A new splash page has surfaced on the official Gears of War website, with Marcus holding in his hand a dogtag that reads the following numbers: 033-116-117-126-071. These numbers, when matched with their ASCII character equivalents, reveal a hidden message which reads: “ESC N O V 9.”

Now, don’t go and mark your calendars just yet — as we’re simply assuming that this means the game is hitting retail shelves on November 9. Could be referring to anything though — a demo, launch party, you name it. We’ll likely know for sure once E3 kicks off next week.

Gears of War 2 [Epic Games]

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