Geoff Keighley may not be opening a portal to hell after all. Roleplaying game fans have desperately linked The Game Awards’ hell statue to a new trademark application filed Tuesday and reported by games publication MP1ST. A law firm filed a European trademark application on Tuesday under the name Divinity, and the symbol in the accompanying stylized graphic certainly does look familiar.
Two other trademark applications, showing similar imagery, were filed alongside the Divinity one. One looks to be of a person tied up in a spiderweb, and the other has a striking similarity, again, to the symbol overlaid on the Game Awards statue. The trademark application for Divinity categorizes it under computer game programs and video game software, as well as books, clothing, board games, and other “entertainment services.” No other information is available in the application to link the trademark to either the Game Awards statue or to Divinity: Original Sin and Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios.
Kotaku has reached out to Larian Studios for comment on the trademark application and its connection to the Game Awards statue. A Larian Studios representative did not mention Divinity: Original Sin 3, but said: “We are releasing Divinity: Original Sin 2 on Next Gen but weren’t going to announce it until a bit later, so please keep an eye out!”
Michael Douse, Larian Studios publishing director, also posted to X addressing the rumors,saying “there aren’t currently any plans for a new Divinity Original Sin 3 game but once we are ready to show what we’ve been working on we will.”
Larian Studios announced in 2024 it’s working on two projects. All founder Swen Vincke would say, at the time, was that one is codenamed Excalibur. The studio is coming off of the massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3, released in 2023. But before Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios was best known as the maker of the Divinity series, starting with 2002’s Divine Divinity and its 2004 sequel, Beyond Divinity. It’s published six different Divinity games, as well as expansion packs and enhanced editions of the games. The last Divinity game, Divinity: Original Sin 2, was released in 2017. Asked about Divinity: Original Sin 3 in 2024, Vincke wouldn’t say anything except that whatever the studio’s next game is was “different than what you think it is,” yet “still familiar.”
The Game Awards are just days away, so it’s unlikely that Larian Studios will say much about the trademark application or its potential link to the mysterious statue before the big show. But for many, that doesn’t matter: People are still holding out hope that there’s something more than simply an enhanced version of Divinity: Original Sin 2 to be announced at The Game Awards on Thursday.
