Video game maker Ubisoft has upped its ‘game’ with the launch of an experiential marketing campaign for their latest shooter game, Far Cry 4.
At the beginning of the video game era, games were marketed by word of mouth, television commercials and magazine spots. These days, the video game industry leads the way in experiential marketing, by immersing audiences in sensory augmented reality experiences and alternate reality games.
Ubisoft claims their latest release is the most expansive and immersive Far Cry ever, set in an entirely new, massive open-world.
The high adrenaline game, which is due for release on November 18th, transports players to the fictional world of Kyrat, a wild and perilous region of the Himalayas, which is struggling under the regime of a despotic self-appointed king, Pagan Min.
To promote the game’s release, Ubisoft launched an experiential website, which has been designed to test player’s reactions in a virtual world full of danger and unpredictability. The site contains four interactive sections, which Ubisoft calls “rites of passage”, which will be made available at the rate of one a week for players to complete. The rites take players through different scenarios in which their actions decide the outcome. All of the scenarios are linked in some way to the insane world of Far Cry 4.
The rites include an encounter with a crazed opponent in ‘an eye for an eye’; an impenetrable mind maze in ‘Rabbit hole’; players will be put under a hypnotic trance in ‘Mind Blossom’ and endure a blindfolded sound chase in ‘Escape’. In each situation, the user has only a few seconds to make a decision and escape the extreme situation they are in. Each choice triggers another sequence of events, and so on.
At the end of each rite of passage, user’s choices are analysed with an algorithm that determines their personality. This then grants them access to exclusive Far Cry 4 digital content.
In total, the digital platform can create 42 million different scenarios, which can take up to 100 days to explore. This means that the experiential platform allows each fan to live a totally different and unique experience.
It took hours of editing to create the most cinematic and realistic experience possible: smoke, fire, gunshots, bullet impacts, explosions and a large number of invisible effects were added to create the spell of a truly intense showdown.
Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact us on 0207 5030442 or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.
