HL2 Stalker Scream

A sound from the 🗣️ Voices & Quotes category

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Also as: Discord-ready (≤5 s) · iPhone ringtone (.m4r) · Android ringtone (MP3) · how to add it to Discord · how to set it as a ringtone

📖 What is the “HL2 Stalker Scream” sound?

This is a roughly four-and-a-half-second scream taken from Half-Life 2, credited to the Stalker, a mutilated human enslaved by the Combine and used as a background NPC. The sound is a harsh, metallic shriek with a clanging, almost mechanical edge, reportedly made by altering the noise of a metal pot or sheet hitting the floor rather than a human vocal recording. In the shipped game it plays only briefly during the Citadel pod-ride sequence, but in the 2004 beta the Stalkers appeared more frequently as hostile enemies, making the scream more prominent there. The clip sat mostly unnoticed for years until August 2022, when it resurfaced online and quickly became a reaction sound in meme culture. It gained particular traction when paired with a hue-shifted image of Luigi, spawning the so-called 'Wega' meme format, and it has also been used in NextBot chase-style video mods where sudden, jarring noises accentuate the horror-comedy tone. The sound now functions as a stock jump-scare or shock cue, dropped into edits at the exact moment something unexpected or unsettling appears on screen. Its abrasive, unnatural pitch makes it instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with Half-Life 2's sound design, even though its use in modern memes has little to do with the original game's narrative context.

🧭 Where it comes from

Origin: Half-Life 2 (2004 video game) sound files; popularized as a meme in 2022 (2004) — documented

The scream belongs to a Stalker NPC from Half-Life 2, named 'go_alert2' in the game files. It appears in the beta version and survives into the final release only during the Citadel chapter pod-ride scene. According to Know Your Meme, it was allegedly created by altering the sound of a metal pot or sheet being dropped, and it started circulating as a meme sound around August 2022, first noted in a YouTube video by DuncanProductions.

🎬 How to use it in your edits

Drop this scream in right as a jump-scare image or NextBot chase clip hits its climax, timing it to the exact frame something horrifying pops into view. It also works well layered under a sudden cut to a distorted or hue-shifted face, echoing the 'Wega' meme format where the scream punctuates an unexpected visual gag.

Download the file above, then import it into CapCut, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve — or straight into TikTok / Instagram. The sound is free for your videos.