2016 – Pullstring
Call of Duty: Hostile Takeover
Multimedia
On April 30th 2016, The Call of Duty: Hostile Takeover experience raided Black Ops 3, and challenged the CoD community to take on an elaborate code-breaking exercise, supported by our interactive Facebook Messenger bot.
Own the conversation.
Our goal was to own the gaming conversation for 72 hours via a series of key narrative moments.
The first was a subtle teaser in fan-favorite Black Ops III map, Nuk3town. We introduced the Olympus Mons, mothership of the Settlement Defense Front—a symbol of the evil we would later ask the community to rally against.
Time for heroes.
A day later, SetDef appeared in the game, as well as across social media channels. They took over Nuk3town, but Lt. Reyes, was able to make contact. Our Facebook Messenger Lt. Reyes bot explained he needed help cracking a SetDef code, which they had hidden around the map. The community responded quickly, cracked the code, and prevented the attack. Job well done, Reddit.
Narrative Designer
Conversation Architect
Strategized covert marketing campaign with stakeholders at AKQA and Activision.
Wrote Lt. Reyes dialogue, establishing tone and voice of character and experience.
Executed narrative branching in Pullstring’s conversation architecture software, Pullstring Author.
Wrote Easter eggs for Lt. Reyes to respond to. When players asked if the new game will have zombies, Reyes responded with a quip about practicing head shots.
Ultimately, the Call of Duty: Hostile Takeover experience facilitated over 6 million conversations on Facebook Messenger within its first 24 hours, created ripples throughout the CoD community, and won Gold at Cannes Lion 2017 for Innovative Use of Social or Community.
