There’s still quite some time to go before “Halo 5: Guardians” is ready for the market, but that hasn’t stopped 343 Industries from keeping up the hype about it, and ensuring that all of their fans are kept up to date with any recent developments, at least as far as Microsoft are allowing them to. And recently, they’ve set up a whole ARG (Alternate Reality Game) revolving around the upcoming title, and more specifically around Master Chief, its protagonist.
On the site, visitors can see a bullet with the text “TRAITOR” on it, accompanied by a sound bite and the hashtag “Hunt the Truth”. In the voice clip, we can hear Benjamin Giraud, a made-up journalist from the universe of the game, who has launched a new investigative series that is apparently going to make some serious revelations. And more interestingly, Giraud is working on a piece about Master Chief himself, in which he’s going to reveal something dramatic.
The revelations are split into episodes, with the first one being posted on a Tumblr blog, titled “00.PRIMER”. In it, it’s implied that Master Chief is going to be revealed to be a traitor, and not the hero everyone likes to see him as. Not all episodes have been released so far, and it looks like the people running the website are going to keep it going for a while, likely to keep people interested for as long as possible. It would be interesting to see what else will show up there.
The next release is scheduled for March 29, and it should give some more clues about what we can expect to see in Giraud’s revelations, and in “Halo 5: Guardians” itself. This isn’t the first time Microsoft have engaged their fans in such a campaign, as the company actually loves to keep in touch with their “Halo” fans and to give them interesting bits of information like that. That, combined with the huge popularity of the “Halo” franchise as a whole, should make it obvious that we can expect to see this type of marketing.
Of course, the next “Halo” will be an Xbox exclusive title, and it will actually not even be available on the Xbox 360, instead jumping straight to the Xbox One. While this has been disappointing to some fans who still haven’t upgraded to the newer console, it can also mean good things for the series, as it will allow the developers to truly reap the power of the Xbox One and its new hardware, and deliver a game that pushes the boundaries of “Halo”. We know the kind of creativity 343 are capable of, and we fully trust them to make this title the best installment in the franchise yet.