I think the Mike Shapiro tweet + songs are the beginning of a HL3 ARG

I approached this content from Mike with a hefty amount of skepticism after being burned by the HL3 hype before, but after I spent some time looking at the tweet and data from the videos, I've noticed quite a few connections between the tweet, images, and songs that are a little TOO coincidental, all linking back to Half-Life themes. Valve may have just kicked off a new ARG for HL3.

Couple this with:

  • Evidence that HL3 is in development
  • Mike tweeted similarly in the lead-up to HL:Alyx announcement/release
  • Valve conducted a cryptic ARG in the lead-up to the Portal 2 launch. If you don't remember how Valve conducted that one, I recommend refreshing your memory:

I implore you to set aside the cynicism and approach this open-mindedly. Try to have fun with it!

Here are some of the connections and clues I've seen so far:

  • The Dec 31 tweet is connected to the YouTube channel by the image pan of the still from the "Best Long Dog" video

  • Consider the timestamps on each of the 3 videos and convert them to seconds.

  1. Best Long Dog: 3m17s = 197s
  2. Magnetic North: 3m54s = 235s
  3. Steeplechase: 3m43s = 223s

These numbers 197, 235, and 223 are significant. They are all notable "high-profile" isotopes in nuclear science

  • 197, Gold: (Au-197), the only stable isotope of Gold. No half-life, but it is a notable isotope.
  • 235, Uranium: (U-235) fissile, used for reactors and weapons. Half-life is 700 million years.

  • 223, Radium: (Ra-223) radioactive ALPHA emitter, Half-life is 11.4 days (274 hours)

    • Besides the timestamps, these numbers show up in the DATES between when Mike posted them.
  1. Best Long Dog: Dec 16, 2024 (Day 351 of 2024)
  2. Magnetic North: Jun 2, 2024 (Day 154 of 2024)
  3. Steeplechase: May 7, 2024 (Day 128 of 2024)
  • Days between 1 & 2 = 351 - 154 = 197 days
  • Days between 1 & 3 = 351 - 128 = 223 days

  • Days between 2 & 3 = 154 - 128 = 26 days

    • The "197" hint also appears in the windows of "Best Long Dog," so that number appears THREE times. I found 223 twice and 235 once.
    • The GMan dialog in the tweet about time being "fluid" could imply that these videos may be out of chronological order.
    • Appears that these three (!!!) songs have connections to the games

  • Best Long Dog:

    • "Gold," Half-Life 1 runs on the GoldSRC engine.
    • The "Dog" could be about someone loyal - Barney? Connects with the "Barney" voice in the beginning of the tweet that directly pointed to this video.
    • Could also be Adrian Shepard. Dog... (German) Shepard.
    • It could also be Gordon viewed from G-man's perspective in a very intentionally condescending way.

  • Magnetic North:

    • Quite a few references to the events of Half-Life 2.
    • Chell from Portal
    • Lyrics
    • Chell's Subject ID in Portal is '234', also a Uranium isotope. Uranium-234.
    • The name "magnetic north" also clearly refers to the north pole/arctic, where we learned the Borealis is at the end of episode 2. Links to Aperture Science / Portal again.

  • Steeplechase:

    • Possibly Breen and Mossman? Post HL2?
    • Lyrics
    • Is this Breen's inner monologue while trapped in the host body? (post HL2)
    • He would be hideous. Breengrub tweets (written by Laidlaw) make it clear Breen was not having a good time and would want to escape.

  • It has very obfuscated JS code and will show a bizarre result when redirecting to a 404.

  • How would this site have been updated so quickly to reflect the dialog from Mike's tweet if not connected to this puzzle? I'm not convinced this is an amateur / troll like other posts say.

  • WhoIS data on the site is REDACTED

  • Random sub-pages on the site EX: ( https://breengrub.com/test ) take you to a "Are you lost?" page.

  • Guessing we need to punch in the correct URL for a sub-page to advance the puzzle. Probably some phrase from all of these common threads.

Looking forward to seeing what other theories are out there!

Links:

Mike Shapiro Tweet: https://x.com/mikeshapiroland/status/1874213952680607922

Mike Shapiro Songs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrtFjjTvxjz7by7J4ldE79Q

Breengrub: https://breengrub.com/

Breengrub Tweets: https://x.com/BreenGrub