Level One: The Commence was the first and introductory level of THE FINALS Easter Egg Hunt. It started on September 5, 2022 and was completed on September 16, 2022, leading into Level Two: The Promise.
History
On September 5, 2022 Embark Studios posted the image "Slash" along with the captionː "New concept art..ǃ.ǃǃǃǃ". Converting the punctuation from binary, assuming the periods are 0s and the exclamation marks are 1s, revealed the "/" character. Upon further examination of the image, binary strings were discovered in the upper right and lower right quadrants. These strings converted to "DEVON" in the upper right, and "CROSSING" in the lower right. With these two pieces of information in hand, it was discovered that going to reachthefinals.com/devoncrossing led to a page with a large red X on it.
On September 8, a new image was posted to the #game-announcements channel in the official THE FINALS Discord server named "Statues_001". It depicted small figurines, or Revive Statues, of the Light, Medium, and Heavy Builds. Examining the image revealed a series of numbers: "49 53, 54 52, 48 50, 49 53". When these were cross referenced with an ASCII table they gave the date "1564/02/15". This is Galileo Galilei's birthdate, but as of then its relevance was not confirmed.
On September 9, another image was posted to the announcements channel, named "Happystatues_002". This time it was small Nama Tama figures of the Light, Medium, and Heavy Builds. Once again examining the image led to another set of numbers: "56 54 48 49". When referenced with an ASCII table they gave "8601", referencing ISO-8601, a standard code for date formatting, thus confirming the previous reference to Galileo's birthdate. Going to reachthefinals.com/galileo led to a page with the same red X on it.
On September 13, the image "BarrelsBarrelsBarrels" was posted to the #game-announcements channel and Embark Studios' social media accounts. It contained a scene of a character in military gear, and a Shinobi vaulting over them with a few barrels behind them. Closer examination of the image revealed two potential cluesː On one of the barrels the string "002f", Unicode for "/" was found, and the character with military gear was carrying a can of "OSPUZE OG Beans" on his back; although, the latter was overlooked at the time.
On September 14, Dusty sent the following message in the #easter-eggs Discord channel:[1]
“Hey all you Shell-lock Holmes's! Looking for clues can be hard work and sometimes you see things that aren't there.....for example, today is not the day of the gameplay reveal. But nice try! While you wait for the real drop, there are more clues to uncover. Best efforts are needed soon!”Dusty
On September 15, a new image named "friend_you_need" was posted in the #easter-eggs Discord channel. The image depicted Nama Tama holding a can of "OSPUZE OG BEANS." A can of beans, titled OCB ("Original Can of Beans"), was the first item put in a geocache by Dave Ulmer, the inventor of geocaching. Going to reachthefinals.com/ocb would reveal the third and final page featuring the large red X, although this wasn't discovered until just after Level One was solved.
Solving
On September 16, 2022, hunter Duh found the correct answer for the level: reachthefinals.com/geocache, that contained an image of Nama Tama saying: "Level One Completed! You Are Awesome.!" In total, Level One took 11 days to complete.
Solution Breakdown
- Devon Crossing relates to William Crossing of Devon, who is credited as popularizing the hobby of letterboxing that began in Dartmoor, Devon in the 19th century. Letterboxing is a predecessor to the similar hobby of geocaching and involves clues, compasses, and maps.
- Dusty's "Shell-lock Holmes" message referenced Sherlock Holmes. The third Sherlock Holmes novel written by Arthur Conan Doyle is The Hound of the Baskervilles, which takes place mostly in Dartmoor, Devon.
- Galileo is the name of a European Satellite System. GPS devices are used for geocaching and they require satellites to function.
- O.C.B stands for "Original Can of Beans." A can of beans was the first item placed in the original stash by the inventor of geocaching.
Gallery
Slash
Statues_001
Happystatues_002
BarrelsBarrelsBarrels
friend_you_need
The Level One completion image
Credits
- Solver - Duh
- Documentation - Giriko, Flex4d, RockhoundBlack
- Various Contributions - ATAEGGYU, Darnoux, Dwarf, Madalin, Mike Eggmantraut, Oli, Sparky, Swa
Further Reading
- RockhoundBlack's Video: THE FINALS: The 'Geocache' Easter Egg!
- Flex4d's Document