Ubisoft Will Cruz
Will Cruz was working at a call center in his home state of Utah when he got the news that he just won Ubisoft's "Quest for Everest" contest.
"I was on the phone with a new hire at my company," he said. "My phone beeped, and I looked at it, and I got this email saying 'Congratulations, you won,' and immediately I checked out," he tells Business Insider. "Like, I couldn't understand one thing the guy was saying anymore. I just held my hand in the air and was like, 'Eff this conversation!'"
The contest was to promote the game "Far Cry 4," which comes out Nov. 18. The contest was announced over the summer. To enter, people had to make 2-minute videos showing why they were the most qualified.
"Far Cry" is a first-person shooter that places its players in some wild locations. In "Far Cry 2," players found themselves in Africa. "Far Cry 3" was set in the wild jungles of an island in the Pacific.
"Far Cry 4" takes place in the Himalayas. So it makes sense for the company to promote the game with a trip there. And it doesn't hurt to get a world record in the process.
To earn the record, Cruz had to play the game for more than an hour. And he did that at 18,569 feet, climbing to the summit of Kala Patthar. Yikes.
"The game ran just fine up there. I was pretty amazed," he says. "The system was running better than I was at that altitude."
Ubisoft was prepared for the trip, however. They needed to figure out what kind of TV to bring up there so the LCD wouldn't freeze. They also needed to determine whether it would be OK to take a PlayStation up there that has a CD drive.
They didn't have to worry about that part, though. The build that they used of the game was burned onto the hard drive of the console.
Ubisoft He played the game on a PlayStation 4.
Cruz also had to leave his wife of two years behind. "She's a little taken aback about the whole thing, but she's been a great sport," Cruz says.
Before climbing in the Himalayas, Cruz had never been outside the country. But he's no stranger to hiking, often going on some "risky" hikes in his home state, he says. In fact for his submission video for the contest, he climbed the highest peak in Utah.
Because of weather conditions and work schedule, he had a fairly limited amount of time to do it. He also needed to learn how to use his equipment. "I went and hiked it all by myself. It was a 26-mile hike, and it was pretty rough," he said. "I also had to learn how to use a GoPro ... and then I had to borrow a laptop to do the editing for the video, and had to ask a friend how to do it."