Rebirth From The Ashes
View the results- Brand
- Activision
- Year
- 2021
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- In-Game
- Agency
- Cthdrl
Objective
With Verdansk destroyed in the Warzone Season 2 finale, Activision had a 24-hour blackout before Season 3 to fill — and a chance to make the reveal of the new map something players uncovered themselves rather than read in a press release. The stunt also let a fictional hacker collective dreamed up by the agency cross over from marketing into the game's own canon for the first time.
Solution
On the blacked-out, nighttime version of Rebirth Island, points of interest are relabeled in code that spells out a URL, sending players to rebirthfromthethes.com — a terminal-style site built entirely from interactive ASCII art for a hacker collective calling itself Zasha. A voice message tells players they need codes broadcast from in-game radio towers; typing one into the password field unlocks a new 3D-ASCII challenge, like decoding touch-tone beeps, proving they're not a bot, or checking a live globe of other players online, along with leaked art of the new map and weapons. Cracking a code takes teamwork: red phones scattered on the island play half the sequence as audio, while the other half is hidden in ciphers Activision drops across its own social posts and in packages mailed to influencers. The site tracks the whole community's progress toward one shared finale — a countdown clock with a live ASCII chat, where everyone watches together for the new map to go live.
- 1
Players trigger the experience inside Call of Duty: Warzone, where the map has been swapped for a night-time version with Cyrillic lettering scattered across points of interest; collecting those letters spells out a website address.
- 2
The site opens as a black-and-teal ASCII terminal framed as the network of a fictional hacker collective, playing an audio message that explains a password is required to proceed and that codes are broadcast from in-game radio towers.
- 3
The core loop mixes in-game and out-of-game search: players find red telephones and radio towers on the map for half of each numeric code, then combine those numbers with cipher keys hidden across social posts and influencer mailers to derive a password word.
- 4
Typing a password into the terminal's input line doubles as both navigation and puzzle verification — an incorrect entry does nothing, while a correct one unlocks the next section.
- 5
Each unlocked section is a small standalone ASCII mini-game rendered in 3D, including a security clearance scan, a dial-tone decoding challenge solved by ear, and a parody "prove you're human" bot check.
- 6
A separate unlocked feature shows a rotating ASCII globe marking the real-time locations of other players currently visiting the site.
- 7
Correct passwords progressively reveal leaked artwork of upcoming map locations, a new weapon, and a new operator, with nine total codes for the community to uncover.
- 8
A standalone feature lets players record themselves on camera, converting the footage into a shareable ASCII-art video.
- 9
The session closes on a countdown timer feeding into a shared ASCII chat room where all visiting players wait together until it expires and reveals the next map.
