I don’t know if you know the internet, but it’s gone and got itself in a proper tither this morning. A Team Fortress 2-themed update to Surgeon Simulator 2013 – which our Steve rather liked in his Surgeon Simulator 2013 review – saw a cryptic clue in Korean planted on the base of an in-game Medic statue. And in conjunction with Half-Life 2’s accidental Korean language switcheroo during its leap to SteamPipe this week, it’s ended up bringing about our bi-annual Half-Life 3 scare.
“Whoa! It seems that you’ve got a little ahead of yourselves!,” said a bewildered Surgeon Sim team today. “Here’s a clue: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY VALVE GAMES! Carry on now…”
So what does it have to do with? Developers Bossa say that the clue is a self-contained affair that hints at something within Surgeon Sim: “Our game, our puzzle, our ARG”.
As for the Korean language link? “Pure coincidence,” shrug the developers. “Korean characters are cool, everyone wants to use them.”
In a roundabout way, this is Valve’s fault. The Potato Sack ARG which heralded Portal 2 saw a number of indie games featured in the 2011 Steam Christmas Sale infused with info-crumbs. And I suppose ever since, we’ve felt our conspiracy theorist leanings have been validated.
Anyway. Bossa’s clue is a missing six-letter word, and the first two of those letters seem to be somehow linked to a planetary map of our galaxy. Any ideas?