Alright folks, all aboard the hype train it’s about to leave the station! I’m going to attempt to get the true meaning out there, so to speak. After hearing about the now infamous Steamcast Tweet, I wanted to get a serious insight into what’s really going on, after looking at my Steam Friends’ list who would be better to ask than Brad from Steamcast otherwise known as Mimaz98. To make a long story short, it seems like the information is very possibly true. After a discussion about possible strange Half-Life references showing up on the official TF2 blog, I did a little bit of investigation myself. Brad had noticed that the image used on the official post It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Australian Christmas was originally of an Aurora Borealis effect on a starry sky. The image has since been, inexplicably, changed to The Engineer standing in front of a warm Christmas fire.
Here’s the part this no longer becomes wild speculation…
My investigation into this matter included searching for a cached version of the post. What I found was the original Aurora Borealis image Brad mentioned. The astounding thing is the image filename is “truemeaning.jpg” The first sentence in the blog post is “What is the true meaning of Australian Christmas?”. Simple logic can connect the dots to a very possible conclusion, it all seems too unreal to believe but Valve would not be making these decisions and changes without good reason. With that said I’m very curious to see what will take place over the next few days and the holidays.
I’d say something major is very possible considering everything going on. After all, GameInformer predicted “Half-Life 3 revealed [in 2011], and it looks great. Surprise.” and just to back up their claim, in January 2010 they stated there would not be a Half-Life game that year which we all know turned out to be true. I shouldn’t forget to mention they’re the website/magazine that officially, and exclusively, revealed Dota 2 last year as well.
Don’t forget to check out the hidden image yourself:
http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/truemeaning.jpg
LambdaGen will be here to cover any updates to this, grab some popcorn and stay tuned.
22 Responses to “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas… With A Twist”
How about just simply that the background is the aurora BOREALIS. Ya know, the Aperture Science ship that was found in the ice caps. Another hint at that, does it even snow in Australia?
True, and I think the only way it could draw attention away from the other two games is if they were released at the same time, maybe then, but even if the next Half-Life is announced now, it won’t come out for another year or 2, by then CS:GO and Dota 2 would have had its fair share of fame.
Also, I was under the impression Dota 2 would be released before next year’s E3, my bad.
The current image is called “truemeaning_3″
I’m thinking its just the name of the images relating to the comic. Maybe the decided the picture of the Engineer portrayed what the comic was about better.
Found on Steampowered:
“Looks like background of this:
http://www.teamfortress.com/australianchristmas2011/part2.html“
Nordic Lights = Half-Life 2 Episode 3
Why? Because Half-Life 2 Episode 3 will be based on an arctic base.
Also nordic lights are knows as aurora borealis as stated in the article. its a stronger connection i think since HL2 is set in eastern europe. would be quite a long helicopter ride till you actually see them.
Tweet is offline, can someone cite it?
Article on the subject is now up.
ohgodohgodohgod
Please comment THIS!!! http://www.black-aperture.com/
Fake.
you are tearing me apart, gabe!
heh
Strange ep3-titled files in Alien Swarm and then Dota 2. And now we get this. This may be a long shot, but it’s the most convincing “hint” towards a new Half-Life game in months.
didn’t Gabe say there would be 3 big surprises form valve this year?
They were Mannconomy, Dota 2 and CS:GO, and Gabe stated that these surprises were to take place from September 2010 to September 2011. Whatever this is, it’s outside of those 3 surprises.
DOTA2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, TF2 going Free to Play. There’s your three.
Mannconomy. Not Free-to-Play.
Well, they have 9 days to do it.
And besides, weren’t many people saying that an announce before Dota 2/CS:GO’s release was unlikely, was it would detract attention from those two titles?
I was thinking the same thing.
But if they announced it at 2012 E3, that is well passed the release times of both Dota 2 and CS:GO isn’t it?
While both Dota 2 and CS:GO may not be released by E3 2012, it’s pretty silly to say that a Half-Life reveal would detract attention from Dota 2 and CS:GO. The three games have almost NOTHING in common apart from being produced by the same companies. Different franchises, different genres, different audiences, and so on.
Aah damn, my reply is at the top, made a slip up.