Bungie has announced that if you play Marathon on Steam when it launches next month, you'll be gifted a free Half-Life cosmetic: the exclusive Crowbar Weapon Charm.
It might be tempting to think that this is the beginning of a marketing campaign to hype up Half-Life 3, and that Valve is finally ready to announce the long-rumored sequel, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
While this could be a tease for 'HLX', much as Valve hyped up Alyx with Dead Cells and Death Stranding crossovers, it's worth noting that Marathon has themed exclusives for PlayStation and Xbox, too. They don't have much meaning beyond showing off what platform you're playing on, so why would Steam's exclusive weapon charm be any different?
There's no mention of Half-Life or Gordon Freeman in the X post announcing the weapon charm, and if it's a tease, it's hardly an exciting one. Sure, you can read into the '3A7A' and try and sus out some meaning from the numbers, but it'll just lead you down the same road as the supposed 197 ARG that went nowhere.
Rather than a cryptic clue to an unannounced game, this appears...
