[Update]

Lending a little more weight to the rumors that Portal 2 is going to launch tomorrow, in advance of its stated April 19 release date, several GI readers informed us that a countdown timer has appeared on the Aperture Science website, standing at the time of this writing at a little over 14 hours and 47 minutes. Looks like something is going down. Might be a good idea to check Steam 14 hours from now.]

[Original Story]

Valve has been aggressively rolling out new phases to its ARG as well as the rest of the pre-launch Portal 2 hype factory, and a few tidbits suggest that the game may unlock before its scheduled Tuesday release.

Bit.Trip series developer Gaijin Games, whose Bit.Trip Beat is included in the "Potato Sack" bundle of indie games on Steam (which includes several gems among its 13 games and is available for just $38.72), sent this message along with an update to Bit.Trip Beat that featured a level purported to be designed by evil Aperture Science AI GlaDOS:

"Like the other 12 games in Valve’s Potato Sack, it is rumoured 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…"

Messages decoded by community members also hint at a possible early launch for Portal 2. "4/19/2011_7AM=4/15/2011_9AM" implies that Valve may open the floodgates four days ahead of schedule, while other in-fiction text fragments reference early releases and being "ahead of schedule" without saying anything outright.

How awesome would four extra days of Portal 2 be? While it would seem that this kind of thing would have to be communicated with retail partners ahead of time – and we all know how enormous companies like Amazon leak information like sieves – if anyone can pull it off, it's Valve.

[via Kotaku]