The Fisherman

"I, eh, hope you like Leeches."

- The Fisherman

The Fisherman is a character who appears only in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast as the guide to Gordon Freeman, setting him on his task to take out the local Combine presence.

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast


The Fisherman is met after the player wakes up at the foot of a cliff and walks along a short stretch of beach to reach a small pier. He recognizes Gordon Freeman (though he does not remember his name and refers to him as the "scientist chap", "Fishman" and "Friedman") and asks him to destroy a Combine Headcrab Shell launcher attacking the nearby town of St. Olga, which is probably hiding Resistance members. He unlocks the gate for Freeman, and waits for his success on a bench with his harpoon for most of the remainder of the level.

When Freeman destroys the Hunter-Chopper before the end of the level, the Fisherman stands calmly as he watches it crash into the nearby ocean. He then congratulates Freeman on his return, and tells him that there will be a feast (made up of Leeches) in St. Olga. He then gets confused briefly as Freeman disappears, telling him that he is getting "blurry around the edges", then bids him farewell as if it was not strange.

Personality and skills
It is unknown if the Fisherman is a member of the Resistance; the Combine troops above do not seem to be preoccupied by him. Furthermore, he is very defensive of what remains of Earth's original species. His comments on these species gives the player more knowledge on the effects of Xen lifeforms and the Combine on Earth's natural environment: if the player grabs a crab pot with the Gravity Gun he says that most of the crabs have been eaten by Leeches. If the player shoots a seagull, the Fisherman will show he disagrees, saying "Hey, now! We've lost enough species already!", "What'd that gull ever do to you?" or "Don't shoot the gulls! They keep down the leech population!". Finally, at the end of the level, he implies that Leeches are used as a food source for humans.

Behind the scenes
The Fisherman represents a graphical breakthrough in the Half-Life series: he is the first character in the series to not have a real-world reference for his appearance. Additionally, his model has at least twice the detailing of any character in Half-Life 2. Robin Walker in the Lost Coast commentary : "The process of building characters in Half-Life 2 taught us many things. By the end, we believed we'd figured out a more effective process for designing and constructing characters. This fisherman is the first character we've built using that process. Design-wise, the Fisherman was focused on showcasing HDR, and the way light falls on human skin. The highlights on his forehead and nose are good examples of specularity on human skin. You can see how the wrinkles on his cheeks, and around his eyes, are an example of how we can use normal maps to add depth. Production-wise, the Fisherman was built using a similar process to the rocks you saw on the beach. We model the 3D character at a very high detail, then extract much of the physical information and store it in the textures."

List of appearances

 * Half-Life 2: Lost Coast