The ARG is written by new writer Rob Sherman, as players engaging in the free-to-play game ”join the shady Widsith Institute as clerks, whose work is managed through the application of bespoke diseases, to facilitate the task of categorising and analysing the Institute’s archive of diaries and journals, belonging to the world’s greatest explorers, those who travel beyond the edge of the world.”
Gamers will discover a complicated plot, which will eventually focus on ”the mysterious figure of the Miasma Eremite, who journeyed to the town of Loss, through the exploration of numerous bizarre objects and documents brought back to the Institute from its singular civilization.”
This isn’t the first adventure game to attempt the multimedia, online ARG-style game; back in 2001, Electronic Arts released the subscription-based Majestic, which was a financial failure but an interesting try at the genre. Bungie famously used I Love Bees to successfully promote Halo 2.
This game uses Failbetter Games’ StoryNexus platform, with special functionality created for the project. Additional Miasma features by Popleaf.
Gamers can visit the madness on the official site, and try to interpret Latin phrases and a strange sticky bird poem, as well as email someone named Burrow (“The email account that you tried to reach does not exist” however.)