Update: The creator of the Archillect Twitter account, Murat Pak, has admitted that his Death Stranding "experiment" is not officially affiliated with the game or Kojima Productions. Pak describes Archillect as a "project to understand and identify potential popularity," but says that it grew into something that "defines what is being valued" instead. This discovery was apparently in part based on the Death Stranding community's response to Archillect initially posting images from the game.

Pak continues, saying that while Archillect is otherwise an automated system, image 204863 was designed as a "way of showing this community my respect." He describes it as, "small thank you gift for this amazing journey." And while the Death Stranding community is certain to be frustrated over the manipulation, it's hard to deny that separated from the misconception it was a very fun and very clever "experiment."

Regarding the official Death Stranding website's current "Loading" message, that appears to be something else entirely. Perhaps Death Stranding fans still have something to look forward to after all.

Original Article: A mysterious Twitter account has begun what appears to be a Death Stranding ARG, though it's unclear if it's an official or unofficial event or even if it's an ARG at all. The Twitter account known as Archillect has tweeted over 200,000 images and virtually nothing else since its creation in 2014. A recent Death Stranding-related post started the game's community down a rabbit hole that has led directly to a major clue revealed today. Some fans believe the clue may lead to Death Stranding's release date being revealed, others say it's all a sham, but either way it will be fun in the meantime.

The crux of the ARG is surprisingly simple. After a Death Stranding photo appeared on Archillect's Twitter feed, fans visited the Twitter account's official website looking for clues to see if the two were related. One specific URL hinted to a bigger picture. Archillect has numbered all of its photos since it began, collecting them each on its website. Hideo Kojima fans may recall that there's one specific number that tends to crop up again and again, stemming from the release of the P.T. horror demo, 204863. Going to Archillect.com/204863, which at the time referenced a photo number that had yet been reached, redirected to the official Kojima Productions website.

Since discovering that Archillect directly pointed towards Kojima Productions and Death Stranding, but that Kojima Productions didn't necessarily point back, fans have remained wary. But nevertheless, they've waited for the day to arrive when Archillect posted photo number 204,863. That photo went live today and with it Kojima Productions' website changed to a "Loading" screen. The photo itself was a puzzle, one which has since been solved. But if there's a Death Stranding announcement to be found, it's further down the rabbit hole.

The 204,863th photo features several rows and columns of colored or absent dots set upon a black background. A clever codebreaker on Reddit named Scarab-Phoenix was the one who deciphered the image. First, they broke the code down into its three base colors: red, green, and blue, with two overlapping colors creating yellow, cyan, magenta, and white for all three. The image is three binary codes layered on top of each other. A surprisingly simple ARG puzzle.

Knowing that the image is just three binary codes layered on top of each other, Scarab-Phoenix then tried arranging the resulting 1s and 0s to make 8-bit letters. And one such arrangement worked perfectly, producing the following letters: uoyodmaiohwwonktnodllitsuoyetalooteruoy. Gibberish at first, until you put them in reverse and spell it out: "You're too late. You still don't know who I am, do you?" This is the line spoken by Lindsay Wagner's mysterious character at the end of the lengthy E3 2018 trailer.

"Who are you?" is the response in the trailer, a question left unanswered. Perhaps that's the key to the next part of the ARG wherever it might be found. Perhaps the answer is what Kojima Productions plans to share once its webpage is finished loading.

Death Stranding has no currently confirmed release window but will be coming to PS4.

Source: Reddit