The reveal of the box art is an important event for fans of video games; it is equivalent to the release of a trailer for a blockbuster film. It is their first glimpse of a game’s promise. It gives them something to talk to each other about, dissect for clues, and analyze as they wait for their favorite game to be released. Rather than simply releasing the art for Halo 5: Guardians, we divided it up into more than 100 pieces and scattered them in social channels across the world along with clues for finding more. Bit by bit, as pieces were discovered, the community put the art together, unlocking the mystery and assembling a sneak peek at the new direction for Halo.

We started by throwing out the marketing playbook. Our first volley was in direct channels with an email featuring just a field of stars. No headline. No body copy. No CTA. The only things that stood out were three stars that pulsed mysteriously. Those who took a closer look, however, discovered that adjusting the contrast revealed a hidden message and that the stars were links to a piece of the puzzle. Then the hunt was on. Over the next three days, we seeded additional pieces across various Xbox social and PR channels around the world. We made sure that no one person, country, or channel could collect all the pieces. Fans would have to work together or it wouldn’t work at all. Once the pieces were assembled and the art was revealed, we launched a full blitz of game trailers, articles, and interviews, and enabled fans to preorder the game.

Halo fans were engaged by our mystery and set about trying to solve the puzzle with each other. Across Xbox Live, fans deliberated what the pieces were for, how they all fit together, and what the final result would be. The level of engagement was unprecedented and created buzz that extended past the direct and social channels; it was covered on every major gaming media channel as well as more mainstream ones. Six months later, Halo 5: Guardians launched with more than 700,000 preorder sales, making it the biggest launch in Halo history and the fastest-selling game to date on Xbox One.