Gaming
#HunttheTruth Raises Sticky Questions & Becomes a Dominating Marketing Campaign
The latest episode of #HuntTheTruth leaves the Master Chief labeled a villain and blows up on social media
If you’re a Halo lore fan or someone just now trying to get into the series story leading up to Halo 5: Guardians then you’ve probably been tuning into #HuntTheTruth each week. A podcast released each Sunday, its story has been building to a fever point that reached an all new high this week. During episode 8 Drip, Drip, Drip the Master Chief is labeled a terrorist calling into question his motives and whose side he’s even on. All of which has left fans reeling, generating huge amounts of discussion about the podcast.
#HuntTheTruth has only been airing episodes for a month now but it has already become “the second most talked about ad campaign online and the number one gaming podcast on iTunes”. An explosive launch to the top that has as much to do with its engrossing cliffhanger storyline as it does its all star cast that includes: Keegan-Michael Key (Key and Peele), Cobie Smulders (Age of Ultron), Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley), and several other big names.
#HuntTheTruth has also been run alongside an ARG (Augmented Reality Game) called HuntTheSignal, a mirrored TV commercials, and a second ARG to unveil the cover art. All coming together with the common goal of engaging the Halo community in the series storyline more than ever before. Judging by the numbers gathered by the series, Sysomos English mentions 343 Industries has more than succeeded in their goals:
- Total listens have hit 2.15 million across iTunes and Soundcloud – and counting!
- The three separate announce trailers for “Halo 5: Guardians” have been viewed more than 217 million times total on television and online.
- More than 250,000 fans have visited websites for the “Halo 5: Guardians” ARG.
- To-date “Halo 5: Guardians” has been referenced nearly 960,000 times across social media since the start of the campaign.
In fact Halo 5: Guardians became the most discussed marketing campaign of March in only 11 days, blowing away the competition. Shockingly things are only getting started with the Halo 5: Guardians marketing campaign and #HuntTheTruth. New episodes will be releasing for the podcast every Sunday leading up to its shocking two part finale on June 14th just before Microsoft takes the stage at E3. Leading up to that 343i is promising a flood of new twists and turns for the Master Chief whose goals should become clear soon.
In the meantime they’ve released the #HuntTheTruth cast list to help keep fans guessing about who is truly pulling the strings and showcase the series all star talent:
#HuntTheTruth Podcast Cast
Petra Janecek, Journalist – Cobie Smulders
Benjamin Giraud, Journalist – Keegan-Michael Key
Deon Govender, John’s boxing coach – Phil LaMarr
Ellie Bloom, John’s childhood friend – Tara Strong
Thomas Wu, Internment Survivor – Phil LaMarr
Gabriella Dvørak, ONI Vice Admiral – Jennifer Hale
Mshak Moradi, Conspiracy Theorist – Kumail Nanjiani
Anthony Petrosky, ODST – Troy Baker
Michael Sullivan, ONI PR – Jerry Trainor
Jakob Walker, UNSC Marine – Steve Blum
Ray Kurzig, Ben’s Research friend – Phil LaMarr
Franklin Mendez, Senior CPO who trained MC – Stacy Keach
FERO, Rebel Leader – Janina Gavankar
Katrina, Ellie Bloom’s Friend – Laura Bailey
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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