Activision, Treyarch, and Raven have been trying something quite a bit different with the reveal of this year?s Call of Duty. A massive ARG (alternate reality game) was launched, tasking players with putting together puzzle pieces and solving a number of strange ciphers and puzzles in and out of the free-to-play Warzone, which serves as a kind of huge stage for the reveal. But some of the steps on this curious journey have been marred by the fact that dataminers pulled the relevant files from the game ahead of when they were supposed to be available, and previous exploits have already let players see what?s inside bunkers and rooms that were supposed to remain locked.
The Call of Duty ARG began with journalists and influencers receiving a mysterious locked black crate. It contained an old 1950s-era slide projector, with a bunch of slides. Using the clues on the slides, players eventually found the site PawnTakesPawn.com, featuring an old TV and VCR which have been central to the next steps of the game. Beginning last Friday, a new videotape has been added each day, the video going over major events that occurred during the years on each label. Secret numbers have been interspersed into the clips, the purpose of which is unclear at this point. Perhaps bigger secret during these tapes is a sector and code that flashes for each, sending players to locked rooms and bunkers all across the map in Warzone. Another page on the PawnTakesPawn site shows six days worth of tapes will ...