How to Hack the Video Player in Half-Life: Alyx and Rickroll Her in VR

So it turns out that some of the monitor footage inside of #HalfLifeAlyx are just webms inside a folder, AKA you can change it to whatever you want. Already contributed my part pic.twitter.com/9pJxD9gP2j

— ThatAverageJoe (@AverageJoeSFM) March 26, 2020

If you're one of the many thousands currently playing Half-Life:Alyx and you have the tech skills to pull this off, here's a wacky hack to try: Go inside the game's folders, find the one labeled "intro_world_heist.webm", and replace it with another WebM video. It's a bit tricky to get working but Toby Norman posted these tips on Twitter so he could Rickroll Alyx:

Toby Norman Rickrolling the Combine construction network

"I ended up able to get it working by setting the resolution and frame rate at what the original video was (720x405, 24FPS). I think the frame rate should be slightly higher though, as I found a bit of audio slowdown and desync at these settings.

"The file size for the Never Gonna Give You Up edit I did is ~14MB. I should also say that I cropped the video down to 53 seconds. I also found that if you have a save in front of the monitor, the video may not load correctly if you start it too quickly after loading in."

More tips on this Twitter thread. It's entirely ridiculous and an utterly perfect quarantine project.

Hat tip: My man @PatchouliW once again coming through.

Comments

[camilia fid3lis nee Patchouli Woollahra]

Extra points for the original hack using the classic pre-Internet parody ad for "Big Bill Hell's" *goes back to practising their challenge pissing to try getting no downpayments*