In Horizon Zero: Dawn, humans are confronted to a new species that is a cross between animals and machines. As the game is taking place in what is supposed to be our future, we decided to let people think that the advent of this new species had already begun.

We created a real model of a boar carcass that was half machine and produced a fake amateur video content of two cyclists crossing the path of this beast during their bike ride. This video content then was released on social media, letting people think it really happened and obviously went viral.

A few days later PlayStation released a new video in which the masquerade was explained, surprising everyone that had been exposed to the fake content.

We worked in partnership with a famous content website which released as well the fake video as the reveal, allowing us to easily reach a massive audience and initiate variety.

- The fake boar video was release one week prior to the game’s launch (22/02).

- During a week the video was viewed and shared intensively on social media.

- The day before the game’s launch (31/02), PlayStation revealed the masquerade on their Social Media networks and on our partners content website

- 10 million media impressions were reached on social Media

- The video was shared over 700 000 times

- Awareness around the game reached 55% (vs 26% in october 2016)