Wait? What? Portal 2 isn’t out til April 21st, right?

Well, Valve, a developer that famously delays everything is sending crytic messages around the web suggestion that Portal 2 will in fact be getting released a little on the early side.

The Valve Potato Sack ARG’s wiki explains that a number of coded images were sent to different gaming and technology websites over the last couple of days. The images were sent by Valve president Gabe Newell and seemingly make no sense whatsoever. However, as every Valve follower knows, if you dig a little deeper, there might be more to the picture than you might think.

When a number of these were put together they became a 3 x 3 message apparently written by someone inside Aperture Science. The messgae references something called ‘kick it’, the potato sack games and a list of numbers  “4/19/2011_7AM=4/15/2011_9AM.” It is believed that this might be pointing to an early release date in the U.S at least.

Kotaku is also reporting that Bit.Trip Beat’s Portal themed antics has let the following message out:

“Like the other 12 games in Valve’s Potato Sack, it is rumored that playing BIT.TRIP BEAT between now and Portal 2′s ‘scheduled’ release date might increase the chances that Portal 2 is released early. Interesting idea…”

So what does all this mean? Who knows? Something probably. But an early release dosent seem an impossibility. This is Valve were talking about. They don’t do anything by the book.