Game development and digital publishing monolith Valve has announced that its Portal 2 event, which had been scheduled to be the company’s big showing at this year’s upcoming E3, won’t be going ahead.

We'll be curious to see what it is that Valve has to show off...

Valve had been set to show off the sequel to the runaway success first-person-puzzler that was Portal, but has now sent an email around to some journalists to detail the cancellation of the Portal 2 event in favour of a surprise announcement, which it’s expecting people will be happier to see than they would have been with Portal 2 anyway. It’s a very strange letter indeed, but one that the folks at TomsHardware have posted in full. The full mailing from Valve says,

“Dear Subject Name Here,

Aperture Science is pleased to inform you that we have partnered with Valve to announce the gala CANCELLATION of the June 14 Portal 2 event at the Regal Theater. The event will be replaced by a surprise. And even though the cancellation of the event certainly counts as a surprise, we are pleased to announce that the cancellation of the event is not THE surprise. However, per International treaties regarding the definition of the word “surprise”, of which both Aperture Science and Valve are signatories, the time, date and content of the actual surprise will only become available as you experience the surprise.

If you’d like to ask fruitless questions about the E3 Portal 2 surprise or, more fruitfully, schedule an appointment to attend a Portal 2 screening at the Valve booth during E3, please contact Valve’s Special Envoy to Surprises.

Thank you for <>

PS: The surprising record scratch is also not the surprise.”

Of course, the big speculation has been that Valve will show off something of its third episode of the Half-Life 2 expansions, now three years in the making. The proximity of Portal 2 to such an announcement would be very good news indeed for Valve fans, who tend to be treated very well indeed when it comes to multiple releases.
Who knows, Valve could well be gearing up for another box-set like The Organge Box, which was released with Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and boasted Episode 2 itself, Team Fortress, Half-Life 2 and Portal all in one place.

We can but hope.