If there’s one thing Valve are good at, and they are good at a great many things, it’s big-ass countdown clocks. Giant-butt timers that wind down to a mysterious and unknowable finale. They’ve whacked a fresh clock up on the Team Fortress 2 website, one that at the time of discovery had less than 24 hours left on it, that suggests a new update to Valve’s free-to-play shooter is incoming.
An ARG we were supposed to have picked up on a few weeks ago, perhaps? Did we miss a clue somewhere along the line? So mysterious, so imminent.
Speculation is rife as to what the countdown could be counting down to. The design of the clock suggests a broadcast will be triggered at 1am BST on June 18th, with the featured test card roughly fitting the dimensions of a YouTube embed.
This could be the rumoured launch of the End of the Line update, an official TF2 update inspired by the work of unofficial Source Film Maker director James McVinnie. Last year, the minute-long trailer for McVinnie’s short drew the attention of Valve, who sought to create an update based on his work. Here is why.
Then again, it could be something entirely different, with Valve’s rumoury fingers jammed in so many mystery pies. There’s a moonbase update, some strange bread-related events, a thing about tentacles, the fact that the test card very much resembles crosshairs. Could we be counting down to custom crosshairs? Is that even a thing? Apparently that’s a thing.
There’s honestly no telling. You can stay tuned here, or just check back in after the Russia v Korea game later tonight. It’s fun staying up late, thank you football and videogames.