COD: Warzone
Rebirth from the ashes
A CoD: Warzone limited-time digital and in-game crossover experience.
The launch of CoD: Warzone season 3 was set to be one of the biggest gaming events of 2021, but first Activision was going to drop a nuke on the in-game city of Verdansk for the finale of season 2. During the 24 hours after the bomb was dropped, 100 million players were left in the dark, dying to know what was next. Enter Rebirth from the Ashes, a limited-time experience that put players in the role of a Russian hacker. If fans wanted info about season 3, they would have to decrypt and decode messages from within the game itself, Activision’s social channels, and on our site.
Not only did our creative team create a new character (Zasha) within the CoD universe, this was also one of the first times an external digital experience had ever influenced the in-game world of CoD.
CASE STUDY
The Experience
Cyrillic Letters
Players enter every match by parachuting into the game world. On the Rebirth Island map we mixed Cyrillic letters within the location titles. When decoded, the letters revealed the url rebirthfromtheashes.com.
Rebirth From The Ashes WEBSITE
A cryptic web experience with exclusive content for players who complete it and hidden easter eggs scattered throughout.
Incoming message
Players were greeted with an audio message telling them they’ll need codes from radio towers to unlock objectives and progress further.
Red Phones
Several red phones with audio messages were hidden throughout Rebirth Island. Some messages directed players to listen for broadcasts from towers scattered across the island. Other messages built out the game narrative and provided hints of what was to come.
Radio Towers
Radio Towers scattered across the island played five different random number sequences. Each sequence was half of a code that could be solved by combining the numbers with a corresponding cipher.
Ciphers
Ciphers were hidden in several places—from influencer care packages to cryptic social posts.
Objective 1
The first objective unlocked by a codeword asked players to be “scanned” for security clearance. Players who completed the task were given a video of their security scan to share on social.
Coded Social Post
A social post on Activision channels encouraged fans to join the experience, but also served as a hidden audio clue.
Objective 2
The second objective required players to decode dial-tones from a social post to complete.
Objective 3
The third objective used highly sophisticated methods to verify that players were not robots.
Objective 4
The fourth objective “tracked” the player’s location and showed a heat map of all the other players across the globe.
All Objectives Unlocked
Once all the objectives were unlocked, players were rewarded with an exclusive first look at the Season 3 trailer and all-new game map.
