Half-Life: Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx
Completed
Mysterious looping radio stations within Half-Life: Alyx.
Type	Investigation
Creator	Valve
Discovered	2020-03-26

Main Page > List of Investigations > Half-Life: Alyx

Half-Life: Alyx (commonly abbreviated HL:A or HLA) is a game created by Valve. The game was released on March 23, 2020. This page aims to document the secrets that players have discovered within the game.

As of March 30, 2020, Gabe Newell has confirmed that "there is no ARG" in the game. This does not necessarily indicate that there are no smaller Easter Eggs to be found.

Radios

The game features two radios that play mysterious numbers stations. One of the radios is in the first level of the game, and one is in the Northern Star hotel area of the game. On 2020-03-25, two days after the game was released, a Reddit thread was created to speculate on the meaning of these numbers stations.

Radio - Reversed Audio

On 2020-03-26, players noticed that some of the audio from the radio could be reversed, yielding a set of robotic-sounding messages. Here are the relevant pieces of audio:

NOTE: The translations for these clips are in dispute. Some parts are not as clear as others.

Original Audio	Reversed Audio	Transcription
radio_number_station_terminator_synthy_01.mp3	terminator_01_reversed.mp3	SW TX UY
radio_number_station_terminator_synthy_02.mp3	terminator_02_reversed.mp3	SPTQUR
radio_number_station_terminator_synthy_03.mp3	terminator_03_reversed.mp3	X Y Z
radio_number_station_terminator_synthy_04.mp3	terminator_04_reversed.mp3	OL PM QN
radio_number_station_terminator_synthy_05.mp3	terminator_05_reversed.mp3	H I MJ NK
radio_number_station_terminator_synthy_06.mp3	terminator_06_reversed.mp3	H I F JK(potentially G)
radio_number_station_terminator_synthy_07.mp3	terminator_07_reversed.mp3	D EA FB C

Radio - non-random Sequences

The texture file for the radio

A radio found next to an interactive piano at the Northern Star hotel also plays a numbers station. Players suspect the numbers station is linked to the piano somehow, but nothing has been confirmed. The radio rests on top of what looks like a graph, but is a cutting mat.

The numbers station plays a seemingly random string of eight pairs of letters and numbers separated by either "and" or a static sound called "connector_low". After it has played eight, it randomly plays one of the terminator_synthy files.

Looking at relevant files like the soundevent file, players can see that the number and letter combinations played by the radio are seemingly completely random except for three set number/letter combinations that appear: A14, D7, and V4. This can be confirmed by reading the sound event game strings. Sequence 1 (which has a chance to play A14 in the 5th position) and Sequence 8 (which has a chance to play D7 in the 2nd position, A14 in the 5th position, and V4 in the 7th position)

The radio looks similar to actual Soviet-era radios. The radio's texture can be found here, and a picture of the radio model can be found here. The words at the top are various Soviet cities.

The radio can be moved around, but when it is moved it appears to stop working. Some players speculate that the radio may start working when placed in specific locations, similar to the Portal 2 ARG.

At the time of writing, none of the audio files have been found to contain spectrograms.

Easter Eggs

Russian poster asking for reviews for the Northern Star hotel. Note the top-left corner

This section serves to document the Easter eggs that have been discovered in HL:A. These "Easter eggs" have limited interaction and are likely not part of a larger puzzle.

Northern Star Hotel Tag

A hotel tag that can be found in the game has the number 0451 on it. This number is a reference to the first passcode that gets used in the game Deus Ex, which has since become a tradition for other games to include.

Northern Star Hotel Website/Login

A small piece of paper can be found in the game that asks for online reviews of the hotel. An email at the bottom appears to direct to northernstarhotelonlinewebsite.com, but this website is not registered and the email will not work. Additionally, at the top left of the paper, "user:northernstarFRONTDESK" can be found.

The Terminal Website

Players noticed that a newspaper found throughout the game called The Terminal (which can also be found in Half-Life 2) included a link to their website, theterminal.online. The website appears to only be a parked domain and has no indications that it is related to the ARG as of right now.

Miscellaneous

Tyler McVicker

On 2020-03-28, Tyler McVicker released a video on the Valve News Network channel. This video summarizes the initial radio station discoveries.

Tyler McVicker, who runs the popular Valve News Network channel, confirmed in the #half-life-alyx channel of the Game Detectives Discord that he had "talked with a few people" and that there was "SOMETHING to be found here." This is notable because Tyler has been a leading source of information on the inner workings of Valve as well as their future plans. Tyler also commented that "Valve doesn't put this kind of shit in a game without knowing people will do this kind of thing."

Portal 2 ARG

Valve previously ran a Portal ARG back in 2010 to tease and announce the sequel, Portal 2. Three years later, the Valve developer solely in charge of the ARG wrote an article for Gamasutra explaining their philosophy behind the ARG, the planning that went into it, and the things that happened that they did not expect. It is worth a read for insight into how Valve approaches ARGs. The article can be read here.

Soundlog tool

Dystakruul developed a tool to parse logs and output the number stations log in a readable format. The tool can be found here.