Right after yesterday's Divinity AMA, Larian Studios head Swen Vincke unleashed another rabbit hole for the community to fall headfirst into. “If you can figure out my header, let me ask you one special question,” he told YouTuber WolfheartFPS.
His header? Excerpt from the spectrogram. Some have tried to brute force the mystery by reading the spectrogram directly (although it can't be converted back to sound), suggesting it could be the old Larian logo jingle. However, one fan, u/spiceyblack, instead looked for clues in the trailer and came across a rather interesting symbol in the audio that corresponds to the Hellstone statue shown at 2:28 “during the brief silence before the eruption.” It looks like Vincke's snippet was pulled from the audio right after the image appeared. So, what does it mean?
After nearly an hour of painstakingly learning how to view spectrograms in Audacity, we were able to replicate these results.
Things are less clear there. Some believe that the appearance of the Hellstone at the 2:28 mark indicates a date, perhaps February 2028 or February 28, 2026. However, there are several problems with this theory.
Divinity is unlikely to be far enough along in development for Larian to have a specific release date, so February 2028 is an unlikely candidate – even for early access. As for February 28th, 2026, it would be a bit odd for a European developer to use the US data structure, but if so, it's still a Saturday, which most likely rules out a new trailer or 'Panel From Hell' equivalent. Not to mention that neither date explains why Vincke pulled the audio after Hellstone for his Twitter header.
“You Can Hear Them Talking”
So 2:28 doesn't seem to be part of the mystery after all, but we're not at a dead end yet; u/Lmyer has a compelling theory about the sound itself. “If you run it through Audacity or Photosounder,” they explained, “you can hear the words being spoken, but they're very unintelligible, except for the opening word, which sounds like Hello/Heaven or some word that starts with On”.
Okay, now we're at a dead end. If 2:28 isn't the answer, then it looks like we have a hidden message to decipher in the trailer. Could this be a clue to the return of the Lord of Chaos, as fans believe the trailer hinted at? Whatever the answer, it's pretty funny that less than a month after The Game Awards, we're here cracking yet another bizarre mystery involving Hellstone. At least it won't drive God of War and Elder Scrolls fans crazy this time, eh?
