When Portal was first released in 2007, the three-hour game quickly became an industry phenomenon, giving us "the cake is a lie", the portable companion cube, and Jonathan Coulton's masterpiece "Still Alive". Other than releasing some Glad0s-free bonus levels, little has been heard about the future of Portal, though I for one more than welcome a new game in the series. Apparently, the puzzle-shooter got an update on Steam last night that may just be hinting at the future of Glad0s and Aperture Science.

The patch was released quietly, with the only note being that it "changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations". According to PC gamers around the internets, the patch actually added a radio to each level of the game, with a transmission being revealed if the radios are carried to particular spots. Since gamers are a crafty bunch, the Steam forums are already buzzing with what this could mean, but apparently stringing all of the transmissions together results in a secret achievement called "Transmission Received". Some gamers are also theorizing that the radio messages are implying that Glad0s managed to transfer some or all of itself out of Aperture before the end of Portal.

I really freaking hope that this means we'll be hearing about Portal 2 at GDC next week, though some commenters are also excited about the possibility of Half-Life 2 Episode 3, since Aperture is in the Half-Life universe. If either of these things are true, Valve is effing brilliant. Announcing a sequel by updating a three-year-old game? Who else would do a thing like that? Completely awesome. Hopefully we'll hear more soon.

[Source]