Only a few weeks back, Marathon sparked real buzz. Although it’s common to see energy build around a freshly released game, this moment felt notably different from the usual wave of promotion. Instead of typical hype, it carried the unmistakable feel of a treasure hunt—something the community worked together to uncover: the Cryo Archive map. The whole thing boiled down to cracking a single, seemingly simple alternate reality game (ARG). How hard could it be?
You’d think Bungie would be well acquainted with this kind of approach by now. If you look back about ten years, you can spot a pattern of similar efforts. Halo 2’s “I Love Bees” was, for me, the first real taste of what an ARG actually involves. Still, the cryptic material tucked away in trailers—along with links to websites that somehow looked compromised—feels like a distant cousin compared with what Marathon players ended up dealing with.
What may be even more surprising, though, is how this particular kind of ARG gets off the ground. Bungie doesn’t run the entire operation by itself. The studio brought in help from the branding firm Kurppa Hosk, which supported not only Marathon’s Cryo Archive ARG but also smaller efforts beforehand. To understand how the partnership works, I spoke with people from both sides: Bungie’s principal marketing manager Nick Clifford and principal producer Emanuel Rosu, along with Kurppa Hosk’s senior product manager Anton Ronsjö and creative director and senior copywriter Paul Martinsson.
The Cryo Archive ARG was shaped years ahead, rooted in the collaboration between Bungie and Kurppa Hosk connected to Marathon that traces back to 2021. After Marathon’s announcement, the two teams first teamed up to create hidden websites included in the game’s opening trailer—designed to lure curious players into hunting for secret locations tied to in-game factions. Clues scattered across the trail eventually guided investigators to an obscure X account (later becoming the official Marathon account) and to hints pointing toward a real graffiti installation in Venice Beach, California. As the game’s launch and the rollout of Cryo Archive drew closer, Kurppa Hosk proposed another ARG that fit Bungie’s habit of expanding the experience beyond the game itself—one intended to reward early adopters.
“It was essential for me to honor the heritage of ARGs, especially through community collaboration, engaging players, and expanding the game’s universe,” Clifford said. He also noted that, although he was relatively new to Bungie, a lineup of smaller projects helped them “gain practical experience.” Those efforts included activities through Marathon Discord channels and producing a camera tour of the Bungie offices to mark the first public announcement.
“When we started talking about the release of Cryo Archive, we wanted the community to feel like they were connected to the Marathon ship, because it’s the Marathon ship. It needed to feel like a genuine milestone—something people accessed at the right moment. That’s why we knew we couldn’t just turn it on,” Clifford added.
So, what was the plan for this ARG? What goals guided everyone during those days spent scouring the game—looking for terminals and clues tucked into the world? There was clearly a lot of energy around it, with both content creators and regular players passing along word about the newest big developments. Still, as Bungie and Kurppa Hosk explained, the purpose went beyond simple excitement.
As Ronsjö put it: “With ARGs, the appeal comes from enjoyment and interactivity. We’re focused on building immersive experiences and adding layers—both to the game and to its lore. Creating that universe—that’s what ARGs essentially stand for. A game inside a game.
“When we treat these puzzles as immersive experiences tied to the broader setting, you’ll encounter them right in the game, on Discord, or through specific websites we build. Wherever players are, we aim to show up. Each puzzle is designed with those spaces in mind, meaning it depends on collaboration among players—or on translating information into ASCII, hex, and binary. Even tracking down an object in-game and its exact coordinates. Putting it all together was incredibly rewarding. The teasers are what pushed things forward, leaving players with a storyline that’s hard to fully capture in words—something your friends might not completely follow when you describe it, but they can still feel the excitement.” In short, Ronsjö summarizes the idea as creating moments where: “you must be there.”
Martinsson emphasized that enhancing the narrative is “the whole point of these ARGs,” alongside building a “sense of achievement” for everyone taking part. The main challenge, according to the people I spoke with, was making sure the experience could welcome both committed ARG fans and casual players who have no interest in that kind of hunt.
“For us, it was important to weave the ARG into the game too. We wanted players to feel like they could keep playing while they were involved—so it felt like one continuous experience,” Clifford said. “That’s also why, from the beginning, players had to find terminals inside the game. From there, websites would unfold trailers and previews for the map. We wanted it to feel smooth and connected, not like two separate experiences.”
By blending the ARG between what players do in-game and what happens outside it, Rosu said the “magic” came from an organic way people engaged with the initiative. “The terminals you encounter during gameplay encourage players to figure out what’s going on or to reach out to other participants using the kind of language the community uses to signal they’re friendly. That strategy helps the ARG find an audience that might not normally spend time on the online side of this sort of experience.”
Interestingly, the ARG players experienced generally matched the original plan created by Kurppa Hosk and Bungie. When asked whether any puzzles were cut, Clifford responded: “We have a reputation for being rather poor at determining what makes the cutting room floor.”
Still, there was pressure—absolutely.
The Cryo Archive rolled out over the weekend—timing that worked out well for people stuck with less-than-ideal work hours, though that outcome wasn’t guaranteed. Clifford verified the authenticity of the access procedure; only light assistance was given to help the ARG reach this ideal window.
— and he added that there was no certainty this major endgame moment would appear on schedule, for both players and creators.
Of course, there were skeptics. Some felt that the Cryo Archive ARG finale landing right before the weekend was a little too perfect. I’ll admit I wondered the same thing during the ARG, as everything started to pick up speed close to the end. When I asked whether Bungie or Kurppa Hosk did anything beyond sharing cryptic hints to help the community—if they ever nudged events—Clifford dismissed that entirely.
“We looked at each piece of the ARG and tried to gauge how long it would take players to solve the full puzzle, as well as how quickly they could move through it. We did have internal conversations like, ‘well gosh, what if they unlock the Cryo Archive at 1 AM? That would be tough for us,'” Clifford said. “We also talked about what would happen if it launched after the weekend—because that would be awkward for everyone who only plays on weekends, since they might miss their chance. There was a bit of that consideration, then. We didn’t control the release moment, but we tried to be thoughtful in how we built it, so there was still plenty to explore at a comfortable pace.”
“Players always seem to move through these kinds of challenges faster than we expect,” Clifford added. “We structured the ARG around ‘tentpole moments’ and reveals. Different segments of the ARG were named after features of the Cryo Archive, and we planned for every one of those sections to bring its own rewards.” Those rewards—ranging from unlocked dialogue from Durandal (voiced by Ben Starr) to fresh trailers spotlighting parts of the Cryo Archive map—became a catalyst for celebrations among fans who were eager to get in on it.
Even with all that forethought, the pace still felt remarkable. As Ronsjö put it, some stages of the ARG were “impossible to predict”. For instance: “The opening phase with the terminals—that part was more straightforward, and they unlocked it right away. But then the password needed to reach the ARG website… It was there, in front of them the whole time. Still, it took about a day! Then they realized they’d been holding it all along, and I think that gives the community a really satisfying feeling.”
“Sometimes, they were even faster—like tackling that 19-page manual they somehow got through far quicker than we expected. Tying everything together to the ship helps it feel like one cohesive package. And that’s what an ARG is: a product. So it’s important that it feels consistent and naturally matches the game.”
That said, what mattered most—according to the people I spoke with—was that these rewards weren’t handed out easily. Each step of the ARG introduced its own set of complications: teamwork aimed at reaching in-game goals, along with puzzles and codes to work through. While I watched those ARG participants, I saw countless hours spent building theories, chasing misleading leads, and generally wrestling with brainteasers. Even so, the community’s overall momentum still surprised both Bungie and Kurppa Hosk.
“We designed it to be challenging on purpose, because we want players to feel like they accomplished something together,” Martinsson explained. “We expected a few of the puzzles might be simpler, but they lasted way longer than we thought. So we had to stay flexible—learning how quickly the community was actually solving them. We might assume one path, and then they’d take a totally different one.”
Clifford described Bungie’s role in making sure the difficulty landed in the right place, describing the sweet spot between being overly simple and maddeningly hard as “the secret sauce.” Watching the terminal-focused portion of the ARG unfold internally, Clifford called it “magical”—just like seeing hundreds of players tackle each challenge before the ARG even officially began. For him, though, the real value of ARGs showed most clearly in the ending: it was just challenging enough that players were close to winning, but not quite there. That gap gave players a reason to keep pushing ahead.
“We designed it to be challenging on purpose, because we want players to feel like they accomplished something together.”
And, as you may expect, getting that result required active oversight from Bungie—tracking how quickly the ARG moved throughout its run. “We started with our best intentions,” Rosu noted. “It meant we had to keep fine-tuning how we approached things inside the game. We were in constant contact with our live operations team, trying to figure out when each phase would wrap up.”
None of it, of course, would matter without places where ARG discussions could happen. Natural community leaders helped bring together groups of players who might otherwise have been separated—pushing toward a shared objective, not just standing at an extraction point with a shotgun or staring out at multicolored lobsters along Dire Marsh’s shores. As Ronsjö explained: “They’re the driving force behind it. Without an engaged group of participants working through this, it wouldn’t succeed. The group makes it happen.”
Getting back to the larger purpose of all this, Clifford’s explanation echoes one of the reasons Marathon keeps feeling interesting, especially through its meta commentary. “It’s about bringing the game world to life—blurring the boundary between the game and real life,” he says.
Martinsson shared a related view. “It’s marketing, but it doesn’t feel like marketing. The reason is that you form participants who feel like they’re part of the story,” he explains. It may ultimately be built, at least in part, to support sales or spark word-of-mouth, but there’s real meaning in doing it in a way that matches what Marathon is trying to do: a game centered on the blurred line between player and product, system and participant. In Martinsson’s words, “these ARGs can broaden the scope.”