Assassin's Creed 3 goes free, murders Ubisoft servers in the process

The final piece in Ubisoft's 30th anniversary giveaway puzzle, Assassin's Creed 3, is now free for everyone. You can grab it from the Ubisoft Club, but be aware that you might need to wait before jumping in. Apparently there are an awful lot of people who want the game, and going by the chatter on the Ubisoft Support Twitter account, the servers are struggling to keep up with the demand.

The good news is that AC3 will be free for a month, which takes us well into January, so if you can't get it today, there's always tomorrow, or the day after that, or sometime next week. Hey, it's been out for four years now. A couple of extra days won't kill you.

Owners of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag have been experiencing a separate, but apparently related, problem: After claiming their free copy of AC3, Black Flag simply disappeared from their accounts. Exactly why this happened isn't clear, and people have recently begun reporting that the game has reappeared, so it seems that Ubisoft is on top of the situation. I've reached out to Ubisoft to ask what's happening, and will update if I receive a reply. Meantime, if you've run into this issue, let us know if Black Flag has been returned (or not, if that's the case) in the comments.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.