Almost 4 years after his disappearance, Gordon Freeman has finally returned… inside a top-down vehicle shoot-em-up. But hey, it may be the first time Gordon Freeman is a playable character in a third-party, non-Half-Life game.

Yes, Gordon Freeman will be a playable character in Avalanche Studios’ Renegade Ops, along with his beloved Antlions and his trusty muscle car, which Avalanche inexplicably refers to as a “buggy”.

You can always call it the Junker if you don’t like “muscle car”. Hell, if you’re a fan of calling it the same names as its scrapped predecessor, you can call it the Jalopy or the Hybrid. Or if you want to call it by its real name, you could go with the “Charger”. Or, if you believe the muscle car is actually the Dodge Challenger, or the Plymouth Barracuda, or the Chevy Camaro, or the Chevy Chevelle, or the Ford Mustang, you can go with those too. Just don’t call it a buggy. Hey, at least Gordon finally decided to mount some weapons on that thing. Check it out:

Not too bad, I’ll give them that. Now all they need to attract the Valve fanbase is a TF2 promotion. Then they’ll be set. John Clark, Sega’s director of PC digital, had this to say:

Working with Steam and the Half-Life team makes this game extra special.

There’s a Half-Life team? Unbelievable. What, are they hiding it in the basement? Is it “Half-Life: Revenge of Race X”, perhaps? Or do their development projects consist of placing cryptic references in the Source SDK, inside Alien Swarm itself, in the Alien Swarm SDK, in the Portal 2 SDK, and in the Dota 2 client? Alright, I kid, I kid. It’s a cool little cameo for Gordon, and it’s interesting to hear someone mention a Half-Life team. Might be picking it up, as it does seem like a fun game. Besides, it’s been 4 years since I last played as Gordon.

In any case, speaking of cameos – the Headcrab Zombie made an appearance in Magicka’s Gamer Bundle, and he’s even got a crowbar! Imagine the tactical advantage of that. I’d probably pick that up… but then again, I don’t actually have Magicka.