The 1999 ARG is an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that began during TennoCon 2024. It is being used to build up the release of 1999 and introduce the story around Höllvania, alongside key players such as The Hex and Albrecht Entrati.
For a timeline of the events, click the placeholder tab.
Features[]
The 1999 ARG unfolds across multiple mediums, including hidden subpages on the official Warframe website, in-game locations, and the official Warframe Twitter account. Tenno are tasked with uncovering cryptic messages, solving puzzles, and exploring in-game areas to piece together the story.
Key activities include:
- Warframe.com Hidden Sub-Pages: Players discovered secret subpages on the main Warframe website containing lore and clues (Big Bytes Pizza
- Höllvania Central Mall: Specific areas within the mall were tied to the ARG, featuring hidden interactions.
- Social Media Hints: The official Warframe Twitter account provided cryptic messages and hints to guide participants. (a Sentinel article about On-lyne, a Big Bytes Pizza-themed word search, a Status Update on the City Wide Metro operations, etc.)
The ARG encourages collaboration across the community to decode its messages and uncover its secrets.
Discovery[]
The ARG officially began on October 25, 2024 with the appearance of a commercial at the end of Devstream 182. At 1:48:27 in the broadcast, footage of various aspects of 1999 and Höllvania were shown. Scattered throughout the transmission were various groups of letters, and at the end of the transmission, the text ???.?????????????.com was displayed.
By piecing together those letters, the site www.doktorentrati.com was revealed. Players who followed the link discovered the Seek The Signal subpage, containing the eye that adorns many pieces of 1999 technology with the following written beneath:
WE END AS WE BEGAN >BEGIN
In-Game Tie-Ins[]
The ARG featured several in-game activities and tie-ins, allowing players to interact with its story through gameplay. These included:
- Höllvania Central Mall: Players explored this area to uncover hidden messages or items tied to the ARG.
Key Pages[]
Suspicious Correspondence[]
- Main article: Suspicious Correspondence
Suspicious Correspondence is the first step of this ARG and was found by decoding the doktorentrati.com transmission.
Big Bytes Pizza[]
- Main article: Big Bytes Pizza
The Big Bytes Pizza is a particularly important page that involved tracking down a phone in the Mall.
City Wide Metro[]
- Main article: City Wide Metro
The City Wide Metro page contains footage from inside a subway car with a Phone on the seat, in addition to a Comic. The Phone contains a link to an Incident Report page.
Classified Protoframe Dossier[]
- Main article: Classified Protoframe Dossier
The Classified Protoframe Dossiers contain in-depth looks at the characters behind the Protoframes.
On-lyne[]
- Main article: On-lyne
The On-lyne page showcases the members of the Höllvanian boy band.
Seek the Signal[]
- Main article: Seek the Signal
Seek The Signal is the current step of the ARG (at the time of writing) which involves collecting and entering various Genetic Codes.
Rewards[]
Participants in the ARG can earn in-game rewards for their efforts. Some rewards include:
- Drippy Glyph, an in-game profile picture depicting Drippy.
- Warframe: 1999 On-lyne poster, a display decoration depicting On-lyne and their Technocyte Coda forms.
Additionally, in recognition of the players' efforts to solve the ARG, (as confirmed by a news entry on the official webpage), Dark Sector (a third-person shooter developed by Digital Extremes in 2008, often considered to be a "precursor" to Warframe and 1999) could be claimed for free on Steam between November 27th 2024, 9AM PT and November 30th 2024, 9AM PT. The game's store page was edited to include the following message:
Media[]
Trivia[]
- This ARG is the third major ARG conducted by Digital Extremes, following the Zariman ARG and the Solaris United ARG.
External Links[]
- Official ARG Page – Link to the ARG’s official web page.
- Warframe Twitter – Source of ARG-related posts.
See Also[]
- 1999 - the central focus of this ARG.