Bungie Used An ARG To Tease Its Gameplay Trailer, & I’m Convinced This Is The Best Way To Show Off A New Game
Marathon is Bungie’s up-and-coming PvP extraction shooter, and while its release date is yet to be confirmed, the reveal and solving of another intense Bungie ARG has given the community a save-the-date gameplay reveal teaser. ARGs, or Alternate Reality Games, are puzzles that blend the real world and virtual, and often require the player to engage with the material as if it is real and not a game. In Marathon‘s case, this involved various websites, Twitch streams, and a secret Discord server, requiring players and fans to work together in order to solve it.
A Marathon revival has been rumored since 2022, and was confirmed in 2023 and brought an ARG with its announcement. This second ARG began with Marathon‘s official X (formerly Twitter) page alongside a few other Marathon-related accounts, where mysterious videos filled with odd symbols and images were posted simultaneously. These accounts were to be the harbingers of all the information community members used to solve this new puzzle from Bungie, and players quickly took notice that something was up.
The Marathon ARG Encouraged Involvement From Streamers And Fans Alike
From almost the beginning of the puzzle, streamers like Aztecross, Skarrow9, BogOnMyDog, and others rallied their communities together in an effort to solve this new series of challenges from Bungie. This isn’t the first Bungie ARG, and not even the first one for Marathon, but this one was unique; it couldn’t be solved without Twitch. For the ARG to really begin, community members needed to watch streamers in the Marathon category, which then unlocked further steps of the ARG.
You might think that this seems excessive and complex, and it is. ARGs take a grueling amount of work and a truly ludicrous amount of puzzle-solving and deduction skills to complete, and the more community cooperation there is, the more quickly the puzzle gets solved. Not only does using an ARG give players something to chew on and keep hype for the game going, it also sets the tone for the kind of universe that Bungie wants to create with Marathon.
Using An ARG Proves Bungie’s Commitment To This Revived IP
Bungie’s Long-Standing Tradition Of Complex Lore And Secrets Holds Strong
From the beginning of Bungie’s publishing history, the studio’s games have been secret-packed sci-fi lore fests, and this ARG reaffirms that the new Marathon will not differ from its ancestors in that respect. Marathon has a storied history, and as a long-time Bungie fan, it’s nice to see that its history won’t be left behind in this revival.
Related
5 Best Destiny 2: Heresy Weapons Worth The Grind (& 5 You Should Skip)
Each new Act of Destiny 2 brings new weapons, some of which are worth working for and some of which are just not up to standard.
The ARG pulls in classic references to Marathon‘s warring factions and various players, including the mysterious MIDA, who seems to be masterminding the whole mystery. By engaging so deeply with its own lore, and inviting the community to do the same, this ARG is a message from Bungie to its fans: Marathon isn’t just another extraction shooter, it’s a world filled with secrets to be uncovered that influenced Bungie’s other games.
Such enthusiasm for a long-considered-dead IP is refreshing and, for me, one of the most exciting things about this upcoming project. I don’t love extraction shooters, but I do love deep lore and hidden secrets, and my experience with Destiny 2 tells me that Bungie knows how to write (most of the time). Committing so much time and effort to an ARG shows fans that Marathon will challenge players in more ways than one.
Despite The Work Involved, ARGs Provide Unique Enrichment For Game Communities
The Marathon ARG must have been a beast to create and manage, and was even harder to complete, but something about an impossible challenge motivates players to invest incredibly deeply in something they might otherwise have no interest in. There’s an incredible sense of accomplishment that comes with being part of the solution to an insurmountable task, and more game devs could benefit from marketing their games this way. Not every game is suited to the ARG-style of puzzles, but many are.
By providing a sense of accomplishment before a game is even out, studios can give prospective players a taste of the accomplishments that they can achieve in-game.
It’s not just games that can benefit from ARGs, but a ton of other types of media as well. They’re a great way to tease at information without actually revealing anything while inviting players to invest deeply in the story created by the puzzle. The challenge pulls them in, and then offers the reward of solving it. By providing a sense of accomplishment before a game is even out, studios can give prospective players a taste of the accomplishments they can achieve in-game.
Players that got to follow along on the incredible journey that was the Marathon ARG were rewarded for their efforts with a save-the-date and teaser trailer for the upcoming gameplay reveal on April 12th, 10AM PDT (UTC-7). The game promoted community cooperation as well as allowed players a more in-depth look at the art direction the game’s revival would be taking. Using an ARG for promotion is an immersive and creative way to market your game, and more studios should follow Bungie’s lead.
Source: Marathon/YouTube, Marathon/X, Aztecross/Twitch, Skarrow9/Twitch, BogOnMyDog/Twitch
