Edison Trent has a name. He has a voice actor. He has a defined backstory — survivor of the Freeport 7 attack, former freelancer, left with nothing and trying to get back to something. He has opinions in cutscenes. He reacts to things.
And yet, as a protagonist, he's notably thin.
This is not a failure of writing. It's a decision.
Freelancer is designed as a vehicle for the player, and Trent is designed to get out of the way. He is just defined enough to anchor the narrative — you know who you're playing and why he's in the situation he's in — but not so defined that he forecloses player agency. He'll trade if you want to trade. He'll fight if you want to fight. He'll follow the campaign or ignore it and fly the border worlds for thirty hours. The character doesn't push back on any of this. He goes where you point him.
Compare this to a game like Mass Effect, where Shepard has strong opinions and a definable personality, or a game like The Witcher, where Geralt is a specific person with specific history you're navigating inside rather than an avatar you're projecting onto. Freelancer made a different choice: the player is Trent. Trent is whoever is sitting at the keyboard.
The slight oddity is that this design philosophy extends to the world around Trent too. The factions and the NPCs are specific and detailed — the Gold Dragons have their own history, the Bundschuh have a political platform, the Zoners have their own philosophy about independence. The universe is inhabited by people who are clearly someone. But the player character is a near-blank at the center of it. The world is full; the protagonist is a window.
Whether this works depends on what you want from a protagonist. Some players find Trent underdeveloped and forgettable. Others find him exactly right — he lets you be in Sirius rather than watching someone else be there.
Freelancer's design philosophy is evident in this choice all the way down: the world is handcrafted and specific, and the player is invited into it with as few barriers as possible. Trent is one of those doors.