We created a verified Twitter account for Isabel, the main AI character from the game, and used the social platform to send out a distress call for help. Through a series of promoted tweets from multiple Xbox channels, fans and broad-strategy gamers then had multiple ways to respond to the call and train for battle.

Players started a game by tweeting with Isabel. Through this real-time response training module, players used cards to battle either their friends or a computer bot in an escalating three-round war.

Once a player had initiated battle, each player got served three units to deploy against one another as they trained for war. Isabel moderated each match, her AI designed to tweet back in real-time with custom responses for each player’s move.

Players who won could earn exclusive downloadable skins from Halo Wars 2, in addition to social media bragging rights.

The #TwitterHaloWars experience launched mid-January to coincide with and promote the early access demo of ‘Halo Wars 2’ that users could download and play on their Xbox and PCs.

We kicked off the program with a garbled distress signal in the form of a quick 15 second video and blasted it out through all of Xbox & Halo’s social channels. All roads led to our Twitter feed where users could take part in the experience using Twitter’s new ‘dynamic direct messages’ feature. Engagement was then extended with real-time moderation by our creative team who replied and conversed with fans of our social experience.

The #TwitterHaloWars experience was available globally and localized in both English and German. But since the early access demo was only available in the US, UK, and Germany, we focused our paid efforts in those markets to extend our engagement beyond the social mini-game.

We set out to create something completely new with the innovation of Twitter’s new dynamic direct messaging services – and we succeeded. Twitter hailed this game as a completely new use of their platform and is even something they would love to expand upon in the future as their platform continues to change and provide new offerings to marketers.

It was a hit with gamers as well. Within the first 9 days, the game was played over 56,000 times with a 96% average completion rate. We even saw YouTube gaming channels reviewing the experience and creating walkthroughs of our gamified direct message program.

Xbox is always looking for new ways to create channel first experiences and this execution has strengthened that resolve even further.