Human bodies are not great at handling altitude. At around 8,000 feet, our lungs stop adjusting to the thin air, and you almost permanently feel out of breath. So Ubisoft decided it would trek up to around 18,000 feet to have one of its fans play some games.
To promote the release of open-world shooter Far Cry 4, Ubisoft started its “Quest for Everest” contest to invite someone to set the Guinness world record for the playing a game at the highest elevation. Utah-native and 23-year-old call-center manager Will Cruz won, and earlier this month, he made the climb up to Mount Everest with a crew of people carrying a console, a TV display, and some oxygen. Guinness confirmed that he was playing games at 18,569 feet (5,660 meters), which is about 1,000 feet above Everest’s base camp.
“It was eye-opening,” Cruz told GamesBeat. “I loved this trip, and I still cannot believe I was able to go. It all seems so unreal.”
Ubisoft settled on this promotion because Far Cry 4 takes place in the mountains of Nepal, and Cruz got a chance to explore parts of that country before making his record attempt.
“I learned so much about the different cultures [that] inspired Far Cry 4,” he said. “I cannot wait to return to Nepal someday.”
Gaming at the top of the world
While Cruz loved Nepal, his was there to climb up a mountain and play some video games. While we normally consider gaming a leisurely activity, it turns out that nothing is relaxing while on the slops of Everest.
“The hardest part was the altitude,” Cruz said. “I didn’t expect it to be all that hard with our acclimatization days, but it was. It made the day we set the world record hard. I never expected playing video games to be exhausting. It was still extremely enjoyable though.”
Above: Cruz is in good shape and enjoys hiking on the mountains in Utah.
While Cruz did ultimately succeed, he says that a blizzard nearly made him want to quit. It hit the base camp the night before the climb, and Cruz says he wished for his oxygen-saturated bed back in Utah. The storm was blowing the snow sideways, and it even caused the mountain snow to fall apart.
“I maybe slept four hours at Base Camp,” he said. “Often times — before the blizzard rolled in — at night you can hear avalanches followed by the glacier shifting around right underneath you. It was unsettling and kept me up. I also woke a few times because I needed to catch my breath at night.”
Despite achieving a gaming first, Cruz says that he still enjoys playing games in ordinary circumstances.
“I think I’m enjoying them more than ever,” said Cruz. “I enjoyed playing them in that extreme environment — don’t get me wrong. It’s just much nicer to do it comfortably from your own couch.”
While Cruz is back in his comfy home, he may find his record broken. Everest’s peak is 29,029 feet (8,848 meters) high. That leaves plenty of room for some crazy adventurer to lug a battery and some console games up the world’s most impressive mountain.