In anticipation of the release of Battlefield V on 20th November, EA Games has created one of the most complex marketing campaigns for a video game release ever.
Designed around the Battlefield community’s love of gaming Easter-eggs, Operation Enigma is a series of five tactical missions centred on the Battlefield V World War II storyline. Combining modern technology with WWII spy mechanics, players are challenged to crack cryptic codes and unlock hidden messages in a race to solve each mission.
The first mission was launched with a secret link, hidden in plain site on the Battlefield V website. Once the link to Operation Enigma was discovered, Battlefield fans created a Discord channel dedicated to solving each mission together.
As each following mission was released, players worked alone or as a team to decipher clues which incorporated real WWII spy tactics, including:
- Using a music manuscript to encrypt a secret message, based on a WWII spy who used musical notes to transport important information without being detected.
- An online Enigma machine, which simulated an electro-mechanical typewriter used to decipher war correspondence.
- Longitude and latitude coordinates to reveal code names.
- Steganography technology, which was used to hide top-secret information within images.
- Morse code decoders.
Each Enigma mission was based on a real-life WWII event, keeping players guessing with house-built chatbots, camera-enabled AR technology, QR coded images, music recognition platforms and hidden codes within websites and banners. An incredible amount of depth went into the five missions, with a team of gamers, designers, writers and developers spending hours researching World War II and testing
each mission to ensure its accuracy and complexity.
At the heart of the campaign has been the Battlefield community, with each new mission designed in sync with feedback on previous missions. Although previously solved, the first four Enigma missions are open for play, while the fifth and final mission remains unsolved at time of press. Can you crack the code?
Check out Operation Enigma and stay up to date with the latest Battlefield V news here.
Details: There have been 4 Asia Pacific missions to date.
- Mission 1 – Live date: 8 June AEST – Solved. Prize: Trip to Gamescom in Germany
- Mission 2 – Live date: 29 June AEST – Solved. Prize: Trip to the Livestream in Tokyo
- Mission 3 – Live date: 1 August AEST – Solved. Prize: Battlefield V swag kits
- Mission 4 – Live date: 31 August AEST – Solved. Prize: Battlefield V swag kits
- Mission 5 – Live date: 8 October AEST – Open. Prize: 1 x GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (one per APAC
region*)
*Asia Pacific and Middle East regions involved: Australia, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia
and United Arab Emirates.