Two weeks ago I, along with many others, were convinced we would finally reach the end of the Blizzard Sombra ARG. Unfortunately, the A Moment in Crime site only led to more clues instead of a reveal. Maybe, jut maybe, we will actually get an official glimpse of Sombra on November 1. Or, at least, that’s my hope because I don’t think anyone can take much more of this ARG.
RELATED: ¿Quien es Sombra? The Overwatch Mystery is Coming to an End
First, we thought it would end with the Battle.net forum post.
Then, we thought it would end when A Moment in Crime reached 100%.
Now, we are desperately hoping this will all end tomorrow and end the misery.
Let’s back up. The Sombra ARG has continued for over three months at this point, originally started in early July with the release of Ana. Granted a few of those days were spent waiting for an Overwatch forum post to countdown. Then another month was spent waiting for amomentincrime.com to count up. Then we got a few more clues that just kept telling us to wait longer. At this point, the community is annoyed and frustrated with a side of no longer giving a f**k.
Let’s get into what’s happened since my last Sombra post. I’m going to summarize here, to read all the details please head over to The Game Detectives Wiki.
A Moment in Crime reached 100% on October 19 and updated to this this message:
…Transmission complete – finishing upload…
…Upload finished. Unit Bastion E-54 engaged…
The same day Blizzard released a small patch, but with no patch notes. At least, not at first. But the patch notes didn’t matter as sleuths were hard at word trying to crack the Bastion connection. They discovered Bastion emited a series of beeps when next to a compromised Sombra Protocol monitor. The series of beeps was found to be morse code which led the detectives to a new website for LumériCo, an energy company within the Overwatch world.
The morse code has been removed from the game, but you can still see/hear it below.
From here things sped up and hit the brakes, which is about the way this entire ARG has unfolded.
Included in the LumériCo website is a phone number, when called it led (eventually) to a message from Sombra. The message congratulated the “help” and set a new task, taking down the president of LumériCo, Guillermo Portero.
I’m congratulating you for getting in here. I only wanted to know if you were ready or not. (Hey, it’s really difficult to get good help lately… you should see some of the clowns I’m working with). For now, let’s continue with the true challenge: taking down Lumerico Corp president Guillermo Portero. Why? Because he’s a greedy and corrupt man, and an abominable thief. His plan of bringing in line the most powerful and biggest zigurat the 1st of november us nothing more than a deceit, an elaborate plan by his gang to become even more influential in the people of Mexico and get more money. And who’s gonna pay for that? Common people, the ones that are always forgotten.
I’ve started upgrading my protocols so that they are used to take down the Lumerico Corp infraestructure and Los Muertos are also trying to go against the corruption. Meanwhile, search the Lumerico Corp site for info we can use against the bastard, or better, get his username and password so that hundreds “not so favorable” facts about the president start popping up.
I was able to get the username and pass of a Lumerico Corp employee, start here:
GFlores/g#fNwP5qJ
The end of the message gave the detectives the tools necessary to access an employee’s email account, GFlores. In the account were simple work related emails between GFlores and other employees. If you want to read them all you can do so here.
However, one email stood out and helped infiltrate the President’s account. Shortly after accessing the account, a new email popped up. This one from Sombra.
I see you have been able to infiltrate into his mail.
Don’t worry, he cannot see this email, I’ve hidden it from his sight if he connects from one of his known IP addresses.
I need a little bit of time to establish the next set of protocols. Stay alert early next week. I’ll throw some dirty laundry in his emails that can “accidentally” leak to the public. We’ll see how the media will react to that.
That was the end of the trail for a few days, we had to wait for the following week for any more information.
On October 25, new emails popped into the GFlores account. These emails gave the ability to sign into the admin panel for the LumériCo site which wasn’t immediately useful. However, through more ridiculous investigation, those unraving the mystery were led to a new page which contained the following:
The moment has come. These emails exposed the truth about Portero, initiated the revolt, and have convinced people of Mexico to support our cause. Now is the time to strike. Convert his precious inauguration on November 1 to a large movement against it. I need you to do one thing:
Get access to the email security chief and seek some form of help in the attack. You may see her contacting Portero soon. I’ve changed her password: d0r*NuLw9
After that, the trail went cold. There have been a few news items added to the LumériCo news page, but nothing new has been discovered. Everything that has been uncovered points to a November 1 reveal but we’ve been wrong before.
So where does that leave us?
Tomorrow is November 1 and the Festival of Light. November 1 is a Tuesday. Tuesday is the regularly scheduled patch day for all Blizzard products. So there are a few things that could happen.
Blizzard could reveal Sombra and drop her into the live game (highly unlikely).
Blizzard could reveal Sombra and drop her right into the PTR with no more fanfare (unlikely).
The more likely option is the Dorado Map undergoes changes similar to the Hollywood Halloween map. In other words, Dorado map changes to full blown Festival of Light/activation of the Dorado LumériCo Power Plant. I don’t have any idea what form that will take but something will more than likely change within the game
From there we are back to speculating on what could happen. I’m guessing there will be more clues which will mean more hunting and solving. Head. Desk.
All of this happening just a few days out from BlizzCon makes me suspicious that this entire thing was just a lead up to a BlizzCon reveal.
Here’s the brutal truth. This entire ARG feels like a huge mistep from Blizzard. The beginning was great, it kept buzz going and fans hunting and following along. Unfortunately, with the many stalls and dead ends and misdirects, everyone is experiencing Sombra fatigue and no one can take much more of this.
One of the popular theories is that Blizzard planned to release Sombra twice before, hence the two countdowns, but maybe something wasn’t quite right with her internal testing so they kept delaying the release.
The other theory is that Blizzard always planned to reveal/release her during BizzCon and, if that is the case, then there was absolutely no point to this ARG other than to frustrate and annoy the fanbase. If that was the goal, then Blizzard succeeded admirably.
If that was not the goal, then there is a lesson to be learned. ARGs can be fun and immersive, but when you drag them on this long with this many starts and stops, people get murderous.
Moral of the story: Don’t ever do this again.
- Netflix Drops First Teaser for Upcoming Will Smith Movie, BRIGHT - February 27, 2017
- Finally, New Information Regarding the GREEN LANTERN Reboot - January 12, 2017
- Woody Harrelson Officially Cast in Young Han Solo Film - January 11, 2017
