Witch Queen ARG

The ***Witch Queen ARG*** (a.k.a. *Circles*) was an alternate reality game (ARG) created for Bungie's *Destiny 2* expansion, *The Witch Queen.* The ARG was released in February 2022 when the Collector's Edition of the expansion was sent out to players earlier than the expansion's launch.

## Summary

As part of the Collector's Edition (CE) puzzles, owners were directed to the site bungie.net/circles and r/RaidSecrets decoded the word "GNOSIS". On the expansions launch day, February 22, the site began accepting the code word "GNOSIS" and would return a different image every time it was entered with five strips of pixels running down it, appearing as shredded pieces of paper.

## Background

The Collector’s Edition (CE) of the expansion contained a "Psychometer Decoder," the "Hidden Dossier Lore Book," "ID Badge," "Lenticular Reveal Card," and more exclusive items.

The Hidden Dossier book is a collection of documents, messages, and other relevant files from Hidden Agents, compiled by Ikora Rey. In addition to the 48 pages within the CE book, there were an additional 30 pages resulting from the ARG. It included notes from Ikora as well as letters from her to other characters.

## Solving the Clues

### Step 1

The [Dial Positions] on the Psychometer where each object is scanned corresponded to a 7x7 grid on page 25 of Ikora's journal. The [Spike] dial is the [X coordinate], the [Circle] dial is the [Y coordinate]. The [Line] dial is [Rotation] of that tile to its current top face's position. So, once a token had been successfully scanned, the dials position indicated the [X] [Y] [Rot] operation for the 7x7 Grid to solve the 3x2 Grid of photos on page 17. If those solved tiles were overlaid onto the images they corresponded to, the word "`GNOSIS`" was revealed.

### Step 2

The 3x2 grid on page 17 was an enciphered key of cropped images of CE ephemera that contained an NFC chip that the psychometer tuned into by adjusting dials on the device. In addition, the page also showed a partial URL:

> `decrypt`
>
>
> `h t   s  / / b`
>
>
>
> `ne             t                                          /circles`
>
>

Based on how website URLs work and that this is a Bungie puzzle, logic concluded that the URL was *https://bungie.net/circles*.

### Step 3

Entering the word "`GNOSIS`" into the text field and pressing Submit on the page revealed an image with five strips of pixels running down it, appearing as shredded pieces of paper. Image submissions were allowed every three-ish hours.

### Step 4

A discovery was made by Redditor Adam Algaret that some sets of images shared unique colors between them. It was then discovered that each strip of pixels contained a set palette of 16 colors. This made it much easier to separate the strips into sections.

### Step 5

The community needed to combine the strips.

## Solution and Prize

On March 3, Bungie changed the timer on the image submissions from a couple hours to two minutes. With that change, the community were able to gather the remaining images needed and combined them with the already known strips (19,770 from 3950 unique images) to create 30 pages of lore.
**Stats**

* **20,914** submissions received (and still counting)
* **1,982+** CE users who submitted entries
* **3,954** unique submissions
* **19,770** individual strips pulled from images
* **659** strips per page
* **30** decoded pages
* **Countless** numbers of hours, effort, and people who helped solve this

Once the community completed the ARG puzzle, Bungie released the lore on their website. Bungie's version of the lore included several changes, such as one omission to Doc 4, some corrections to Doc 8, and some changes in the JALAAL and REY conversation.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bungie - Circles
2. ↑ Bungie Store - Collector's Editions
3. ↑ Reddit - The Witch Queen Circles ARG (February 22, 2022)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Reddit - Witch Queen Circles ARG Solved! 30 pages of Ikora's shredded files. (March 9, 2022)
5. ↑ Google Sheet - Destiny 2 ARG Shredded Pages Transcription
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 TJ09's site for arranging and reassembling the pieces
7. ↑ TJL.co - Completed lore pages
8. ↑ Bungie.net - The Hidden Dossier (March 14, 2022)