Xi is coming to an end. Its three-month run as a live ARG is over, but we’re keeping the puzzles and games open for a few weeks yet, so people can finish collecting all the butterflies and fragments they want before submitting themselves to the final assessment that concludes their individual experience.

There are rewards at the end of Xi, but no one winner. Xi has been a collective experience, played and solved by hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously, so singling out anybody would always have been unfair.

Having said that, certain players have distinguished themselves. Anyone who’s been watching or writing on the PlayStation forums will have witnessed the emergence of individuals whose contributions have made them minor celebrities. We won’t start naming names here because we're bound to miss somebody out, but you know who you are. Take a bow.

The main game is ending, but Alpha Zone 1 and a new version of Hub will be staying open for the foreseeable future and will finally take their place on the Home world map. AlphaAFK will be official at last.

When we started developing Xi, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. It was an experiment relying on new technologies and live interaction with people – and you know how unpredictable they can be. The fact that it has worked so successfully is down to the dedication of many people: the handful of nDreamers working here, some fantastically knowledgeable and generous people at Sony, and you lot – the players and the people who took part in our grand experiment. Without an audience to interact with, we would have had nothing. We wouldn’t have had the songs, the fan-sites, the logos, the jokes, the poetry, the reams of speculation, the *hundreds* of YouTube videos, or any of the everyday buzz of a living creative community. You made half of this game. Arguably the better half.

It’s the nature of ARGs that they are temporary. They’re a performance. But we hope the memories and the community that we’ve all helped to create will stick around long after Xi has ended.

Now that the live performance is over, we’re going back to the beginning of a new process – back to development, back to rehearsals, away from the audience, because there is more to come from nDreams both within Home and beyond. You must have learned by now that we’re not going to spill the beans about these things before they go public, but let’s just say they’re going to be fun.

Without wishing to get too sentimental, we’re all going to miss Xi. I’m sure we're not the only people who’ll be watching the clock at 2pm (BST) each weekday and wondering why the afternoon feels a little bit emptier.
So thanks again for playing your part. Until next time…

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