Final Fantasy Dawntrail ARG
Creative Direction
Creating a Transmedia campaign for a community ready to play.
Final Fantasy Online has been a cornerstone MMORPG since 2010 and continues to evolve and define what MMORPG’s can become. Over the years, expansions have brought new worlds, characters, classes, and more to the game keeping it fresh and enriching the world that fans have come to know and love. Dawntrail was the latest expansion announced for the game and with it we were invited by Square Enix to help create a launch campaign that would breathe fresh life into the game’s public persona giving fans something truly original to talk about.
At Royale, we took the challenge and defined a GTM campaign that would not only feature a full suite of OOH and Digital assets but also push the edge of what marketing campaigns can do today by bringing in one of our favorite strategies; an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). This ARG would inspire fans to explore a new location in the game - the island of Tural - through the lens of a fictional tour agency we created just for campaign. With this fictional tour agency, we could think of no better person to lead it than actor Rhys Darby.
Tour Tural
Tour Tural became our slogan for the entire campaign and was our anchor into every piece of content created. After establishing the marketing style and approach for Tour Tural, it was time to build a website that would reveal to the world this fictitious tour agency. Initially, we had considered creating a relatively simple microsite but after coming up with the creative platform for the campaign and realizing we have so much more to say, our microsite turned into a robust travel site with daily content updates, hidden puzzles, and its own chat bot.
Our approach for the site was to embrace common attributes of modern travel websites seen through the lens of this fictional agency. We imagined our characters running Tour Tural to be a bit… scattered. The visual vernacular is fun and vibrant with characters that host yoga retreats, share cooking recipes, and update the site frequently with new features and news from the island.
Travel Tips & Merch
Original content was created specifically for the Tour Tural site and we worked closely with the Square Enix team to build in content that would gradually reveal more of Dawntrail through a unique travel perspective. Travel tips were rooted in real game locations and thematic content included a wink and nod towards our fictional travel agency. The voice of the agency was fun and lighthearted with an embedded understanding of Final Fantasy that would speak to the hardcore fans while still being approachable to new players interested in this exciting new land.
What vacation wouldn’t be complete without picking up a good postcard or mug? We were all about preserving the magic of the traveling lifestyle and knew exactly what we had to do when it came to merch. Kitschy postcards? Check. Tote bags? Yep. Mugs with Nutkins? Add two to cart! We covered our bases but unfortunately, in our travel agencies universe, all of the merch sold out. Popular stuff! Rumors have it that a few things have made it to fan’s doors with whispers of mugs and hats out there in our world somewhere…
Support Chat
What modern website wouldn’t be complete without a support chat? Of course we had to make sure Tour Tural had their own. This feature was added to the site during the rollout plan and gave fans the opportunity to chat with a scripted conversation that revealed more in-game lore both related to the travel agency and Dawntrail the game. Later in the website’s rollout plan, this chat feature became an integral part of the ARG mystery requiring fans to check back once they gathered up enough clues that would point them back here for a very specific conversation with the chat agent.
With the campaign featuring our lovely Interim Deputy Director played by the incomparable Rhys Darby, the travel site also featured its own unique content with Darby revealing more narrative clues and in-world lore for Dawntrail. Delivered through his charismatic affable charm, Darby brought updates every other day to the site that gradually started to reveal a narrative thread behind the scenes at the tour agency. Periodic glitches and concerning alerts plagued the site and video content as the days went on but Darby held the positivity all the way to the end.
ARG Mystery
After fans started to look past the lighthearted shell of the travel site and dig deeper into the written content, they started to notice something a little off. Travel advisories were odd yet still slightly concerning and would change periodically. Hidden notecards were located in the graphical foliage of the site and appeared to come from the deputy director himself. Eventually, fans also started locating torn pieces of what looked like an illustrated map. All of these pieces started to create a picture of a travel agency that was dealing with something a bit off in the world of Dawntrail.
The ARG campaign was interwoven with the website experience and gave fans a 17 day mystery to unravel. Rhys Darby’s character eventually goes missing during the ARG and leaves behind clues to where he went and why. The campaign had fans locating hidden notecards with clues, pieces of a lost tour map, and ultimately triggering a site-wide takeover of the mysterious Solution Nine - an enigmatic location from the game.
ARG Rollout
The ARG started day 1 when Tour Tural went live. First up was locating 3 notecards that featured information that would become critical for puzzles on later dates. Every single day saw new content revealed on the site. Some of that content was tied to the ARG but most was just travel content. Mixing ARG content into seemingly benign travel content meant we could hide pieces of the ARG in plain sight while keeping it easily accessible. We were targeting everyone who wanted to engage in this fun mystery.
The lost map puzzle revealed 6 torn map pieces on the site just about every single day. Some were hidden in graphics on the site with a few hidden behind puzzles. One was even printed on the back of a merch mug. The final piece was found only if fans hit up the support chat on the final day and only while on the Board Updates page. With every day bringing more and more users to the site, it certainly didn’t take long for fans to find all the pieces and put the map together using Reddit and social media to share their results.
Travel Map
With all of the map pieces located, users started to assemble their own versions of the map from all of the collected pieces. Our illustrated tour version of the map was a huge hit with the community and has since been used internally for more content at Square Enix.
Our approach for the map was truly to mimic classic tour maps - those angled illustrations that aren't exactly to scale but bring out key landmarks. The locations we feature are real spots in the world and the icons are cryptic locations we wanted to let fans discover. We give them hints with the icon illustrations but leave it to them to travel to each and truly find the hidden meaning.
But what about the locked travel destination on the site?
After the first week completed with the recovery of the lost map, users were still befuddled by one thing that had been on the site since day 1. On the Discovery page, there were location cards for each primary area in Dawntrail but the one location card for Solution Nine remained password protected. Fans were trying their best to guess the password that might let them in but no one could get it. Finally, on day 7, the keen-eyed observer noticed a note hidden in a picture on the desk of a tour agency employee. It mentioned needing to change the password to something other than “nutsfornutkins”.
Given the current state of the agency no one actually changed it, so users put that password into the Solution Nine field and immediately caused the site to glitch-out and transform revealing a cryptic message in binary with the message “it has begun”. The fans triggered the next phase of the ARG that would gradually change everything on the site over the course of the next 7 days into a completely Solution Nined-out site.
Yeah...You weren't supposed to do that...Or were you?
Maybe a little...
Back to Normal
On day 8, after the site looked as though it would be completely consumed, everything was returned to normal with a new message from a new Interim Deputy Director. It appears Rhys Darby never came back from the chaos and his whereabouts unknown. The new interim deputy director wrapped up the entire ARG by showing users where all the map pieces were found, weaving a narrative tale around why the pieces were torn up and lost to begin with (something about loosing it under a bed) and revealing how the site was almost consumed by the Solution Nine glitch. Turns out, someone toggled it by entering the Solution Nine password section on the site. (Yeah…Didn’t see that one coming…)
With the ARG complete, we wanted to give fans one more feature enabling them to relive the ARG narrative at their own pace. We put all the map pieces back on the site and enabled the Solution Nine takeover for anyone who would want to cause that kind of chaos again. The only challenge though, we changed the password this time.
