Love to unravel secrets? Give yourself the whole puzzles? Bay out in Overwatch? Then you either already know this story, or came directly to. We will tell you about the most exciting (as one will say) and the most prolonged (as others say) Arg this year – “Hunting for Sombra”.
Arg (Alternate Reality Game, an alternative reality game) is a game that uses a real world as a platform. ARG key principle – "This is not a game". You see as part of the ARG phone number – call it, it should work. Most often, such projects turn out to be difficult detective adventures. Games developers have long mastered this genre, well -known examples of ARG include I love bees for Halo 2 , AFTERBIRTH for The Binding of ISAAC , Steam Winter 2015 and so on.
Stage 0
Even at the time of the closed Beta Overwatch, the players drew attention to several mysterious folders lying on the table in one of the corners on the Drado map. The folders were clearly not simple: here there were a row on Jack Morrison, “Soldado: 76” (someone clearly revealed the secret of this hero), as well as a file dedicated to someone or something named Sombra. In other words – shadows.
On some terminals on the same map, you could see the message "No autorizado: Protocolo sombra". – “Unauthorized access. Sombra Protocol ".
If a team in which the Reaper and Sold-76 came to the “Drado”, the reaper either with bile, or with irony, released the phrase: “Where is it SOMBRABRY, when it is needed so much?"
Finally, on the same "Drado" next to the first point of capture on the floor, they noticed an interesting newspaper. The photo captured some shadow in a hoodie. The headline asked in large font: “¿Quién es‘ sombra ’?" -" Who is Sombra?"
► A good question. Who is it?
What the players thought: Sombra is a character that may appear in Overwatch. This is a woman (if she is a person at all). She can also be some kind of artificial intelligence or even an omnik. Sombra somehow correlates with the soldier-76 and the reap. For example, it can be an ally of Morrison and Reyes on Overwatch – or a member of Blackwatch. Perhaps this is the mother of Farra, the same woman-sniper that we saw in the detachment of the founders of Overwatch back in the very first trailer of the game. She has hacking skills and, judging by the name (. Sombra-“darkness, ghost, shadow”), somehow connected with the Spanish-speaking world.
Stage 0.1. Short documentary about the Titan project
April 21 Gamespot released the short film of The Story of Overwatch: The Fall of Titan. She, as easy to guess, talked about how the grandiose project Titan ultimately turned into Overwatch. It turned out wonderful material (we are very advised to see), however, Internet detectives were interested in a couple of details that were in no way related to the main theme of the video.
A working monitor appeared on one of the frames, on which you can see the screen selection screen with some unprecedented hero: a figure in a hoodie (!), with a sniper rifle … from the support category.
► In the same video, inquisitive players spotted the image of a new (and very strange) sight.
To complete the picture, it is worth recalling that shortly before that, Internet rachers found on Anubis a photograph of a character in a cloak or hoodie and with a mask on their face.
The mask symbol clearly echoed with an element of the sight. All began to take shape in a slender picture.
What the players thought: A mysterious figure in a hoodie – this is probably a sombra. She will most likely be a sniper, and a sniper of support. It may be treated or somehow strengthen the allies and weaken the enemies at a distance.
Stage 0.2. Hero short film
Even before the video exit, a leak from the advertising campaign of the French cinema network, where they were going to show the "Hero". Advertising promised that new characters would be opened there to the public. As a result, new heroes were not shown, and the incident was explained by a typo.
On May 22, the short film reached YouTube and immediately gave rise to a wave of new theories. In the video of Sold-76, a girl named Alejandra saved from the Los Mayrtos thugs. What was happening clearly shocked the teenager, she even took home the old, pretty battered Overwatch poster.
► You just look at these eyes. No, this will not go to Blackwatch.
Maybe it is she who will grow into a sombr? By dates, everything, in principle, converges. In the Drado that we see in the game, Lumérico light pyramids stand everywhere; In the short film "Hero" the town is immersed in darkness, the construction of the pyramids did not even begin. If Alejandra is really sombra, then the stinginess with which the reaper pronounces "where is the sombre?". Like, where it wears your "indispensable" protege, seventy -sixth?
July 6 became even more interesting. A picture with an unusual, “healing”, sniper rifle appeared on the official twitter of the game. The letter was addressed to Jack Morrison (Sold-76) and Gabrielle Rees (Reaper). Again these two!
► Dr. Tsigler is unhappy that medical equipment is turned into a weapon.
What the players thought: Sombra is probably a sniper armed with a biotic rifle, which was developed for her by Torbjorn. If she is not the mother of Farra, then it may well be matured by Alejandra, who went underground after the soldier-76 and the reap. Now she is conducting her own struggle against Lumérico (it was not for nothing that the company has gathered a dossier on her and Jack Morrison!). A lot of options.
Stage 1. The story of Ana Amari
July 12 was unpleasant for many Internet detectives during the day. Blizzard finally buried the slender theory that the mysterious and elusive dommibus is the mother of Farra and the Supervisor Sniper. The developers announced that they really add to the game an arrow-healer, she is also the mother of Farra, but the name of this character Ana Amari, and she has nothing to do with the mysterious shadow.
► Ana looks at you as a goal.
However, supporters of conspiracy theories were not sad for long. They immediately found something curious in a trailer dedicated to the history of Ana. In this video, at the time of shots, the screen flies a couple of times with white – at 1:16 and 2:11. You just need to make a small color correction, and it becomes clear that the developers hid some sequence of numbers in flashes.
► Message gained by hexadecimal code.
The players determined that the message is encrypted by gamming – the encryption method, which consists in “imposing” the text of the sequence consisting of random numbers. And don't ask how people have come. To read the mysterious message, there was not enough only one little thing – a numerical key.
The players determined the method of trial and error that the key is the number 23, that is, the serial number of the new hero (Ana was, respectively, the twenty -second). As it turned out, both secret messages contain the same repeating phrase: “… La Que Tiene La Informaci (N; Tiene El Poder … La Que Tiene La Informaci (N; Tiene El Poder …’ ”. – “who owns information; He owns power ".
You think everything is? What else. In addition to the repeating phrase, in each of the encrypted messages, there was a set of additional characters.
In the first: Somb.
In the second: Ra.
That is Sombra.
What the players thought: Sombra will be the twenty -third hero Overwatch (immediately I had to remember the moment from the short film Hero: when the girl is torn off the poster with Morrison from the wall, and the number 23 is visible behind him). Sombra, most likely, the character-hacker. And we begin Arg!
Stage 2. One little girl
On July 19, Blizzard released another video dedicated to Ana Amari: Jeff Kaplan represented the public of a new character and talked about how Anu was introduced into the game. At the very end of the video, after the final titer, a quiet “beip” is heard, and then several unremarkable personnel are replaced on the screen with lightning speed.
It was possible to decide that this is just an interesting and stylish way to finish the girl, but not. The Reddit user, with the nickname Blinry, managed to cut the barcode from the image with the lines and count it using the scanner. At the output, a hexadecimal sequence formed. It was transformed into a number of numbers in the binary system, which was then taken in a special order so that one can paint the units with black, and the zeros are white … and get a QR code! Here he is.
When reading, the code issued one line of the text: “¿estuvo eso facilito? Ahora que tengo sunsción, déjenme se las pongo más difícil. – "Not too simple? Well, now, when I managed to interest you, let's go more difficult than business. ".
What the players thought: Everything is just beginning! And sombra is exactly a hacker, one hundred percent.
Stage 3. Video for summer games, Skycode and despondency
On August 2, a video was released for the summer games in Overwatch and immediately gave the community two puzzles. At the eighth second, along with a jerk, the tracer for a moment appears a code similar to the text in Base64.
The decoding of this passage gave us a cryptogram closed using OpenSSL (Salted__ heading at the very beginning of a text message) spoke about this). To open such a text, you need to know two things – password and cryptographic algorithm. Internet detectives fought over this code for a long time, but could not decipher it.
Attentive players also noticed that in the North American version of the same trailer (and only in it) there are arrows and/or direct indications of the world on some frames on some frames.
► Find the arrow here?
Based on these tips, Internet users made up a kind of compass from the characters of the game.
However, all attempts to use this information did not lead to anything.
Another blow to the Internet community was the so-called mystery of the “Heavenly Code” Skycode. On August 3, Jeff Kaplan, answering the question about the compass, said that this is already “something at the CIA level.Above our understanding ". The players took it literally – and soon found in the sky above the drado a strange visual bug, which became even more obvious when twisting contrast.
In search of a key to unraveling a new secret, the detectives tried everything. They tried to apply a compass from the trailer of the summer games on the SkyCode, in one way or another to transfer the image into a binary system, and turn it into a QR code. They even collected a song from it. Alas, the trace was completely “dead” and, as it turned out later, also false.
What the players thought: We are doomed to suffering, and the world is full of pain and despondency.
Stage 4. Drado, achievements and Volskaya: again on the right track
On August 8, on the official website, a special screenshot with a dorado was noticed in a special way. The image seemed to be digital interference.
► changed image.
► ordinary.
Comparing the picture with the original, game detectives found out that someone replaced some symbols with exclamation signs. Of these characters, a new phrase in Spanish has developed: “Por que estan mirando al cielo? La Respuesta No Esta Sobre Sus Cabezas, Esta Detras de Ustedes. A Veces, Necesitan Anaalizar Sus Logros Previos ". – “Why are you looking into the sky? The answer is not at all over your heads, but after you. Sometimes it is worth recalling your past achievements ".
The detectives immediately rushed to study the list of game achievements. The players noticed that if you log in on the official website, and then open information about Achivka in a personal profile, there will be an undercurrent achievement noted by a sign of the question. It remained only to see the page code – and voila, another message from Sombra!
“Damn it, not bad. However, it starts to bother me. Let's try something new in the same spirit. UCZIHRIWGSXORXWUNAARAWRYQHBRSFMEQRJMU 5552E49478T3 4VM9 OPL6IS8208O913KRLRX "
They managed to open the cryptogram from the end of the message through the cipher of Vicener, which was invented in the 16th century. Well, why not? The same “compass” of the heroes came in handy here: they made a phrase that became the key to the cipher: Tracertorbjornstonsymmetradvamercybastiongenjimcree. So a link fell into the hands of detectives, passing by which players found another altered image.
► Yes, this is Volskaya.
Everything here is according to a familiar scheme. We compare the changed and original pictures, we get such a wonderful skull in ASCII ..
And a new message from Sombra: “Apparently, you like these little games … Why don't we play the present?»Detectives were ready for everything. Thematic chats in Discord and IRC froze in anticipation.
And nothing happened.
There were attempts to pull out some clues from the skull, re-analyze the trailer of the summer games, use the names of really existing games as a password for a cryptogram SlotoNauts Casino from the trace of the chrono digger tracer … Alas, even the most
At some point, the Internet raffles were so desperate that they decided to contact Sombre directly. A popular Muselk Overwatch-Stever on August 20 published on his twitter a picture from the game, in which players have already encrypted the message.
► “Good, sombra! Your move "
The message was as follows: “Bueno sombra, jugemos un juegito y depaso nos das algo con Que Jugar”. – “Okay, sombra, let's play in a small game. And in return you will give us some clue ".
Sombra was silent.
What the players thought: Blizzard, what's next?
To be continued.