I may have spoken too quickly about the fate of the Cy83r14 ARG. After the revelation that Activision claimed no involvement in the teaser site and associated e-mail address, I lost interest in actively working on it. I wrote it off as a well-made hoax, but I kept an eye on the progress of others, curious to see where it led. There were a few instances of influencers staging a disappearance like Milo (MrRoflWaffles) did, but nothing of real substance beyond the second e-mail from Cy83r14.
Milo eventually returned with a video explaining his absence. He was ordered to go dark and was now in the possession of a locked briefcase. It was an exciting development, but I assumed he was making the best of a bad situation or was more involved in the hoax than I initially thought.
Until NoahJ456 started his stream on Monday by saying, “The Truth Lies.” He acted suspiciously throughout, teasing the chat members who had questions for him. He went offline after completing the Die Maschine main quest—but not before Morse code blasted out to thousands of viewers.
Noah’s involvement pricked my ears up a little. He was already involved in the opening stages of The Truth Lies ARG and is the go-to man for Zombies marketing, with one of the biggest audiences in the community. After this, I began questioning what we’d previously heard.
The following evening, Milo dropped a second video. He opened the briefcase and found it filled with survival equipment, a plane ticket dated July 31st and photos of himself. Without a hint of hesitation in his voice, he thanked Treyarch multiple times in the video and poked fun at the claims of the ARG being fake.
It just doesn’t make sense! Multiple reports indicated that Activision ruled out any involvement with the teasers. Charlie Intel, the most prominent Call of Duty news source, hadn’t commented on the teasers beforehand. I’m unsure if they even knew about them until Activision got in touch, as the teasers spread organically throughout the Zombie community.
Immediately after Charlie Intel questioned the site’s validity, people jumped to “The Truth Lies”, the tagline for Black Ops 6. The problem is that there was no indication that Charlie Intel’s tweet was part of the ARG. There has to be a hint to keep people searching. Activision contacting and asking influential community members not to communicate with an address or visit a website doesn’t feel like a “step” in a promotional ARG; it feels like Activision was trying to shut a hoax down quietly to avoid attention.
On the other hand, I can’t imagine Milo operating the way he is without knowing he’s involved in an official Black Ops 6 promotional campaign. If he were lying about Treyarch’s involvement, it would be as close to career suicide as he could get. Thousands of Zombies fans are expecting a Black Ops 6-related pay-off. It would be a dangerous game to dangle that in front of them only to replace it with something unofficial.
The only other possibility I can think of is that someone on the Call of Duty side got their wires crossed and didn’t make everyone aware of the campaign. However, Charlie Intel, Dalek, and DK Dynamite all corroborate each other’s reports that it’s fake. I’ve contacted Activision PR for further comment but have not heard back.
An unfortunate byproduct of the past few weeks is that we’re at a standstill. There’s not enough information to make a definitive call either way, and it’s hard to discuss the status of the ARG because of the “real” vs. “fake” divide. Both sides seem set in their ways. I don’t think it’s black or white at this point. Ironically, the truth rarely is.
So, the million-dollar question: Where do I stand? Do I think it’s real?
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