Hey peoples, I just wanted to help make everyone aware that the rather hardcore (though you can play it in "Action" mode but why would you want to) PC WWII Eastern Front multiplayer FPS, Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad is totally free today (that's April 23rd until April 24th 10AM PST according to the announcement page) on Steam. This isn't a standard Steam Free Weekend deal though, as long as you install it today it's part of your Steam library forever.

There's an old classic Drew 'n Dave Quick Look you could check out, though since it's 2 years and change on now, things have been refined quite a bit since. In fact, a new update just came out this week to finally add APCs and a host of other changes, which prompted this whole free thing.

I've been meaning to make up a little blog post on here about why I feel like this game is kind of the multiplayer FPS Dark Souls, in that it is extremely uncompromising and will kill you dead repeatedly if you don't play smartly, but is all the more satisfying when you do well. Maybe I'll get that done sometime soon, but if you need further help getting your head around what this game is, it might help to think of it as bridging the gap between the very large scale, somewhat overwhelming sim level of Arma, and the fast-paced action of a Titanfall or CoD. You're generally never more than a corner or two away from a potential bullet in this game, but it also rewards (really, demands unless you're just destroying the enemy) smart positioning and careful maneuver.

Anyway, if you have Steam and the bandwidth to spare, why not give it a shot? It's not for everyone, but if you like it you might really like it, and I just want more and more different people to shoot at from a few hundred meters away.

Sure. I suppose I could add it to the ever growing embarrassing bunch of shit I'll never play

Word up. But it's fweee!

I guess the servers must be getting hit pretty hard, I keep getting sent to an error page when I try to install it.

It's free! Enjoy it! I had to pay for it, freeloaders.

basically, half my steam library is junk from Humble Bundles i will never play or tried for 5 minutes and instantly uninstalled. still gonna pick it up though because i cant resist free things that dont take up any space.

thanks did not know, there goes another game i'll never ever play.

Two hours later and still getting the same message:

An error was encountered while processing your request:

There was a problem adding this product to your Steam account.

Is there anyone else on Giant Bomb having this issue?

Great game. It has improved it a lotsince release. The community is surprisingly friendly for a "hardcore" shooter. I'm sure all the new free players will stink things up for a bit (I expect a lot of team killing and such tonight), but they'll filter out eventually. Good stuff. I'm always happy to see a bunch of new players to a game I enjoy.

Will definitely be checking this out, thanks for the heads up.

Expect lot's of racism when you play this online.

@shotgunlincoln: I always expect lots of racism when I play online shooters so I can be pleasantly surprised if there isn't any.

Is this a "Maybe we'll get more DLC sales out of this" promotion?

edit: Turns out that is precisely what it is. Brilliant move, I think. Next week Rising Storm will be on sale and free to play for a limited time:

"Rising Storm will be on sale later this week on Steam, as well as available to play for free at the same time. Watch for the launch of this offer – and another special one – on Steam!"

Great move by their marketing team. Give people the base game free and a week to get interested in it, then give them a taste of the DLC while also putting it on sale.

There's truth to this, certainly! Though to be accurate, Rising Storm is actually stand-alone and normally comes with the RO2 content anyway, and they've never had any "DLC" of the spend-money-on-it for either game.

The advantage of already having RO2 and Rising Storm integrated, but technically separate products (owning RO2 still lets you play RS, though you can only use the basic rifleman class) is definitely what gave them the leverage to do this give-away; they get a more permanent boost to player numbers than the free weekends they've done in the past, and still know they won't be completely shutting themselves out of any potential revenue from the series. It's pretty much a win-win for everyone,

It helps that Rising Storm is pretty fantastic in its own right. It's unquestionably the same game at the most basic mechanical level but the setting and classes are so different that it really does end up feeling like it's own game. Which makes sense, considering it was originally conceived as a simple mod for RO2 that the devs liked enough to hire the team and make it a full product. It really has some of the most beautiful maps I've ever seen in a game of this nature; I can't think of much else built as a multiplayer-focused FPS that nails stuff like pacific jungle the way it does.

Is it just the singleplayer portion, or is there some multiplayer too? Either way, thanks for the heads-up.

@seppli:Should be both.

@pantzing_nome: This is on an entirely different level.

Most servers tend to run RO2 + RS maps and custom maps these days so I can see people who really get into the game as a result of this promotion rapidly getting frustrated at only having access to one class and purchasing the DLC.

I don't see it as that cynical because RO2 is a small fish with not much DLC, just an expansion really. It's not as bad as say when they knock 50% off COD hoping people buy it and then see that there's $100+ worth of DLC to buy.

"Bought."

Man, this game is intense. Janky as all hell (at least in SP, haven't tried MP yet) but very fun so far.