Presented as found footage, it follows Dan (voiced by Powell), an archivist tasked with restoring the audio recordings of a young woman named Melody Pendras (Amelia Kidd) during her stay in an ancient building.

[4] The contract is for a group called the Housing Historical Committee of New York State and involves working at a remote and isolated bunker in the middle of the woods.

[3] Throughout the first season, Dan attempts to make sense of the tapes and becomes increasingly rattled by the unsettling interviews carried out by Pendras.

[3] Mark is trying to figure out what happened to Dan by slowly releasing the audio to the public as a series of podcast episodes.

The miniseries follows the story of two characters named Nicholas and Static Man as they go on a road trip to a place called "the Blacktop".

[10] Daniel Powell began recording radio shows at a young age using the family computer and Windows 95.

[3] Archive 81 did not have the same support and funding as Innovation Hub because it was produced independently, which meant that the first season was written, performed, recorded, and edited by themselves in a friend's bedroom.

[8] A month later, a mini-series titled The Golden Age was released, which uses the old school radio drama style production.

Powell and Sollinger view Orson Welles' radio drama The War of the Worlds as an inspiration and influence for their work on Archive 81.