List of alternate reality games

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as a platform, often involving multiple media and game elements, to tell a story that may be affected by participants' ideas or actions.

Name	Year	Developer	Promoting	Story summary	Gameplay summary	Scale	Status
Ong's Hat	1999	Independent	N/A	A predecessor to the traditional ARG, Ong's Hat encompasses a conspiracy theory and urban legend about Princeton professors in the ghost town of Ong's Hat, New Jersey discovering a means of interdimensional travel.	Puzzle solving by online communities.	Very influential.	Complete
Majestic	2001	Anim-X	N/A	Science fiction thriller based on a Majestic 12 shadow government conspiracy theory.	Receiving clues and solving puzzles to unravel the story. Sent messages via AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), and via voice phone calls.	Very influential. recognized as the "Best Original Game" at E3 in 2001 and one of the five "Game Innovation Spotlights" at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2002.	Complete
The Beast	2001	Microsoft	A.I. Artificial Intelligence	A murder mystery set in the future featuring artificial intelligences.	Puzzle solving by online communities. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos.	Very influential.	Complete
ReGenesis Extended Reality	2004	Xenophile Media	ReGenesis	A biotech laboratory chases down a bioterrorist scientist alongside players	Weekly television drama filled with clues for online missions following each episode. Multiple fictional websites which feature as fictional organizations in the series.	100,000+ players.	Complete
I Love Bees	2004	42 Entertainment	Halo 2	An AI from the Halo 2 universe is stranded in our world and needs help.	Puzzle solving by online communities. Information released by phone calls to public telephones. Rewards in the form of new websites and videos.	600,000+ players.	Complete
Last Call Poker	2005	42 Entertainment	Gun	A cursed gun, passed down through generations, threatens the granddaughter of its last owner.	Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions in cemeteries. Online poker with dead characters. Rewards in the form of new stories and videos.	Over 500,000 active participants.	Complete
Perplex City	2005	Mind Candy	n/a	The Receda Cube has been stolen and buried somewhere on Earth.	Hidden clues on collectable puzzle cards directed players to various websites, blogs, emails, phone calls, and SMS messages, originating from Perplex City		Complete
The Charlotte Mystery	2006		AFI	Five people leave messages to each other about five types of flowers, which led to invitations to private shows by the band AFI.	Clues containing URLs, phone calls, MySpace and Aim profiles, in-person visits to a comic store and a park, a riddle in French, Craiglist listings.		Complete
Nowheremen	2007	X12 Productions		Mystery involving the disappearance of Derek Francis Border.	Interactive puzzles and treasure hunts across various mediums.		Complete
Year Zero	2007	42 Entertainment	Year Zero (album)	Set in a dystopian future where the government surveys everyone.	Players solve puzzles, listen to recordings, and watch movie clips to gain more info and find sites.		Complete
The Lost Ring	2008	AKQA	McDonald's	Six Olympians from another world came to help us save this one.	Puzzle solving by online communities. Real world missions. A new Olympic sport "The Lost Sport" was introduced.	3,000,000 players from over 150 countries.	Complete
Commander Video	2008		Bit.Trip Beat	A mysterious persona known as Commander Video issued missions to a group of ten "recruits."	Puzzle solving done by online communities. Email correspondence, Twitter, and various Internet interactions are the areas of play.		Complete
Superstruct	2008	Institute For The Future		Give humans a little more time on Earth after five "super-threats" start wearing down civilization.	Online puzzle solving.		Complete
This Is My Milwaukee	2008	Synydyne		A sinister company creates a bioengineered creature known as Go.D.S.E.E.D. which led to the city of Milwaukee being quarantined.	Online puzzle solving with real world dead drops.		Complete
Xi	2009	nDreams	PlayStation Home	Set in secret areas in the world of PlayStation Home where users helped to find Jess and the meaning of Xi.	Users solved puzzles, watched video clips, and did objectives in and out of Home to gain more information. Users searched in Home as well as in the real world depending on the puzzle or objective.	Over 5 million visits	Complete
The Davenport Papers	2009	Brigham Young University students	The Book of Jer3miah	A tie-in to the Webby award-nominated webseries The Book of Jer3miah.	Clues were hidden in the webseries itself, related websites, and around the Brigham Young University campus.		Complete.
Picture the Impossible	2009	Lab for Social Computing Rochester Institute of Technology and the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper	Rochester, New York	Factions representing different charities compete against each other.	Explore the city to solve puzzles.	2,500 players.	Complete.
Lewis Hamilton: Secret Life	2010		Reebok	Centered around Lewis Hamilton, a secret agent in the game, showcasing a new Reebok technology such as RunTone or ZigTech.	Players worked together to solve puzzles and complete tests online, on mobiles and in the real world.	637,000 players from over 154 countries	Complete
Conspiracy For Good	2010	The company P	Various charities	Tim Kring's narrative focused on charity and against the fictional corporation Blackwell Briggs exploiting Africa	Players cooperated online, on mobiles and in the real world. Four big events took place in London during summer 2010.	Gamers on Unfiction, on the game web and in the streets of London during the summer events	Complete
A Map of the Floating City	2011	Thomas Dolby	A Map of the Floating City (album)	Set in a dystopian dieselpunk past, a global cataclysm has left the world's inhabitants suffering from amnesia and struggling to move north to the "Floating City" to escape the rising temperatures.	Players worked cooperatively and competitively as tribes to collect items, make inventions, solve a mystery, and move north. The game was unique in that the inventory was all based on lyrics from Dolby's back-catalog and (at the time) upcoming album of the same name. The winning coalition of tribes received a private concert as a prize.	Worldwide	Complete
Potato Sack	2011	Valve	Portal 2 and 13 indie games	GLaDOS of Portal is attempting to reboot herself. Clues were hidden in a selection of 13 independent games.	Solving puzzles using clues found in aforementioned games		Complete
Oxenfree	2016	Night School Studio	Oxenfree	Based on the game, the Oxenfree ARG delves into the true ending of the game and the secrets that the teenage characters face.	The community of the game work together to translate Morse Code, keep up with Twitter feeds, travel to locations, and call phone numbers to solve the mystery.	~900 members of the subreddit, though no community headcount has been taken.	Complete
Frog Fractions 2	2014	Twinbeard	Frog Fractions 2	A sequel to the Flash game Frog Fractions funded through Kickstarter, would only be revealed at the conclusion of this ARG, with clues hidden in a number of other games.	Podcasts by the developers, an Obama Shaving Simulator, real life events such as Indiecade and ARG-specific events around Berkley and LA.		Complete
The Black Watchmen	2015	Alice & Smith	N/A	Billed as the first permanent Alternate Reality Game, players join the ranks of The Black Watchmen, a paramilitary group dedicated to protecting the public from dangerous phenomena beyond human understanding: including ritualistic murder, occult secret societies, and the paranormal.	Puzzle solving mainly by individuals, but acts in a similar fashion to community puzzle solving ARGs.		Complete
Afterbirth	2015	Edmund McMillen	The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth	An ARG that began with the release of the Afterbirth DLC for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Upon conclusion, a new playable character called "The Keeper" was implemented.	Puzzle solving by online communities.		Complete
Sombra	2016	Blizzard	Overwatch	Clues and ciphers referencing Sombra, a new playable character, were found in various developer updates and short animations released by Blizzard.	Puzzle solving by online communities.		Complete
Hello Neighbor	2017	tinyBuild, DynamicPixels	Unknown	Clues in the Alpha releases of Hello Neighbor are leading to the announcement of a new release. Incomplete.	Puzzle solving, horror, adventure and general entertainment.		Ongoing
Waking Titan	2017	Hello Games	No Man's Sky		Puzzle solving.		Complete
DEMA	2018	Twenty One Pilots	Trench	The story of a man named Clancy, escaping from an oppressive organization called DEMA.	It included a cryptic series of websites (all hosted by dmaorg.info) with images, letters from the main character, and codes to decipher. It was discussed and solved in both a Reddit megathread and a Discord server. The ARG ended when Twenty One Pilots ended their hiatus with the announcement of their 5th album Trench, and the release of the singles "Jumpsuit" and "Nico and the Niners" (both of which contain elements from the storyline of the ARG).	2,000+ Twenty One Pilots fans	Complete
The White Door	2020	Rusty Lake, Second Maze	Rusty Lake Games	A man awakes in a mental health facility called the White Door with no memory. The player needs to follow the instructions to find the secret of the main character and help him restore his memory.	The ARG involved people finding cubes from around the world. During the gameplay, a phone number appears after completing a puzzle. When called, a recording states that White Door is closed now, but suggests visiting another website to continue playing.		Complete

Media with ARG themes or elements

Television

• Dispatches from Elsewhere
• Westworld

Films

• The Game
• Existenz
• The Dark Knight
• Cloverfield
• The Cloverfield Paradox
• Super 8
• Devour
• 10 Cloverfield Lane
• The Blair Witch Project
• The Institute
• The Last Broadcast
• Ready Player One

Short Films

• This House Has People in It
• Unedited Footage of a Bear

Books

• Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
• Penny Dreadful by Will Christopher Baer
• Halting State by Charles Stross
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
• Cathy's Book and Cathy's Key by Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, and Cathy Brigg (illustrator)
• John Dies at the End by David Wong
• Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams
• Strange Flesh by Michael Olson

Webseries

• Marble Hornets
• Alantutorial
• Ben Drowned
• Petscop

Music

• No Love Deep Web by Death Grips
• Tomorrow's Harvest by Boards of Canada