Valve big boss Gabe Newell says the popular PC developer will be dropping not one but three bombshells over the next twelve months.

If the internet had its own group of natural laws, surely they would include John Gabriel's GIFT and Godwin's Law. I would like to suggest a third: Whenever there is news about something happening at Bellevue-based developer Valve, the probability of somebody complaining about Half-Life 2: Episode 3 sharply approaches 1.

Well, what happens when there are three things happening at Valve? Does that triple the odds, or just triple the whining?

Speaking with PC Gamer UK, Valve big man Gabe Newell discussed the furor that had surrounded the developer's E3 2010 Portal 2 "surprise" - which had ended up being the announcement that it would be on the PS3, too. Newell said that the fans' frenzied speculation wouldn't end there.

"I can guarantee you people are going to be surprised at stuff we do," he said. "That isn't going to stop any time soon. I'm just laughing because ... people will be shocked again."

Why will they be shocked? "We have three pretty big surprises in the next 12 months at least," said Newell.

Okay. Let's get the wondering out of the way and assume that one of those surprises is the news that Valve is actually working on Episode 3 instead of spending all day playing StarCraft II and TF2 and raking in money off of Steam - or, alternatively, that the game has been canceled entirely. What could the other two be? We already know about Portal 2, so that can't be it.

So what else is there? Might it be Left 4 Dead 3? Or Team Fortress 3? Source 2, a new Counter-Strike, or the DotA project?

Let the wild, rampant internet speculation begin!

(CVG, via VG247)