On day 1 of the Steam Winter Sale, which began December 22, a comic showed up on the front page of the Steam storefront with a barcode on the cover. Scanning the barcode returned the same code as the one tattooed on Hitman 47 from the Hitman series.On Christmas Day, Valve removed the barcode from the comic, while at the same time users discovered a hidden prompt on the Steam store. Going to a game's store page and typing "search" followed by hitting the enter key brings up a dialog box. Entering the barcode into the dialog box returns 'ic/4f21ca7,' which, when appended to the comic's URL, returns https://store.steampowered.com/wintercomic/4f21ca7, which is a soundfile of a man saying "I was on the right track, I could feel it. Tomorrow, I was going to search again."
I was on the right track, I could feel it. Tomorrow, I was going to search again.
According to the sleuths at /r/steamdetectives, nothing more has come from this soundfile, but there's still plenty that has been uncovered elsewhere. "In several instances in the comic a 'Blitzen incident' was mentioned," according to user Digit4lhero. Searching "Blitzen" via the store brings up Grim Fandango Remastered. "Using the search prompt found earlier and the password Jake uses to get into Twinkle's (Hot toddies and maseratis)," would return the page for Undertale.“
Undertale is tagged "Bullet Hell," and it's the only tag "not translated into a non English language for non English Steam users." Searching again with the term 'Bullet Hell' returns the game Ikaruga.More clues arose, exposing another code which, when entered into the Ikaruga search rewards users with a Red Herring badge. So close!
But there are more random clues and potential dead-ends to be found. For example, manipulating the "Santa Baby" background has revealed a Half-Life lambda and a crowbar in the image, while another image has revealed a code at which the Steam Detectives are (currently) stumped.
Could this be an elaborate reveal at Half-Life 3? Earlier this year, code in Dota 2 hinted at Half-Life 3 when it pointed to a file named "hl3.txt." But almost anything Steam, Valve, or even Gabe Newell does is seen as tacit confirmation of one of the holy grails of gaming. But then again, any evidence against the conspiracy could just be further evidence of a conspiracy.
With Valve moving toward the world of VR, could this ARG be the lead-up to some sort of reveal at the Consumer Electronics Show, beginning January 9? Only GabeN knows for sure... Seth Macy is IGN's weekend web producer and just wants to be your friend. Follow him on Twitter @sethmacy or check out Seth Macy's Youtube.