Shortly after Marathon was released on March 5, players noticed a QR code—part of a cosmetic weapons sticker—was linked to a strange website: Cryoarchive Systems. Then, something weird started happening. Terminals on a specific map starting suddenly booting up. Players who interacted with the terminals received cryptic messages. Terminal interactions seemed to impact that mysterious website. A video feed on the website was another clue, which set off players into an alternate reality game that's spanned a few weeks so far. And it's all to unlock a new map, set on the Marathon ship—the infamous endgame.
Over the past few weeks, the community has banded together in Discord servers, social media, and Reddit to test out theories and solve developer Bungie's puzzles. Marathon player Trombone told Aftermath that, once a new channel, called #breach-protocol, appeared in the official Marathon Discord, people started testing the ways in which the terminals changed the website. "This step specifically took a large community push to solve, as completion was based on the number of activated terminals within a limited time frame," he said.
The Breachers of Tomorrow Discord is one of the largest Marathon ARG communities. They've got a Discord, an impressive fan-made website, and a big ol' Google Docs tracking progress in one space. It was started shortly after the ARG began, organized by a Marathon player. It grew from a place for the editors of a community document to chat into the massive community of more than 1,000 players, one of the organizers, Marathon player PinkTubeSox said.
Bungie is known for this sort of thing: It's I Love Bees ARG for Halo 2 defined how developers can use games outside their own games to get a community invested. It was viral marketing before TikTok, something that spread organically through the already excited Halo 2 community. It used everything from real-world payphones to a radio drama and mysterious DVDs. It's a way for developers to get people invested in spending time inside their game, and thinking about it even when they're not.
"Honestly, I feel like these mysteries really open up game worlds in a way that most games miss," Breachers of Tomorrow community member CrowdTypical said. "I think these types of community events and puzzles can really help bring folks together toward a shared goal and they really just add stories and memories that take a long time to shake."
The first step in solving the Marathon ARG was huge, Trombone said, because it took serious dedication from the Marathon community—they had to all focus on messing with the terminals at the same time. The Marathon community has worked through six steps that included putting together a poem, math problems, and image processing, Trombone said. The sixth step was truly difficult. Breachers of Tomorrow member Oyster said it required solving eight mini-puzzles and referencing a 19-page technical manual.
"Much like the game Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes it was a TRUE community effort across MULTIPLE different communities," Oyster said. "There were multiple Figma, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Discord threads across the entire ~48 hours it took to solve. It was a mammoth effort that ended up involving algebraic equations, route solving, in-game clue hunting, book ciphers, symbol ciphers, combination lock-style minigames, posting gifs of tinfoil hats and much shared lack of sleep as it went on."
The seventh will require more people and time than anything else: Killing 500 million United Earth Space Council enemies. It's a lot of enemies. Since Marathon was released, players have killed more than 318 million enemies at the time of writing—nearly 182 million to go. Players are killing UESC enemies at a rate of 17,715 kills per minute. It could take more than a week. At least, this is what the community thought until the Cryoarchive page corrupted with a dashboard of colorful images. It's tied to a Discord bot and an app that's a match game of sorts.
They're still trying to figure out how that match puzzle works and what it does, all while continuing to rack up UESC kills. The last few puzzles were quite hard for the community, Beachers of Tomorrow member CrispyChaos said. "The last couple puzzles were difficult to a scarring degree as a community, and I think people are also maybe struggling to un-tense themselves, but personally this break with a simple goal is nice," they said. "It just invites people to load in and play the game, which after all this excitement is what we really need."
The highs make up for the lows.
"[It's a] big whirlwind of conflicting answers and theories, struggling to stay awake and seeing the sun rise," Marathon player and Breachers of Tomorrow community member stairface said. "Just to get that one little breadcrumb that'll hopefully break the dam of answers open. A big collective struggle followed by instant euphoria, just to hit the ground running again. Practically no breaks, just hitting the gas all the time, a speeding train that we're all on, but don't want to get off of."
A lot of people have been around since the start, and others trickled in after stumbling upon the mysteries in-game.
"Before even really knowing about the ARG much at all, I stumbled on a set of the Marathon Terminals, and the first time I heard the voice line given by the terminal, I got goosebumps immediately, and have been driven by that excitement since," PinkTubeSox said.
The Marathon ARG community is full of people like PinkTubeSox drawn to mystery and puzzles. There are people with all sorts of skillsets, be it coding, puzzle solving, theory developing, taking screenshots, notetaking, leading voice calls, or simply hyping others up. There's room for everyone. Breachers of Tomorrow community member Aerysten told Aftermath that the community has worked hard to make sure people feel "safe, welcomed, and like they belong."
"I love being part of something bigger than myself and helping others out," Breachers of Tomorrow community member Aerysten said. "I joined because I loved helping get information to people and discussing the different thoughts and theories we had. One of the things that engages me the most is solving problems, whether in my work or daily life, and this is something to solve."
It's something that the Breachers of Tomorrow Discord community hopes stays together after the ARG ends.
"The ARG will eventually get solved with or without my effort, but getting to be a
part of the community who are so enthusiastic about this game, meeting new people, and just being part of a greater effort are all things I enjoy," community member JustAFish said.
