End War & Splinter Cell sites redirect to Ghost Recon, countdown to April 2 appears [Update]

by Xav de Matos { Mar 28th 2008 at 6:00PM }

Update: At the time of this story the Rainbow Six website wasn't acting properly, however it has been reported that it too is pointing to the Ghost Recon website via a similar overlay. This story has been updated to include the Rainbow Six site.

In the early hours of the day this morning one of our readers helped us spot a strange overlay on the official Ghost Recon website. Visitors of the site were treated to a smoking dossier (which might be a black box after all) but nothing could be done other than close off the overlay and scratch your head.

Today, both the End War, Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six sites have received similar flash-based marketing treatments. Each site includes an overlay of smoking items that appear to be from a wreckage which, when clicked, redirects visitors to the official Ghost Recon website -- home of the original mystery.

While it could all end there, today the Ghost Recon site updated with new information and a mysterious countdown timer.

When visitors click the smoking overlay on the official Ghost Recon website a map overlay of a satellite searching over Eastern Europe which locks onto a signal from the MACSAT7, which may be the wreckage covering the Ubi franchise sites. Entering the recovery module opens two data clips of fragmented audio and video that have been heavily damaged.

The campaign, dubbed the MACSAT7 Recovery is so far comprised of these two clips. The first clip sounds like chatter between pilots on the hunt for "bandits," before one is abruptly shot down (maybe the source of these files?). The second clip sounds like it could be coming from tactical command giving navigation orders to a ground team whose audio has been corrupted.

Three other videos are currently in the breaching stage and include a timer to let us know when the files will be accessible while the two current files have timers letting us know when the corrupt data can be acquired. Couple with with the top of the data file that counts down to a total decryption time of 115 hours which, by the power of our poor math skills (based on the time we did the math), points to an announcement on April 2 at 12PM EST.

The speculation is already running wild on the official MACSAT7 Recovery forum. We don't know what it is but we wonder if this could mean Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3 is around the corner? Yes, please.

[Thanks, wh00t expired & Aaron]

Tags: arg, end-war, ghost-recon, graw, graw3, splinter-cell, ubisoft, viral-marketing

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

aaron @ Mar 29th 2008 2:51AM

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3 That be so bad ass

Eric @ Mar 28th 2008 6:32PM

Perhaps Tom Clancy's Air Combat/Firehawk?

john paul @ Mar 28th 2008 6:48PM

Hopefully it is
2nd one was beast
(sorry don't know about the first)
off topic - how do we send in messages for ask x3f?
"ask@xbox360fanboy.com" right?

stinger503 @ Mar 28th 2008 7:12PM

You guys keep track of this, I'll probably forget in two hours.

ray42 @ Mar 28th 2008 7:43PM

Chances are it's Ghost Recon Firehawk, from Ubisoft Romania...

Deck @ Mar 28th 2008 9:42PM

I new Ghost Recon is in the works! I can feel it!

nillaP @ Mar 28th 2008 10:54PM

maybe ubisoft should worry about vegas 2s online (im a ps3 owner)

blueGrassTubb @ Mar 29th 2008 12:37AM

I would argue that it won't be another GRAW. Ubi clearly uses a specific development pattern with the entire GR series. They develop technology for a game, and use it for 2 games, then move on. If you look at the game history:

GR
GR: Island Thunder

GR2
GR2: Summit Strike

GRAW
GRAW2

I would imagine that the technology would be new for a new 2 part series. The second part has always integrated changes in the UI and, minimally, in the game play, but the game remains essentially the same.

Since it has been over a year since GRAW2's arrival, which came out about a year after GRAW, I would argue, considering that this is the first we've seen of a possible new GR and that it likely won't be available until much later in the year, that this is indeed a new development cycle and not a continuation of GRAW. It may well be called GRAWx, but the game will be different.

Jake @ Mar 29th 2008 1:16AM

Its GRAW 3! There is like a teaser trailer of it online (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/144333.html) and that was released back in December of last year (or at least that's when it was posted on there) and it has the same music/sounds in the trailer as it does in this new flash animation teaser countdown thing... Listen closely... I guarentee you and everyone it IS GRAW3!!! Now can I have like Turok or the next big/major fanswag for paying such close attention and letting everyone know before the thing counts down???