Diamond Clues

“Diamond Clues contains the solution to the FINAL level... they are extremely hard and complex... ._.”

Rob

Diamond Clues are a series of clues that tie into the solution to the final level of THE FINALS Easter Egg Hunt.

Burrw

The burrw gif is the first and currently only definitive Diamond Clue to have been found and identified. Various conversations between Easter egg hunters (H), Embark Studios CX Lead Dusty Gustafsson, and Embark CCO Rob Runesson provided clues to a hidden URL on the official THE FINALS website:

1. December 10, 2022:
   • Dusty: "This level has been a minefield of clues, feels like 47 rabbit holes to go down! 🐇"
   • Rob: "Nah Dusty, it's way more clues than that so far.! BUT let's hope they follow the white rabbit and nt the red herring... ._."
2. December 19, 2022:
   • Dusty: "This clue set is bigger and more connected than Cowslip/s warren!"
   • Rob: "Hpe they dn't get snared by the wrng rabbit… ._."
3. January 24, 2023:
   • Fish (H): "I'll be heading off now, but I hope you guys get it!"
   • Rob: "And I hope you don’t go to deep down the old burrow with a transistor radio…"
4. January 30, 2023:
   • eoin (H): "rob is a rising star now?"
   • Rob: "Yes, I need to earn my colors, Dusty has zero faith in me... ._."
   • Dusty: "Rob has zero respect for the rules of my role bot, so he has been demoted to rising star. One mre slip up and he's getting contestant'd"
   • Spear (H): "Rob is now yellow and it's messing with my brain"
   • Rob: "@Embark | Dusty we don't want to mess with anyones brain, would we..?"
   • Dusty: "Rob will stay yellow until he helps you all tunnel out of this mess. He has given you 47 to many clues and thoroughly confused you. He's a bit of a mad hatter if you ask me."
   • Rob: "Wait what.?! Hmm, not sure I can send them down the mad warren of Alice in Wonderland again. Not even Trigant would be able to handle that.!"
   • Rob: "" (Clue_93.gif)

Hunters noticed patterns in these messages, including use of the words "burrow" and "warren", references to Alice in Wonderland, and lots of words lacking a letter O. In addition, Rob's "Trigant" mention likely referred to American psychologist Trigant Burrow.

Dusty's use of the number 47 (ASCII value for the slash character) and Rob's "clue_93" gif suggested that a URL could be found. A few hours later, hunter Resk came up with the correct URL: reachthefinals.com/burrw based on "burrow" and the theme of removing the letter O. Rob commented on the finding with:

“Congratulation, you found your first diamond clue in this EE-hunt.!
(Diamond clues are rare and pretty hard to find so you should be proud, I think this one was originally activated late November last year... ._.)”

Rob

The new page contained a gif named "burrw" that depicts oval-shaped rings of red light pulsating outwards at a consistent frequency. The gif itself is 19 frames long and contains a single pulse, looping the gif gives the impression of repeated pulses.

The burrw gif

Hunters soon found the string "YMF292" hidden in a line from the top-left to bottom-right of the gif throughout frames 1-6. This is a reference to the Yamaha YMF292 chip used in Sega Saturn and Sega Titan consoles.

A year later in January 2024, Rob hinted that more could be found in the burrw gif with the message: "Almost forgot about that one, still only solved to 50%… ._." Next month in February, Rob posted a screenshot from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, a 1992 point-and-click adventure game by Lucasarts. He confirmed a connection to the phrase "X marks the spot" which is notably used in the 1989 movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, likely connecting to the choice of game screenshot.

Rob's snippet

A few days later, Rob shared a snippet from a higher quality version of the gif with the number 7 in the center, and suggested that the alternate version could be found somewhere: "ohh, have you only found the lowres gif... I wonder where the higres is..." The number 7 in the center and the earlier "X marks the spot" reference suggested to hunters that a second line of characters from the bottom-left to top-right of the animation may be hidden, which Rob later confirmed to be the case.

In March, the 'MEMO MAYHEM' FCAR skin released. It contained sticky notes depicting the burrw animation alongside some of the hidden characters.

In July, Rob clarified that the higher quality version was not strictly necessary to solve burrw, and that he hid it for fun, but also that solving the low quality version was "extremely hard."

“The lowres gif works fine, you don't need the highres, I just hid it online for fun... ._.

I just tried to solve the lowres one, almost forgot how to solve it my self, haha took me 2 hours, haha (so yes it is hard... extremely hard...)

(but it is a diamond clue after all)”

Rob

The next day, Rob confirmed a theory that the alternate version was on an older website not related to THE FINALS.

As hunters made progress on identifying some characters in the second line, the 'GOT-UR-NUMBER PLATE' sticker released in the store. It depicts a MultiCo license plate that reads: "I99TI22", which converts via Leet to "1997122". In place of the month is "YMF" with "292" to its side, and in place of the year is "TF24". The sticker helped to confirm that the characters in the burrw gif are as follows:

• Top-left to bottom-right, frames 1-6: Y, M, F, 2, 9, 2
• Bottom-left to top-right, frames 7-13: 1, 9, 9, 7, 1, 2, 2

Gallery

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  burrw

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  Rob's snippet

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  Both lines of characters

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  burrw illustrations on the 'MEMO MAYHEM' skin

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  'GOT-UR-NUMBER PLATE' sticker