this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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That's an interesting idea. I agree... though, I think that the choice to switch lead characters was more instrumental than the choice to go with a prequel. I wonder if Valve internally ever seriously considered ditching Gordon when they were making HL2? It's funny to imagine what the fan reception to that might have looked like!
Oh, especially at the time. At least society had grown a little by the time they decided to make Alyx the main character of a game, and so criticisms on changing the main character were more subdued than they likely would have been in 2004. I can hardly imagine the screeds of text that would have been written online about "BUT WHAT ABOUT GORDON?"
Also, its interesting to think, with a new main character, they could have revealed a lot less about what was going on in the story and kept a little bit more of the mystique that infected the original.
Honestly, it's the same thing with Portal. Part of the reason the original works so well isn't just the unexpected dark comedy tropes, but also that there's still a lot of mystery about the place you're in and why it is the way it is. Leads to lots of fan speculation, which is people thinking about and talking about your game and getting other people to buy it and play it. After the introduction of Cave Johnson in Portal 2, we know a lot more about the place, and it begins to lose the intrigue that made it such an interesting place to explore. It's probably a good idea that Portal 2 is the end of that story, because I don't think there's a whole lot more interesting to explore there.