Situation:

While excitement in Brawl Stars’ lore was high in the early days of the game, interest and player numbers had waned over time.

Brief:

For the 5th anniversary of Brawl Stars, generate excitement and increase engagement within the player community by using only in-game and social channels. The project needed to build the game's lore, while inspiring fans to develop and share their theories and content on social media.

Objectives:

Generate massive excitement & engagement in the Brawl Stars community.

Reactivate lapsed players.

Traditionally, game origin stories are told through animated films known as cinematics. However, to engage the Brawl Stars community for the game's 5th anniversary, we pivoted to a much more ambitious idea: to craft an elaborate story scavenger hunt delivered directly to players in the game itself, and across social media. This multimedia approach introduced a novel way for the community to engage with the game’s lore, moving away from the traditional use of cinematics.

We drove the creative and production strategy based on strong knowledge and understanding of Brawl Stars’ global target player community. These players have grown up in a world awash in content being beamed and broadcasted at them, versus inviting them in as participants. Yet we know from our player research, social listening, and experience in delivering narrative content that our players enjoy solving puzzles and the open-ended nature of stories that offer more mysterious questions than hard answers.

Thus our approach had to strongly emphasize interactivity in a novel way, and meet them with an unprecedented experience in places and platforms where they were already: in the game, and on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X.

Our call to action was straightforward: Discover for yourself the mysterious story of how Starr Park transformed from a happy amusement park into a mayhem-filled battleground.

We developed a security room simulation within Unreal Engine, and streamed footage from the “past” to unveil major narrative elements. This setup dynamically reflected environmental changes and character reactions to unfolding events, injecting Starr Park with unprecedented detail and interactivity.

Central to our execution was the creation of over 55 hours of generative animation, including 30 minutes of bespoke animation dedicated to critical story moments. This extensive content library supported a six-week-long story scavenger hunt, offering players a continuous, evolving narrative adventure. To enhance authenticity, we implemented night and day cycles and fluctuating weather conditions, and generated more than 30,000 variations of park goers who reacted realistically to in-park events.

We also developed daily journal entries from a fictional Starr Park security guard, and several voicemails from key game characters calling into Starr Park’s emergency call center. And we changed the placement and condition of the CCTV security room every day as the campaign progressed, to mirror how Starr Park transformed from a delightful amusement park into a mayhem-filled battleground.

To further boost player engagement, we integrated time codes into Brawl Stars’ social media posts. These codes, when entered within the CCTV simulation, unlocked significant narrative segments. This feature not only added an interactive layer to the storytelling but also gave players a sense of ownership over the narrative as they discovered and shared their findings online.

This approach enabled players to collaboratively and immersively piece together the game's origin story, establishing a new standard for interactive storytelling in the gaming industry. This project showcased how exploring new narrative delivery techniques and devices can greatly enhance player experience and strengthen the connection between a game's lore and its community.

The Brawl Stars community’s response to CCTV was incredible. Over the course of the activation, nearly 25 million players engaged with CCTV in the game, resulting in a total of 89 million visits.

Fans started generating their own theories online, and discussed them avidly on the game forums. They created over 8500 online videos, which collectively drove over 130 million views, all with $0 in media spend.

On Reddit, YouTube and other social media, several top key opinion leaders said that CCTV was the best thing to happen in Brawl Stars in 2023.

Interest in CCTV amongst current and lapsed players helped propel Brawl Stars’ resurgence to its highest player numbers in three years, which in turn, has powered the game’s revenue to new all-time highs.