More games have been backported to Xbox One

Jan 21, 2016 15:54 GMT  ·  By

CD PROJEKT RED, the studio that created the Witcher games, has just announced that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is now available on Xbox One, and it’s free of charge.

The studio didn’t port the game to the new platform but took advantage of the new backwards compatibility feature that's being implemented for the platform. This allows developers to push this slightly older game to Xbox One, but they also took another step that’s really interesting. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is free now, and it will remain like this for a few more days.

CD PROJEKT RED is known for its radical approach to marketing. For example, they figured out pretty quickly that users don’t want any kind of DRM in their games, and now they are using this as a feature for their titles and the games promoted on GOG. After all, they are not really interested in selling an old game, but more to get people to play the second Witcher title for free and have them buy the third one.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is not the only one

“CD PROJEKT RED, creators of The Witcher series of games, announce that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, prequel to the award winning The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, is now available on Xbox One via backward compatibility and is free to download for a limited time. The giveaway is from January 21 (6 a.m. PST) through February 5 (12 a.m. UTC),” said the developers in an announcement.

There is an important caveat, though. The game won’t be available for everyone, and only a few regions and countries are available, and those are U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Also, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is not the only game that got released today. It turns out that the following Xbox 360 games are available on Xbox One as well, starting today: Aegis Wing, Age of Booty, Counter-Strike: GO, Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad, Sam & Max Save the World, Skullgirls, Small Arms, Soulcalibur, and Space Giraffe.