Champions Online to offer free weekend

If you've been watching the news on the Champions Online front, you know that big changes have come to the game and even more are in store. Players who canceled their subscriptions may even be thinking that Champions Online might be worth a second look, particularly with the addition of Revelation.

If you're one of those players, or have been considering giving the game a first look, you're going to want to clear some time next weekend. Cryptic is offering a free weekend for new and returning players, and it's a pretty generous definition of "weekend". The event -- which will give visitors completely unrestricted access to CO -- begins Friday morning, March 26th at 10 AM PDT, and runs through Monday the 29th at 10 AM PDT. Inactive accounts will be revived for the event, so former players can revisit their old characters.

And don't worry, you won't spend half that time downloading and patching. Cryptic has made the game available for pre-download now, so you'll be completely ready to go Friday morning. We definitely recommend that you check it out -- free is always good and you'll have a lot to see in those 72 hours!

[Thanks to Electrobix for the tip!]

Reader Comments (17)

I'm glad they are doing this with CO. I had a 6 month sub but quit playing after the first month but I think most of us know the disappointment felt in the change in game mechanics.
If every other game out there has confidence in their product they should always put trials and free weekends out there for people to get a taste. I don't think I've ever heard of someone not liking the ability to sample a product before they buy it. Well, except for maybe surgery or a coffin or something...

I don't know, I'd like to test my coffin before getting into it you know. I mean I'll be laying in it for quite sometime you know.

Well I wouldn't call it confidence in your product when the only reasion you are offering a free weekend is to get people to subscribe to the game. Actually if anything in (CO's case) it shows that the game isn't doing so great and might be on one of its last leg's.

I bet after this free weekend they come out with a press release saying they broke XXX number of accounts created like they did last time. Cause we all know they are not going to come out and say we broke 50k subscriptions.

I'm not defending CO or Cryptic, but people said SWG was on its last leg after NGE and its still around. Spare us the doom and gloom, its getting old.

Why would any game, ever, offer a free weekend if not to get more people to subscribe? That makes no sense, whether you have 40 subs currently, or 4 million, unless LOTRO and CoX are in the business of offering free weekends just to show off their servers' prowess?

I'm thinking I'll take advantage of this. I enjoyed the couple of weeks I played CO at launch, and only stopped playing due to a lack of time.

Will my OB characters still be there, or did they wipe at launch?

Gone.

A PSA right on the front page for CO announcing that Bill Roper is not longer involved with the project would probably garner them a few subs.

I wouldn't play CO again even if they were offering free cake... mmm... cake...

Ah right. Well, I can live with that I guess. :D

I'm planning on giving it a whirl, played briefly in open beta so I'd like to see where it is now.

Plus 4 free days of entertainment is hard to beat.

Every once in a while there is a free weekend. I think this is my 3rd one for CO.

For all of it's flaws, I have to admit this is a rather ingenious way to advertise the game.

So... was anyone else able to actually sign up for the free weekend? Every time I try it just errors out for me. Note: I'm trying to register with an existing account.

Maybe you have to wait until the weekend time frame actually starts? I guess I'll try again once we get into the time window tomorrow...

It works, I signed up and was in the game earlier. I love these free trial things. I played the game on release but really didn't like it at all. Still, I like the opportunity to check out how far along a game has come and there's no way I'd resubscribe just to check it out for a few days.

Champions Online to offer free weekend

Reader Comments (17)

Posted: Mar 21st 2010 11:54AM jpkustra said

Posted: Mar 21st 2010 5:30PM Tizmah said

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