Earlier this week, Activision introduced a massive Call of Duty ARG to provoke and reveal Call of Duty 2020 (commonly called Black Ops Cold War). The first steps of the puzzle, which can be updated here, took players to PawnTakesPawn.com, which featured an old TV screen and a VCR with the date 14/8 and the 12:00 hour. When the clock gave noon EDT today, the TV screen became blurry and a VHS tape titled “1961-62 v.1” gave the impression on the VCR. When you clicked on the tape, you began playing a video of approximately 20 minutes full of clips from that era. Most were referring to tensions between the United States and Russia, President Kennedy and the area race. However, the video is just a taste, hiding the next steps of the big puzzles.
The biggest revelation was when the VCR showed “WZ-H6-49285163. Players temporarily deduced that “WZ” meant Warzone and H6 referred to a domain on the map. This led others to The agricultural domain of Verdansk, where a secret door in a barn had a keyboard Using the last component of the number revealed on the keyboard opened the door to a secret room full of papers, puzzles and ciphers.
The code in the VCR opens a door to Farmhouse (via @PrestigeIsKey) pic.twitter.com/j7Y2HP1tEl
Call of Duty News (@charlieINTEL) August 14, 2020
This is where things got a little conf. Instead of what was to be had in the game, it turns out that some data was obtained through data mining or through photographs of faults beyond where other people entered places where they were not meant to move to Verdansk. This led to moments of confusion when Call of Duty streamers and influencers began looking to solve the riddle data provided out of context. It was not entirely transparent what had been legitimately obtained, what was extracted and what was not even applicable to the investigation. After some research, solvers began to wonder if anything was missing.
Then someone discovered a new page in PawnTakesPawn.com/emc2, which had been updated with a post-it. The note had today’s date, the first day, and the name of VHS banned. The next redacted component had been revealed, saying “15/8 – Day Two” with the following VHS name still written. A lot of idea meant that, despite everything, we had finished and discovered everything we needed for the first day, and that the puzzle numbers would be slowly revealed over the next six days, which would lead to the final VHS next Thursday (assuming the day of the paintings after the day).
To solve the puzzle very well, what to focus on here is what is implicitly provided through Activision, Infinity Ward and Treyarch as a component of this ARG. Specifically, the pieces of encryption discovered in Farmland’s secret room and everything on the PawnTakePawn site are the only reliable data to date. Any data that has been collected or disclosed is unreliable at best productive or, at worst, unawarely accurate. Perhaps those pieces enter the puzzle at some point, however, looking to solve it in disarray creates more confusion than it is worth looking to “jump forward”.
Another detail of the video that has not yet been solved are 3 pairs of numbers that have given the impression everywhere – 37, 25, 48 – stylized as empty tube numbers resembling the encrypted NixStack and NixCharge papers that have been at least partially revealed (some officially and others through outdated textures). It is idea that these numbers are compatible with this figure and cannot be used in the current state of the puzzle.
A PawnTakesPawn page states that the puzzle “will be solved overnight” and “it will take days to deploy it.”
“You discovered the first piece of much. Enjoy the ride. It’s quite a component of the game. The spoils of victory belong not to those who are in a hurry, but to those who know: “Every war is won before you even fight.”
For now, it turns out that enthusiastic players should have a little patience. We’re missing critical pieces of the puzzle that will be revealed in the next few days, but for now, you can stop by to explore the secret room of farmland through yourself to see if you can uncover the secrets of the big Names of Call of Duty that may have been lost. That.