April Fool’s Day is always filled with pranks, and this year was no exception. One of the most amusing things to hit the web April 1 was this website for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, a first-person shooter set in 2007 but apparently created during the 80s—while on acid. The site is still up today, and according to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, it’s not a hoax. The game appears to be legit, with screenshots and everything.
You can see more images in the gallery below. Polygon says the shots originated from Xbox.com, so it doesn’t look like there’s any funny business going on. Except for the game itself, of course.
Before the screenshots hit the web, EuroGamer took a closer look at the teaser site and found some interesting clues about the project’s writer and main character. Our own Editor-in-Chief also pointed out some parallels with the original Crysis, which came out in 2007 and had a similar (although less outlandish) B-movie presentation style. Crysis developer Crytek made the first Far Cry game before handing off the franchise to Ubisoft, so the connection doesn’t come completely out of left field. The storyline detailed on the Blood Dragon site even makes a reference to what could be Crysis‘ nanosuit and island setting:
The year is 2007. It is the future. Earth has been ravaged by a nuclear war and new paths for peace must be found. A U.S. cyborg army may have found a solution: a powerful bioweapon on a distant island. A Mark IV Cyber Commando, Sergeant Rex Power Colt has been sent over to gather information and figure out what the hell is going on.
Regardless of whether Blood Dragon has anything to do with previous games, the premise sounds like a lot of fun. How can you not be intrigued by a game whose box art shows a dinosaur shooting lasers out of its eyes? Unfortunately, that box art suggests Blood Dragon will be an Xbox Live Arcade title. Let’s hope the game makes its way to the PC, too.