Half-Life is widely considered one of the best video games ever made for a host of reasons. Among them, its intro is perhaps one of the most memorable video game openings of all time, a masterclass in establishing a game’s particular tone while also organically introducing you to its world. As Gordon Freeman, new employee at the Black Mesa Research Facility, you ride an empty tram through the underground structure, the whole time unable to escape the stilted robotic voice announcing workplace information and procedures. Good stuff, creates a perfect mood and all that. Anyway, have you ever wondered what it would be like if you removed that old computer-generated voice and replaced it with TikTok’s terrible text-to-speech voice?
Probably not but hey, lucky(?) you! Modder TheFloofierLove created a mod that does just that. It rips out the old-school voice from the iconic tram sequence and replaces it with TikTok’s infamously awful text-to-speech voice. If you’ve been on the app, you know the artificially chirpy voice. It’s used for everything, from people announcing big news, to folks setting up a prank video, to people mourning their dead dog. It’s weird and it sucks and now you can experience this same voice in Valve’s classic shooter.
As is often the case with strange and silly things you discover on the internet, this mod started life out as a joke. A simple bit that became reality. It was created by TheFloofierLove after they simply tweeted a funny and cursed idea on April 23.
“half life but every single voice clips is redone by the tik tok text to speech voice”.
Later that same day, they uploaded a short video clip which appeared to be a recreation of their earlier tweet. And two days later, the joke was a real mod that you can now download on GameBanana.
As explained by TheFloofierLove themselves, this mod exists because they got bored.
“Why does this exist? Because I got bored and found out that you don’t actually need TikTok to generate the voice clips.”
Currently, the mod only replaces the voice lines heard during the famous tram intro ride, but according to the mod’s readme file, the creator seems unsure of what will come in the future. Perhaps this is it, or maybe they’ll continue to replace more voice lines from Half-Life with TikTok’s awful, endlessly upbeat robo voice.
While we’re here and talking about the classic intro to Half-Life, let’s take a moment to recall the first character you meet in the game: the one, the only, the incredible Gus the forklift driver. A true hero. A god among men. Gus. What a guy. Modders, don’t you hurt or change Gus. Leave him alone. Don’t, like, add a TikTok filter to him or whatever. Please. Some things should remain sacred.
