Village Gamer

Alternate reality games, or ARGs, have always been an important part of ‘The Secret World‘, Funcom‘s modern-day massively multiplayer game of myths, legends and conspiracies. Ever since the game was initially announced through puzzles, clues and mysteries, the community following the game have had the opportunity to put their investigational skills to the test through a series of these alternate reality games tied to ‘The Secret World’ in a variety of ways. The keenly aware (which is always a good thing to be if you are planning on solving these things), have most likely already noticed the murmurings of a new ARG taking shape. 

 

‘The Black Watchmen‘ is a brand new breed of alternate reality games developed by Montreal’s Human Equation, the same team who worked on many of the previous ARGs connected to ‘The Secret World’. Even though this ARG is independent from Funcom and ‘The Secret World’, its story is tied to the same universe and its events happen before the events detailed in the game itself. This time around, their ambition is to create an ARG which will live and expand for a long time to come, provided enough players decide to get involved and stay involved.

[vimeo:http://vimeo.com/90818862]

“With this project, our long term partner Human Equation is striving to push the boundaries of reality and fiction even further,” says Morten Larssen, Executive Vice President of Funcom. “When they approached us for a license on using ‘The Black Watchmen’ storyline to do another ARG inspired by ‘The Secret World’, we immediately saw the potential. We are all very excited to see what they are going to come up with!”

Players will be plunged into an engaging series of missions involving online and real world investigation, phone calls, SMS and many imaginative ways, which will make the ARG a ton of fun! Many of these game missions will only be solvable through the collaborative efforts of the community.

To make sure the ARG can reach its maximum potential, Human Equation will be crowdfunding the project. The level of funding will not determine whether there will be an ARG, but rather how intense the interactive narrative will be and how frequent the ARG will be updated.

To get involved in this new reality or for more information, visit the official website. You can also visit the crowdfunding page to pledge to the project.