Gotta hand it to Valve – they know how to keep things lighthearted in a press release where they announce bad news. Still, I far prefer reading releases like this one to the standard bone-dry copy that hits my mailbox every day (you don’t count, Atlus – yours make us laugh).

So when it came time to drop the downer that Portal 2 wouldn’t be on the slate until 2011, they chose to do so in their typical style. Y’know, if it weren’t for the possibility of being incinerated, bathed in deadly neurotoxins or otherwise… well… killed, the press team at Aperture Labs sounds like it’d be a hell of an amusing place to work. I bet they could put a clever spin on just about anything. Busload of nuns and orphans accidentally teleported into the heart of the sun? A laugh riot by the time those guys get done with it.

Hit the jump for the full release.

VALVE ANNOUNCES MAKING GAMES IS HARD

June 9, 2010 — Aperture Science, doing business as Aperture Laboratories LLC, in partnership with Valve today announced the successful completion of an ethics-review-panel-supervised release date restructuring process. Portal 2, the sequel to the ground-breaking title that earned over 30 Game of the Year awards despite missing its original ship date, is now targeted for a 2011 release.

Representatives from both companies acknowledged that public safety concerns factored into the decision. They went on to say that even though Portal 2 will arrive slightly later than planned, all life on earth won’t instantaneously stop as every molecule in your body explodes at the speed of light, which is what would happen should a rip ever appear in the fabric of Valve Time.

“Also, the game will be even better,” they added, missing an historic opportunity to create the first product delay press release to mention that a product is being delayed to make it worse.

To ask questions about how close we all came to dying, or to ask futile questions about the previously announced E3 ***PORTAL-2-THEMED-FOR-GOD’S SAKE*** surprise or, less futilely, to schedule an appointment to attend a Portal 2 screening at the Valve booth during E3, please contact Valve’s delegate to the EU’s Valve Time Studies Group, Doug Lombardi.