Marathon Players Are Quickly Solving The Cryo Archive ARG Puzzle

"On March 6, Bungie quietly activated previously offline computer terminals scattered around the first map in Marathon. These terminals looked and sounded like the ones found in Bungie's original Marathon trilogy. And players quickly figured out that terminals led to other terminals, and if you visited them in the right order, you'd hear a message from an unknown voice that the community believes is Durandal, the psycho AI and main villain (?) from those older Marathon games."

"These terminals also led players to a website featuring scrambled camera feeds from a location named 'Cyro Archive.' That's the name of the previously announced 'endgame' map of Marathon. Bungie later shared this website, and that's when the online community puzzle-solving really began in earnest."

"Eventually, players pieced together that if enough of them activated specific terminals on Marathon's first map, Perimeter, during specific 15-minute intervals, they could fill the progress bars and unlock the cameras on the website, which led to more progress bars."

Bungie activated offline computer terminals in Marathon's first map on March 6, designed to resemble terminals from the original Marathon trilogy. Players discovered these terminals contained messages from Durandal, the AI antagonist from classic Marathon games, and led to a website displaying scrambled camera feeds from the Cryo Archive endgame map. The community-wide puzzle required coordinated terminal activations during specific 15-minute intervals across thousands of players to progressively unlock camera feeds and progress bars. Bungie provided hints through Discord when progress stalled, guiding the community toward the solution. This alternate reality game demonstrated large-scale collaborative problem-solving across multiple platforms including Twitch, Discord, Twitter, and Reddit.

Read at Kotaku