Pre-ordering Just Cause 3 gives you the change to win an island. I’ll let that sink in for a while. No, you haven’t read it wrong! An island…and not one of those made of pixels and code. It’s a real island, made of land, sand, stones and a bunch of other materials of which every piece of land consists.
This is definitely the craziest incentive ever seen to be coupled with a video game, and it’s only available for gamer from US, Canada, Mexico and Chile. We already know that the distributors are willing to do almost anything to get us to pre-order their upcoming titles. Usually the choice falls on additional or unique content, but Square Enix has just raised the bar by promising the chance to win an island to those who pre-order Just Cause 3.
The contest actually is very simple. If you live in the US, Mexico, Chile or Canada, after you get your Day One version of the game, you should visit the promotion site and enroll in the contest. You can do so by registering or signing in with your Square Enix Member Account and link it with your Xbox Live account. Then, over a period of three months (until February 2016), you will compete with the other players of Just Cause 3 to see who gets more Chaos Points. The winner will get an island worth up to $50,000 or $50,000 in cash. The location of the island is yet to be determined by Square Enix.
Of course this sounds like an awesome idea but there are a few things that need to be taken in consideration. One of them is that the island awarded may not be exactly the kind you may have in mind. Square Enix does not assure that it will be a paradise kind of island, as they say in the rules “Sponsor does not guarantee the Island to be inhabitable, developed or reachable by any means other than a boat”. Another is that you will not receive the island free of charge, as Square Enix says “All taxes and fees associated with purchasing and obtaining of island (including but not limited to attorney’s fees, escrow, and closing costs) are the responsibility of the winner.”
But don’t be disappointed just yet, the winner can always choose to get the money instead of the island. If I were you I would choose the money because attorney will probably cost that much anyway. Knowing the conditions of this contest, who would risk it to win the ultimate prize? And after this invention by Square Enix, what is the next unusual award that you would like to see with a pre-order?
Just Cause 3 releases on December 1. Xbox One owners receive Just Cause 2 through the backwards compatibility with their purchase.
João is a games journalist, Senior Editor at XDA Developers. They contributed 156 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: previously reported for Neowin before joining XDA Developers in 2021, where he leads coverage of Windows, Microsoft, and hardware.