This past summer, Ubisoft created a contest where one lucky gamer would win a trip to Nepal and climb Mount Everest to play Far Cry 4 before it’s officially released.
William Cruz, a 23-year-old resident of Utah, was the winner of the contest and the person who set a Guinness World Record for Highest Altitude Videogame Console Session on Land. Cruz documented his journey on the Far Cry 4 website with some vlogs, which you can watch here. While Cruz is technically the person who participated in the videogame session, Ubisoft holds the record for enabling the entire trip.
Cruz left Utah and flew to Nepal, where he traveled to many cities before making it to the Everest base camp. The base camp had an altitude of 17,500ft (5,333m).
In the original contest advertisement, Ubisoft claimed that the gamer would climb Mount Everest; in reality, Cruz went to the Everest base camp and used that as a starting point to climb the mountain Kala Patthar. On Kala Patthar, he spent 79 minutes playing Far Cry 4 at an elevation of 18,569 feet (5,660m). The game console he used was specially crafted to deal with the low air pressure and frozen weather. Cruz was wrapped in his own snow gear to ride out the harsh conditions.
Ubisoft used this contest to promote Far Cry 4, which comes out this November. Far Cry 4 takes place in Kyrat, a mountainous region of the Himalayas, so the Everest contest brought attention to the game’s landscape. Additionally, the Guinness World Record will probably help advertise the upcoming shooter, no matter how oddly specific that record may be.
