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This is as bizarre as viral marketing gets: An ongoing treasure hunt inspired by Replay Studios's Velvet Assassin game has folks digging up Texas, and one gamer found a cache of WWII antiquities in Fredericksburg...and a bar of gold.

Velvet Assassin, due out later this year for the PC, PS3 and 360, puts players in the role of special agent Violette Summer as she infiltrates enemy lines in World War II Europe. The treasure hunt has been going on for a couple of months, as Dee Cook from Austin claims the first X. It started with a 'rogue developer' from Replay Studios posting clues to direct people to here, and then apparently blew up from there.

Check the jump for more info.

Fredericksburg, TX – July 10th, 2008 – Today a lucky gamer has found a cache filled with WWII antiquities and a bar of gold in Fredericksburg, Texas. For the past two months, people have been uncovering clues that seem to be related to the stealth action game Velvet Assassin inspired by real life WWII secret agent Violette Szabo. Now these clues have led Dee Cook from Austin, Texas, to a gold cache. More caches of gold are still being hunted down.

“During the production of Velvet Assassin our research team actually found some information about Nazi gold caches.” Said Sascha Jungnickel, Creative Director at Replay Studios. “We never tried to unlock any caches ourselves, as we are focused on the production of the game right now. But it seems that the research information is for real. We just wonder how they got into the community. Maybe it has something to do with this new website www.violettesdream.com.”;

To kick off the quest for the first bar of gold, a photo on http://dancorrigan.wordpress.com of an uncovered cache of WWII antiquities, bank notes, jewellery, coins and a letter with an address was revealed. A rogue developer at Replay Studios dropped a few online clues to direct people to the aforementioned site and it grew as followers began talking to each other about the mystery. Two months later and after several phone calls, email exchanges, trips to local bookstores and some online sleuthing, the first cache was found by Dee Cook - a real bar of gold and a replica of rumored Nazi treasure.

Inspired by the heroic actions of a real-life British MI6 agent, Violette Szabo, Velvet Assassin allows the player to go deep behind enemy lines as special agent Violette Summer in a battle-scarred Europe of World War II. Replay Studios delivers a brutally truthful representation of the danger of operating in enemy territory. Velvet Assassin will be published by Gamecock Media Group and is coming in Autumn 2008.

For more information please visit www.velvetassassin.com.