Is there a government conspiracy to cover up the existence of
extraterrestrial beings? Can the government make a town disappear? What
if your family was in on a mysterious plot?
If these questions intrigue you, 2K Games is betting you'll want to
help unravel the mystery of a cryptic trunk in an alternate reality game
tied to the upcoming release of the third-person strategy title
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.
An alternate reality game — better known as an ARG — introduces
players to a narrative set in the real world that uses interactive
media, including video, audio and websites, to move the story along.
ARGs have a long history of video game tie-ins. For game developers and
publishers, ARGs serve as tools to deepen the gaming experience by
providing more insight into the story and creating excitement before
launch.
In the early 2000s, Bungie created a huge game known as
I Love Bees,
which sent fans to a hacked website with garbled audio recordings from a
crashed spaceship's AI. 2K Games also created ARGs for
BioShock 2 and
XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
2K Games is preparing to publish its second
XCOM game, set
in 1962, focusing on the formation of a government agency to quell alien
activity in the United States and prevent citizens from finding out
about it.
Erase The Truth
In this alternate reality game, we meet Alice, a woman in her early
20s charged with going through her grandmother's trunk after her death.
What Alice finds in the trunk is a little strange to her: redacted
notes, books related to conspiracy and postcards from a city in New
Mexico called Pima, which can't be found on any map.
Alice turned to
YouTube and
Twitter to ask the Internet about the meaning behind all of these objects.
She started gaining a small following of people helping her
investigate the truth. Some quickly pointed out that members of the
press, and other superfans, had received duplicates of items that Alice
found in the trunk
in the mail.
These included an ashtray with black goo stuck to the bottom, a strip
of microfilm, the postcard from Pima and a lighter inscribed with
Eradite Verum, the Latin phrase for "Erase the Truth."
It's quite simple to connect Alice with
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. Fans' suspicions are confirmed with Friday morning's launch of Alice's blog
whathappenedin62.com, on which she ponders her grandmother's trunk and a video game that takes place in the same nonexistent town.
"Pima, New Mexico may have existed at some point but it
isn’t there now. The weird thing is that you guys told me about it
because there is a video game coming out that uses that place as one of
the settings. Not only that but there are a ton of other connections to
that game and my grandmother as well. I don’t know what my grandmother
has to do with a game, or why a video game would be made about her job
in the 1960’s, unless she was part of something really big…. and
strange."
Taking Fans on a Journey
Now that the connection between Alice and the game is confirmed, what is 2K working on between now and the Aug. 20 release of
XCOM Declassified?
"While the main points of the story are scripted, it's not something
that has been written," said Kate Distler, 2K's community manager who
dreamed up the project. "Even though Alice is an actress, she's going to
act and react in real time. Part of the fun is being immersed in the
narrative, but it's definitely not an on-rails experience."
Every piece of material Alice uncovers will be tied to the game, but
it's up to the fans to figure out how each piece fits in. Distler said
the complicated puzzle of this ARG can't be solved alone; the community
must work together.
"We see this expanding the universe for fans more than selling a
product. Working together and finding the truth is rewarding," Distler
said.
"This is expanding the universe of the video game, with interactive
fiction. It's similar to how many games have comics or novels as
prequels. The game makes more sense when you play it, and you'll have
these revelations in the game because you participated," added Scott
Pytlik, 2K's PR manager.
So for the next three months, Alice will tweet, post YouTube videos
and update her blog. Distler kept mum on forthcoming parts of the ARG,
and said Alice will be urging fans, in the spirit of the game, to keep
asking questions about these conspiracies to cover up the truth.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified is out Aug. 20 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.