I acquired so freaked out by the truth that Gordon Freeman is canonically 27 that I made a decision to learn how previous all the opposite traditional FPS protagonists are, and it did not make me really feel higher

When I first performed Half-Life on the tender age of 11, I discovered it a terrifying expertise. Admittedly, I used to be terrified of just about every little thing at 11. Wasps, heights, loud noises, soccer (or extra particularly, everybody discovering out how dangerous I used to be at soccer). I used to be an anxious baby throughout. Hence, taking part in an interactive catastrophe film crammed with bizarre aliens was an intense expertise and lashings of violence was an intense expertise.

Now I’m quickly approaching 40, the concept of Half-Life being in any means scary appears ridiculous, particularly while you evaluate it to fashionable horror video games and precise real-life terrors like tax returns. But there’s one a part of Half-Life that also frightens me, and it seems proper in the beginning of the sport. Midway by way of the introductory tram trip, 5 phrases and a quantity seem on the display screen:

SUBJECT: Gordon Freeman. Male, Age 27.

Every time I see this caption, it appears mistaken, prefer it should be a typo. Surely Gordon Freeman is older than 27. I imply take a look at this man. That’s a fella in his mid-thirties on the youngest.

To be clear, this is not a notion I’ve developed not too long ago. I’ve all the time believed this. I will need to have seen the caption numerous instances, however it by no means actually sank in, as a result of I used to be busy watching all of the surroundings and funky scripted sequences that you simply get throughout that tram trip.

Basically, Freeman’s youthfulness weirds me out. It additionally led me to surprise: how previous are all the opposite ’90s FPS protagonists? Is DoomGuy truly DoomBoy? Is B.J. Blazkowicz quick for ‘Baby Junior Blazkowicz?’. Is Duke Nukem even allowed to enter a strip membership?

Riddled with doubt, I made a decision to attempt to discover out the age of as many ’90s shooter heroes as I might. The solutions proved fairly stunning, and in some circumstances, instructive about sport design.

Let’s begin with a straightforward one. William Joseph Blazkowicz has surprisingly in depth lore for a online game character created within the eighties. According to the Wolfenstein Wiki, Blazkowicz was born on August 11, 1911. Canonically, the occasions of Wolfenstein 3-D happen in 1943, that means that Blazkowicz is 32-33 when he takes down MechaHitler.

The Wiki additionally states that B.J. is canonically the grandfather of Commander Keen and an ancestor of DoomGuy, which is a enjoyable little bit of trivia.

I’m gonna skip Doom and Duke for the second and take care of one other simple case. Kyle Katarn is the protagonist of Star Wars: Dark Forces and Star Wars: Jedi Knight—Dark Forces 2. (And also Jedi Outcast and, in a secondary role, Jedi Academy, but those are noughties games). Because Katarn is a Star Wars character, and because Star Wars fans are, shall we say, fastidious, it’s straightforward enough to find out Katarn’s age.

According to Wookiepedia, Katarn was born in 23 BBY (That’s earlier than the Battle of Yavin—the concluding act of the OG Star Wars—for non-Star Wars heads). Before Rogue One modified the canon, Katarn was the unique thief of the Death Star plans which occurred in the identical yr because the Battle of Yavin. That makes him 23 on the outset of Dark Forces. He was 28 in Jedi Knight, and 35 in Jedi Outcast. Each of those info is sort of a needle being pushed into my ageing physique.

Strictly talking, No One Lives Forever is a noughties shooter, releasing in 2000. But spiritually it’s 100% a nineties FPS, and for that purpose I’m going to incorporate it.

Like Katarn, discovering out Archer’s age is straightforward sufficient, as Monolith gave her an in depth backstory. The NOLF Fandom Wiki says she was born in 1942. The occasions of the unique NOLF happen in 1967, making her 25 when she turns into a superspy for UNITY. Like James Bond, Archer is outwardly additionally natively Scottish, born in Glasgow.

Prisoner 426 (Unreal)

Another simple one, albeit for various causes. Unreal’s anonymous protagonist can be an ageless protagonist. Since Unreal’s participant character might be customised each in character mannequin and gender, Epic by no means specified an age for them both. In quick, Prisoner 426 is as previous as you need them to be (so for me, 57).

Caleb (Blood, Blood 2: The Chosen)

The age of Blood’s revenant protagonist is somewhat dependent on perspective. According to the Blood wiki, Caleb was born in 1847 (in Texas, apparently). Since the occasions of Blood happen in 1928, this could make him a sprightly 81 years previous by chronology.

However, Caleb is murdered by his demonic grasp Tchernobog in some unspecified time in the future between 1871 and 1928, so biologically he is probably considerably youthful than his chronological age. Amusingly, Blood 2 takes place in 2028, which suggests Caleb can be 181 years previous in the course of the occasions of that sport.

DoomGuy: (Doom)

Here’s where things start to get tricky. Unlike his (alleged) ancestor B.J. Blazkowicz, DoomGuy does not have a specified age. It’s generally assumed he’s somewhere in his mid-thirties—mainly because the face at the bottom of the screen looks like it’s seen some shit.

But I took a punt and reached out to John Romero, Doom’s co-creator, and asked him whether, either publicly or privately, id Software ever determined a specific age for DoomGuy?

Romero quickly got back to me with a reply. Unfortunately, it appears id never officially pinned it down. “No, we didn’t invent Doomguy’s age, or Ranger’s,” Romero wrote in response. “I think it’s assumed they are mid-to-late 20s.”

If you’re wondering who the hell Ranger is, well, spoilers for the next entry.

As Romero mentions above, id Software never specified an age for Quake’s protagonist as they didn’t with Doom. That would seem to be the end of that rabbit hole. However, Ranger also appears in 1999’s Quake 3 and 2022’s Quake Champions.

Quake 3 isn’t all that helpful in determining Ranger’s age. But Quake Champions is. According to the lore added by QC, Ranger is actually a Vietnam veteran, having served in the US military up to 1975.

According to the Quake timeline, the events of Quake are concurrent with the game’s release—1996, which means 21 years elapse between Ranger’s return from Vietnam and the events of Quake.

Unfortunately, the timeline doesn’t specify when Ranger signed up to fight, or how old he was when he did. But the youngest he could (legally) have been to sign up was 17. The US began active combat operations in 1965, so it’s unlikely that he would have served before then, and the implication seems to be that Ranger did his tour(s) of ‘Nam in the early ’70s. Quake Champions also includes a photograph of Ranger and his family taken in 1978, in which he looks to be in his mid-to-late twenties—though he could be older.

All of which suggests that Ranger is either a mid fortysomething or an early fiftysomething during the events of Quake, which would make him the oldest still-living protagonist on this list.

I’ve saved the most interesting case until last. There are a couple of ages banded about for Duke Nukem online. But most of those are for Duke Nukem Forever, and they suggest he’s somewhere between 45 and 47 during the events of that game. The source for those isn’t clear, however, and in any case, we really want the age Duke was during the events of Duke Nukem 3D.

To try to pin it down, I sent an email to Scott Miller, the founder of Apogee Software (later 3D Realms) the developer of Duke Nukem’s 3D. He quickly responded with this:

“When I and Todd Replogle first came up with the Duke Nukem character, there were two things I decided to never reveal: what year the game took place in, and how old Duke was,” Miller wrote. “I never wanted to say, for example, that the game took place in 2004, because whenever you nail down a date it often comes back to haunt you when you pass that calendar date in real life (eg. 2001: A Space Odyssey).

“So never in the Duke storyverse is a date mentioned. As for his age it was the same thinking—if we had mentioned his age in a game, would we need to keep aging him for every succeeding game? So, I just wanted to fully avoid these issues. But, in my mind, Duke was in his mid-30s”.

In short, Duke is forever a man in his prime, which is only fitting for the character.