One of the strangest games announced at Ubisoft’s E3 press conference last month was Trials of the Blood Dragon, a crossover between RedLynx’s long-running motorcycle platforming series and the shooter Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Something that novel and strange might not immediately seem worthy of your cash, but if you’ve got a PC and some skills, that won’t matter.
For one day — July 22 — PC players who download the Trials of the Blood Dragon demo through the Uplay store and complete it with 15 faults or fewer will receive the full game as a reward. That’s it — no hoops to jump through or other games to purchase. The demo also includes access to the game’s leaderboard, allowing you to compare your scores to other players before you even access the full game.
Given the game’s less-than-stellar reception thus far, “free” sounds like a fair price. In IGN’s review, Dave Rudden criticized the shooting mechanics, short length (about four hours), and nonsensical physics-system changes.
The last “proper” Trials game was Trials Fusion, released in 2014. While its map selection didn’t include anything quite as memorable as the enormous “Gigatrack,” its surreal science fiction story and buttery smooth gameplay still made it an excellent addition to the series. Seeing RedLynx experiment with the license some more is always welcome, but it most likely delayed the release of a full-fledged sequel.
To celebrate 30 years of Ubisoft, the publisher is also giving away a number of other free games on PC. June featured a free download of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, while starting on July 13, players will be able to download the original Splinter Cell for free. The promotion will last until December, with a new game available every month.
