

• An achievement name described the process as atomization

• Can damage and kill various enemies, which are capable of the following:

• Headcrabs can break concrete walls (1.729 megajoules)

• An Alien Grunt could smash a soldier through a wall

• Houndeyes can explode people with their sonic shrieks

• Gargantuas can destroy a large gate (1.85 Tons of TNT) and break apart rocks just by walking into them (1.285 - 1.42 Tons of TNT)

• An Antlion Guard could smash double doors off their hinges

• A Hunter smashed apart the front of a building

• The Lone Vortigaunt can blast apart a pile of rubble with his electric power

Speed

(fan animation credit)

• Can keep up with trained HECU troopers in a fight

• Can maneuver around gunfire in firefights

• Has dodged rockets after they were fired

• Can dodge tank shells

• Outran the blast of an explosion (Mach 3.97)

Durability

(fan animation credit)

• Can survive attacks from basically every enemy in his series

• Survived the Resonance Cascade

• Can survive being in range of his own explosives

• Can take hits from the Combine suppression device, which can vaporize people and blow apart a section of a building

• Survived a fall down a shaft onto a metal grate hard enough to shatter it.

• Survived a train crash

• While on a train, gets caught in the absolute edge of a city-wide explosion caused by the destruction of the Combine Citadel and survives, though he did end up knocked out and damaged.

• As he and most other characters in  his world are treated as fairly grounded humans and pretty similarly physically speaking, he should be generally comparable to other feats in his world:

• Adrian Shepard could survive this blast (0.01497 Tons of TNT) 

• Barney Calhoun survived being in a truck as it was exploded by a tank

• Chell survived the stalemate button exploding (1.204 megajoules) 

• Chell can survive being hit by Aperture science lasers, which can cause turrets to explode despite them being designed to survive 4000 degrees Kelvin (0.14 Tons of TNT)

Isaac Clarke

Overall

• Survived necromorph outbreaks on the USG Ishimura, the Sprawl, and Tau Volantis

• One of 8 characters in the series to survive a necromorph outbreak at all

• Destroyed a Marker through sheer force of will

• Killed the Leviathan, Hive Mind, and Brethren Moon

• His games are still beloved as landmarks in the history of survival horror games, and eventually managed to be saved from development hell with the remake.

Power

• Can fight and overpower enemies that can harm him

• Can smash apart body parts of necromorphs just by stomping them

• They’ve been shown to tank a lot of bullets and keep going with no issue

• Has regularly fought the pulling of violent decompression

• Can smash apart metal grates 

• Was able to overpower a surprise attack from Nolan Stross

• Knocked away a Slasher while unarmored and in a straitjacket

• Kinesis could move a train’s bogie

• Can damage and kill various enemies, which are capable of the following:

• Crawlers can explode hard enough to blow up humans (3.17 megajoules)

• One necromorph required the combined effort of 3 soldiers to overpower

• A group of them knocked down a steel door

• Slashers can pry open blast doors and smash through metal grates

Speed

• In gameplay, can maneuver around gunfire and other projectiles

• Can catch and redirect missiles with kinesis (Mach 0.86)

• His suit’s thrusters were able to catch up to a speeding train

• Dodged a point blank shot from a javelin gun

• Reacted to a point blank revolver shot from Danik

• Dodged falling rocks while rappelling

• Has stated he’s as fast at moving as most necromorphs

• Can take down Twitchers, which can dodge close range gunfire and blitz soldiers

• As he and most other characters in  his world are treated as fairly grounded humans and pretty similarly physically speaking, he should be generally comparable to other feats in his world:

• Gabe Weller can roll several meters in just a second

• Nickolas Kuttner drew a laser gun and shot a soldier before he could react

Durability

• Can survive attacks from basically every enemy in his series

• Survived being blasted by a time bomb which could completely destroy a large rock (1.19 tons of TNT)

• Survived getting smacked by a building sized Necromorph, and later being eaten by it

• Survived being caught in a blast that destroyed a spaceship

• Got smacked down a mountain

• Survived being on a drill as it crashed into a building hard enough to wreck itself

• Fell through several floors of a building and was fine

• Shrugged off being in close proximity to a car exploding while unarmored

• Tanked this big explosion

• Smashed through several grates of a ship 

• Got shot in the shoulder and hand by a javelin, and was able to pull them out

• Likely generally comparable to other feats in his world:

• Marla and Neumann survived being in close proximity to a shuttle explosion

• John Carver brushed off being close to a grenade explosion

• Nolan Stross stayed conscious through a prolonged bout of electrocution

Weaknesses

Gordon Freeman

(fan animation credit)

It has been 17 years since Half Life 2 Episode 2’s release and Gordon still has yet to star in another official Half Life game. Hell, even after Alyx resolved the infamous cliffhanger a bit, it’s still been 4 years since that and we still have yet to hear any official news on if Valve has finally learned to count to 3. Just a bunch of prototypes and vague projects.

Beyond that, despite his credentials, Gordon is still pretty fundamentally a human, and without his armor’s defenses he can be just as easy to kill or knock out as one. Speaking of which, while the suit’s shielding can soak up quite a bit of damage, it has to be recharged upon being damaged, as if it runs out Gordon's durability decreases drastically. Finally, while it’s not really an explicit weakness, a lot of his most powerful weapons have a pretty limited pool of ammo, meaning he’s not able to just spam them with no thought.

Isaac Clarke

Isaac is certainly a certified badass, but he still has his fair share of weak points. For one thing, his many experiences with the Markers has definitely taken its toll on him, and while he has worked past some of their adverse effects as of the 3rd game, he can still have some issues with his PTSD and paranoia to others when they come up. Beyond that, under the suit he is still a human physically speaking, and he is just as capable of being put down with one misstep, as the many game over situations show. Finally, he also has limited ammunition for nearly all of his weapons, which he has to stay conservative with. 

Before the Verdict

Portal Scaling

(fan series credit)

So, you might have noticed that I included a couple feats from the Portal series’ protagonist, Chell. First off, if you’re unfamiliar, yes these two series do in fact share a world, as there are numerous references to the events of the Half-Life series within the Portal games and vice versa which indicate this, meaning it’s not something exclusive to some crossover. Now, despite the fact they’ve never canonically met and Portal 2 takes place at some unclear point in the future, I do think it is fairly reasonable to scale Gordon to her, as not only are her feats pretty in line with what Gordon can scale to just in his own series, but nothing in Portal ever really gives much of an indication that she should be physically superior to other humans within her setting whom Gordon should also be scaling to. 

However, that’s not to say I think there's a reason to scale him to everything in Portal. Most notably, the series’ main villainous AI GLaDOS is capable of processing information in less than a picosecond, which is solidly in the massively faster than light range. However, Chell never really does anything to suggest she could scale to her full processing speed, as GLaDOS’s main body being immobile and her control over Aperture being limited to how fast her machinery can move things means any instances of Chell dodging attacks from her or outmaneuvering her actions is more due to outspeeding her tech and not the AI itself.

There’s also potential relativistic speeds from Aperture’s lasers and her own portal gun traveling fast, but neither are things she can really be argued to react to. She only ever deals with lasers after they are fired and staying as a continuous beam, and she’s never in a position where it can be argued she reacts to the speed of her Portal Gun’s projectile. There’s also the Ap-Sap from Team Fortress 2, which some have suggested is a way to link TF2 to the Half-Life universe, but that’s far more blatantly a non-canon crossover item, as there is nothing in the lore of either series suggesting them to be linked. And even if there was, it also wouldn’t make much sense timeline wise for Aperture, who did not try to make a functioning AI until the 1990s, to have made one on par with their latest ones in 1968, when Team Fortress 2 takes place and when they were canonically in the middle of senate hearings. So no, there’s no reason to scale Gordon to the funny moon bust. Not like anyone should anyways.

Does Gordon wear a helmet?

Yes, this is a genuine question that has been haunting the fandom for years. On the one hand, everything from box art, concept art, in-universe art, and even his character models have very consistently depicted Gordon without wearing a helmet. On the other hand, there are multiple functions of the HEV suit which seemingly would not make functional sense if he was not wearing a helmet, suggesting that, in-universe, he’s still wearing it, he’s simply depicted without it because that’s his more iconic appearance. This is a pretty common fandom dispute I’ve seen running around, and because it does give him a very obvious weak spot, I feel it’s worth actually acknowledging this point.

Now, when it comes to what the games themselves have shown, it is fairly cut and dry that Gordon doesn’t have a helmet. Not only does his models and official art all consistently depict him without the helmet, but in the ending of Half-Life Alyx, which is very unambiguously canon, Gordon is clearly seen without the helmet. While this was while he was in shadow and could possibly just be a vision, this is still an instance where gameplay and story not matching up would not be a possible excuse for him not wearing a helmet.

It’s also worth bringing up that some of the issues brought up by people pointing out things that wouldn’t make sense if he wasn’t wearing a helmet aren’t actually that unreasonable when you look a bit deeper. Some have said Xen has a hazardous atmosphere he needs a helmet to survive in, but between several characters surviving Xen with no helmets and the native aliens of that world being able to survive on Earth just fine, there’s not really anything suggesting that to be true. Some have also pointed to the multiple instances of Gordon surviving massive bouts of radiation with no ill effects, but not only is radiation’s effects actually very inconsistent in real life and he is still wearing a suit over the rest of his body, it’s also worth bringing up that from Gordon’s perspective, these bouts of radiation are in short bursts over the course of about a week, so it’s hardly unbelievable that he would be fine.

Finally, there’s the HUD. In both the original and second game, you don’t get to see your HUD until you put on the HEV suit, which can suggest that the HUD is diegetic, and therefore Gordon is wearing a helmet. However, there’s also some issues with that theory. For starters, other games in the series have had the HUD be fully visible in spite of the fact you’re playing people who don’t have sci-fi helmets, meaning it’s not a consistent rule. It’s also possible certain elements of the HUD are simply visualizations of the suit’s communications that Gordon is keeping track of in character. Finally, it’s been stated in the link two paragraphs below that Gordon’s glasses are the actual source of the HUD. Granted, this particular part of the comment seemed to be meant as a joke, but it does add weight to the idea the HUD could exist without a helmet.

As for Valve’s official word, it is a bit weird. There is a statement from Chuck Jones, a character designer on the first game, that he did in fact say he does have a helmet. That being said, the reasoning behind it, that head crabs couldn’t get to him through a helmet, is a bit odd, given later games have shown they are fully capable of getting to you through helmets. And this was a screenshot where the original source is rather impossible to find.

However, there is a later statement that I think explains it a bit better. Marc Laidlaw, a lead writer on the series, said in quotes here that Gordon did have one in the first game, but at some point between games he ends up ditching it, whether that’s due to the G-Man magicing the suit away or him just getting fed up with the helmet-head. This is kind of a dismissive comment, as he does directly state the team didn’t think about that too much, but it is the most recent Word of God statement I could find directly confirming the status of Schrodinger’s helmet, so I’m willing to say that it’s true.

So tldr: All official media has depicted Gordon without a helmet, many of things people claim don’t make sense without a helmet can be explained away, and official word from Valve is that he did have a helmet in the first game, but ended up ditching it by the time of the fight with the Combine. So no, Gordon will not have a helmet here. 

City Level Gordon?

There are a couple higher tier feats for Gordon that I could find. However, I feel that on closer examination, they really were not really that applicable to his stats. The first major instance to go over would be Gordon surviving the Citadel exploding at the end of the second game. Some have calced this to be pretty powerful. However, the G-Man’s intervention was implied to have taken Gordon away from the blast himself, while Alyx seemed to have been teleported away from the blast herself by the vortigaunts, which she credits as being how she survived later. As such, while the two being found in rubble might suggest they survived the explosion themselves, I feel it’s more likely that the story is suggesting they ended up teleported away from the blast before ending up left in the rubble by the vortigaunts. 

As for the other major instance, that’s his survival of the destruction of City 17 in the end of Episode 1. While I haven’t seen any specific calcs for this, the blast itself should likely be in the city level range, because no duh. And Gordon clearly was damaged by it, as seen at the start of Episode 2. So what’s the issue? Two words: Surface Area. While explosions of this size are generally extremely powerful, the energy needed to cause the blast would only be impacting objects at the exact epicenter of it. As the blast expands, energy it emits on objects slowly disperses, until there’s no energy left and the blast dissipates. This is important because while Gordon is clearly caught in part of the blast, he’s also clearly at basically the absolute edge of it. This means he would only be experiencing a very fractional amount of the energy needed to destroy the city, and while I’m admittedly not a huge math guy, I feel safe in assuming that amount of energy would be in line with his other feats. And while the impact being completely offscreen does make this a bit hard to assume, it’s also worth noting that if you look closely, the blast is still a distance away from them when the fade to white happens, which could suggest they were only caught in the whiplash of the blast, and therefore were taking an even more fractional amount of the blast’s energy. So no Gordon would not be city level from this feat.

The Hand Cannon Canon

Just as a bit of clarification, this and the Devil’s Hand are not going to be (seriously) factored into the conclusion, as they are explicitly rewards only available when on New Game Plus, and have no real basis of actually being canonical weapons Isaac has used in the series. I just wanted to bring them up because they’re funny

Multi-Continental Isaac?

There are two arguably really strong feats some have cited for Isaac that I’m also not going to buy. For the first instance, during the final boss fight of Dead Space 3, Isaac fights a Leviathan moon, which if taken completely literally can be, well, moon level at best, but probably more realistically a bit lower. However, that’s only if taken at the absolute face value. Not only does Isaac never fight a literal moon sized monster, with much of his fighting being against smaller monsters and tentacles, and the final fight inside the moon itself being with a creature who is clearly nowhere close to moon sized, and the fact the only way to damage it using non standard Amplification Fields that boosts the power of his gadgets, he also doesn’t actually end up killing it himself, he has to use the Codex to destroy it. So there’s just far too many caveats here to assume Isaac can just naturally blow up a moon on his own. 

The other big argument is related to the relatively common Planet Cracker ships which, as the name implies, can crack apart planets. The most notable instance of this in the series was the USG Ishimura, but several other ships in the series can do that. Now some have argued that, based on certain instances where the hulls of these ships were broken by meteors, which Isaac can also survive collisions with, he should scale to their power. But, to be blunt, this argument is kind of fucking stupid. For one thing, despite the name, Planet Crackers are mainly used to extract segments of the ground into the ships, at which point they’d be mined or transported somewhere, so they’re not literally tearing apart entire planets at once. While the Ishimura was able to cause a planet to be  destabilized, this was due to the aforementioned rock falling from orbit, meaning that’s just a feat of gravity. More importantly however, these instances of being able to lift segments of the ground have nothing to do with the durability of the ship’s hulls, just the strength of their respective thrusters. There’s also no instances I could find of ships directly surviving anything like a planet exploding, and obviously no cases of people directly surviving planet explosions either. So there’s no real basis to assume Isaac is as strong as a massive spaceship, which I’m sure you’re surprised by.

Can Gordon resist Statis?

If you’ve been following the debate of this match for a bit, you may be familiar with a recent trend of people saying Gordon ought to resist Stasis, and therefore he should win. I’ll obviously be covering the latter in a moment, but I do feel the former is something worth breaking down in greater detail, considering how many people have cited it as a major game changing argument.

Now the argument for this is relatively simple. There are multiple points throughout the series where Gordon is exposed to Xen Energy and dark energy which are said to be warping the fabric of space and time. He tends to be fairly unaffected by being in contact with many of these energies in spite of this. Stasis is a warping of time in the form of an energy shield. Therefore, Gordon should be able to resist the effects of Stasis.

Now, I do kind of get this argument, but I personally have some issues with fully buying it. First off, it’s worth pointing out that Stasis’s exact mechanics aren’t fully explained in the series itself. So while the idea of it behaving similarly to the energies Gordon’s dealt with isn’t exactly unbelievable, it’s still taking a bit of an assumption and running with it. It’s also worth noting that most of the effects of these energies seen in series were purely in regards to warping space, not time, as it’s mainly been used to open portals and teleport people. The only instance I could see of it possibly causing issues with time was with Nova Prospekt’s teleporting sending Gordon and Alyx a week into the future, but given it’s explicitly described more as “long teleport”, that feels a bit more like the teleporter simply failed to transport them for a week rather than temporally sending them ahead a week. 

Finally, regardless of the validity of the idea of him resisting, I don’t think there’s any argument that he would be outright immune to the effects. As seen with the G-Man’s multiple time stopping monologues, Gordon does not seem to have any capability of actually moving when within stopped time. At best he’s able to perceive actions in it, but there’s no evidence that he’d be able to affect things in it, as Alyx, someone relatively on par with Gordon, explicitly needed to be affected by the vortigaunts before she could move within the time. Now yes, time stopping and time slowing aren’t really the same thing, but in my opinion this does at least give enough evidence to cast doubt on the idea Gordon would be outright immune to getting temporally messed with. 

Now, this is an argument I admittedly can’t fully refute, as it is based on comparing two energies from two different series that just vaguely do similar things, and how they would compare is inherently going to be based on speculation. As such, I’m still moving ahead with the conclusion that Gordon can somewhat resist it, I’m just making a caveat here that I do not think it’s a completely airtight argument, nor is it as major a factor as some people have claimed. 

Bonus Fan Art Section

(by @dimentio6691)

(by @thatrandomvsdebator)

(by @nikpaul19)

Verdict

(music)

Stats

Stats for these two are extremely close. In terms of AP and durability, both have many instances of taking on monsters with casual wall level feats, and at their best they both can get to building level. And scaling makes this very consistent, as both are characters from worlds full of people that are mostly treated as relatively grounded humans physically, meaning both of these two can be reasonably compared to many of their capabilities. 

In terms of the two’s best feats, Gordon scaling to the Gargantuas puts his peak at 1.85 Tons of TNT, which is better than Isaac’s best feat from tanking the time bomb at 1.19 tons of TNT. While this does mean Gordon takes an edge in strength, this is only about 1.5 times stronger, which is far from being by a significant enough gap to suggest he’s AP stomping or physically incapable of being hurt. You could argue Gordon has a slightly more significant strength edge depending on how you want to calc the various vaporization weapons he’s dealt with, and there are of course several more questionable feats for both which you could use to make this far more clear cut, but I’m opting to stick with the values that are more consistent, meaning this is staying at a slight edge for Gordon.

Now for speed, which is a bit more tricky to try and break down. Both are able to vaguely weave around gunfire while in gameplay, and both have more explicit experience dealing with rockets and such. Isaac does have his moment of potentially dodging a point blank bullet, but if you look closer at the moment, you would see that Isaac isn’t actually dodging the bullet itself, but rather is pushing the gun out of the way of his head before it fires. That’s still impressive, just not quite as impressive as the real deal would be. Gordon’s best speed feat would be outspeeding the Satchel Charge bomb’s blast which required nearly Mach 4 speeds, and while I do have some issues with this moment, I’ll just use it regardless as neither of them have too much in terms of calculable feats. 

While that might seem like a huge edge for Gordon, much like his strength edge, Isaac’s not so behind that he’s getting speed blitzed. Assuming the rockets Isaac can react to are at least as fast as modern RPGs, he can react at about 86% the speed of sound, which is only about 4.6 times slower than Gordon. That’s also assuming these rocket launchers from people in the 26th century who have invented space travel are not at all superior to our modern rocket launchers, which would likely be shortening the gap more to an unquantifiable degree. But just being twice as fast would lower the speed gap down to only 2.3 in Gordon’s favor. So much like the last section, Gordon does take a slight edge in the speed category, but not to such a degree that Isaac couldn’t keep up. 

Arsenal & Abilities

Now, this is where the match really gets interesting. Both of these two have a very wide set of weaponry to utilize, so they both are certainly capable of a lot of varied gunplay. On paper Gordon is the one which has a wider set of weapons to pull from, but Isaac’s arsenal is generally a lot more varied, as quite a bit of Gordon’s arsenal is just basic guns. The two do of course match each other at several points, as not only do both have multiple guns and explosives, but the Detonator gives Isaac access to laser mines like Gordon’s, the Javelin and Rivet guns can pin enemies to walls with metal rods like the Resistance Crossbow, and even the Gravity Gun is countered by Kinesis doing basically the same thing. In fact it was likely better given Isaac can use it whenever he wants, whereas Gordon has to explicitly swap to the Gravity Gun over his other weapons. 

To get into more specific interactions between things they don’t share, Gordon’s access to multiple methods of summoning various bug aliens would give him a good way to get the numbers advantage, but that’s unlikely to be something Isaac is too inconvenienced by. He has plenty of experience dealing with groups of enemies and even enemies that attack with acid, and weapons like the flamethrower or force gun gives him enough AOE to quickly blast through their numbers, as Gordon likely wouldn’t be able to give more than 10 of them at a time. And half of their numbers would be small bugs who may just end up fighting the antlions due to both creatures having very aggressive behavior and antlions attacking based on smell. Gordon was also able to utilize several methods which could blast through Isaac’s armor, mainly in the Gluon Gun, as well as potentially the Tau Cannon and the Pulse Rifle’s alt-fire. Though the fast ammo consumption and shared ammo pool of the first 2 and the very limited set of ammunition for the latter meant these were options he couldn’t just spam willy-nilly. 

And of course there are their respective suits, which both have some neat features that would help in a fight, though quite a few features weren’t going to be a huge factor. Ironically, despite objectively being less protective by lacking a helmet, Gordon’s actually offered a bit more defense thanks to its damage reducing shielding, which could help him power through an onslaught of Isaac’s for a time, and the Long Jump Mobile offered better mobility than Isaac’s thrusters, which required being in zero gravity to be most effective. But on Isaac’s side, the navigation system meant he’d have superior awareness of the environment, making stealth attempts from Gordon a bit hard to pull off, and his ability to heal meant he’d be able to keep going for longer than Gordon, whose armor was at best able to administer painkillers, which is not outright healing him. 

Now, all the cards on the table, I feel a war of attrition is something Isaac’s more capable of coming out on top with. As mentioned, his healing options are superior to Gordon just having painkillers, and while the HEV’s shielding would let it soak up damage for a time, Gordon does not have a solid way to restore them once they’re drained. And Gordon’s lack of a helmet makes for a rather obvious weak spot, meaning that without the shielding Isaac could rather easily decapitate him with his plasma cutters or a saw blade to take the win. That being said, Gordon’s slightly better speed, better mobility, and weapons that could bypass armor did mean he could conceivably bypass the war of attrition by blasting Isaac through his armor.

However, Isaac actually had several methods of locking down Gordon to the point where this was a rather unlikely result. First and most obviously, there was Stasis, which is able to slow down time and is something Isaac is able to deliver on Gordon in explicit blasts and on contact with his projectiles. Now, there are some arguments that Gordon ought to be resistant to it, but even at best I don’t personally think there is anything suggesting Gordon would be outright immune to its effects, in which case Stasis would still be effective at limiting his movements. But just for the sake of the argument, let’s assume it’s not an option. 

Isaac actually has multiple other ways of locking down Gordon’s options beyond just slowing down his time, and I feel there’s not even an argument for him resisting these. For starters, his other main suit module, Kinesis, has been shown to be able to lift heavy objects and even people. Yes, Isaac can’t seem to do it on people who are alive in his own games, but Dead Space Extraction explicitly showed it being used on an alive person, indicating that’s likely just a gameplay limitation, so that would offer him a way to get him into a more vulnerable state very easily. He’s also capable of using the force gun to create gravity wells, which would also be effective in keeping Gordon in one place and stopping him from dodging. Finally, to circle back to an earlier point, the fact that many of Issac’s heavier weapons have a pretty wide AOE makes the idea of Gordon even dodging them in the first place pretty unlikely.

Certainly not helping is that the main option that’s capable of bypassing Isaac’s durability, that being the Gluon Gun, is rather large and bulky. This means that Gordon would be pretty heavily telegraphing the fact he has a large damaging cannon the second he pulls out, meaning that it’s unlikely for Isaac to be caught off guard by it. The cannon’s high rate of fire also means that, should Gordon waste the ammo, he’s not going to be able to use it again. And his other options are a laser cannon that pulls from the same ammo pool as the cannon, and a slow energy ball that Gordon can only fire thrice. 

also if he just made a bang motion at gordon with a finger gun he’d just instantly die so gg ez

So ultimately, while both of them have a frankly massive amount of equipment to account for and have plenty of counters for each other, I believe Isaac has just the right tools for the job to ultimately overcome Gordon’s defenses and take him down before Gordon does so to him. 

Tertiary Factors

For starters, given the main theme of the match, both of the two are definitely incredibly smart. Gordon is likely superior on an academic level, as while both are confirmed college graduates, Gordon has a PHD and had shown interest since he was a young child, whereas there’s not much saying Isaac had much more than a bachelor’s degree or a particularly prodigious past. However, experience goes to Isaac. Not only is he a good deal older, as he’s 47 while Gordon’s only 27, but his experience with the Markers was over the course of several years in-universe. Meanwhile, thanks to the G-Man’s weird stasis dimension, Gordon technically only has about a combined week of combat experience, which is a little crazy to think about. 

Overall skill is a bit tricky to pick a side on, since both have plenty of experience dealing with a lot of similar enemies, both in terms of human soldiers of high skill and with all sorts of alien monstrosities. Both also have some scattered instances of fighting alongside others and relying on others' planning, but both tend to spend much more of their time fighting on their own, so that wouldn’t swing things either way. Gordon also has more experience dealing with humanoid enemies that fight like him, as that was a pretty rare event for Isaac before the events of the third game, but I also feel Isaac has taken on a far wider selection of enemies overall. So I think I’m going to go ahead and say skill is a relatively equal statistic here. 

As for other details, Gordon likely has better raw stamina, as the Half-Life games tend to give him a lot less room to breathe over the course of his journey, and several of them took place over the course of several days with no implied points to even sleep. However, Isaac is definitely the one with the higher raw pain tolerance, given the many instances he’s had of getting attacked brutally or getting blown up before just getting up seconds later no worse for wear, and having enough sheer willpower to power through the effects of the Markers even on a planet full of them. While that might sound like they’d be the same thing, the difference would be that Gordon would end up lasting longer without needing rest, but Isaac had a far more notable history of actively pushing through pain and deadly situations to keep going.

Conclusion

(fan series credit)

"This is the Freeman. The Combine's reckoning has come."

Advantages

• Slightly takes the stat trinity

• Has weapons which could attack Isaac through his armor

• HEV Suit’s shield was the best defensive option…

• Can get the numbers advantage with alien summoning…

• Could arguably resist Stasis…

• Likely smarter intellectually

• Better stamina for long periods

• Generally equal skill

• The cliffhanger his story was left on for over a decade has actually been resolved

• Part of the reason Isaac exists in the first place

• Can sing you the song of his people

Disadvantages

• Generally less versatile arsenal

• Inferior options for healing

• …but once it was drained he could not easily recover it.

• …but Isaac’s AOE lets him quickly deal with them.

• …but Isaac had ways of locking down his movement besides it.

• Less overall experienced

• Less raw pain tolerance and willpower

• No helmet rip bozo

• Valve development time

• Hunt Down The Freeman

• Died in All Dogs Go To Heaven 2

"Come on then. ‘Cause this is all I have left!"

Advantages

• More overall versatile arsenal

• Better options for healing

• AOE options meant Gordon’s numbers advantage wouldn’t come into play for long

• Could lock down Gordon’s movements in multiple ways

• Once HEV shield was drained, could easily win thanks to Gordon’s lack of helmet 

• More overall experienced

• Better raw pain tolerance and willpower

• Generally equal skill

• Actually got to Game 3…

• Was the rival to fucking God of War!Zeus in PSASBR

• Is a certified skater

Disadvantages

• Slightly loses the stat trinity

• Gordon has methods to bypass his armor with certain weapons

• HEV Suit’s shield was the better defensive option

• Stasis would arguably be ineffective

• Likely less smart intellectually

• Worse stamina for long periods

• …but it was a bit of a mess that killed the series until the remake came out

• Majora’s Mask

• EA Games

• Your mom hates him

Now this is an incredibly close match, and I mean that about as genuinely as I can. The two’s near dead even stats and very wide arsenals meant both had a lot to offer, along with plenty of edges and counters over each other, and there’s definitely plenty of solid arguments for either of them taking it here. However, in my humble opinion, I believe that Isaac’s superior technology, experience, and sheer will to survive would ultimately be enough to outlast the Freeman. While Gordon certainly had far more than half a life to give, Isaac was simply a variable he just could not account for, leaving him with an unforeseen consequence far more deadly than any space faring being. 

The winner is Isaac Clarke.

Next Time…

Sourcelist:

• The Combine OverWiki

• The Half-Life & Portal Encyclopedia

• u/76SUP’s respect thread

• DeathBattleDino’s respect thread

• The Dead Space Wiki

• u/Emperor-Pimpatine’s respect thread

• DeathBattleDino’s respect thread