A new splash page at the official Gears of War web site may have just revealed the launch date of Epic Games' next. The Xbox 360 shooter was previously rumoured to hit November 16, but it looks like Emergence Day for Gears of War 2 will actually be a week earlier. How do we know this? The dog tags being held on the splash page read 033-116-117-126-071. That, in ASCII octal values, translates to ESC-N-O-V-9. Sneaky, Epic, sneaky.

We imagine that we'll know, without a shadow of a doubt, exactly when Gears of War 2 will "escape" by next Monday, when Microsoft holds its E3 press conference. Still, it might not be a bad idea to schedule this as a sick day with your boss early as a courtesy.

Gears of War 2 [GearsOfWar.com - thanks, Max!]