Electronic Arts (EA) is offering Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 "on the house" through its Origin distribution service, complete with a free expansion.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 was a wildly popular real-time strategy (RTS) game back in its day and it's still considered one of the best of its time. The title is now joining EA's On The House program, which gives away free games once in a while.
Along with the game itself, EA is also offering the Yuri's Revenge expansion for free to further sweeten the deal. The offer with both Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Expansion is available to interested gamers through Origin's website, but it seems that the demand is overwhelming and it may take a while.
At the time of writing, Origin's website notes that Command & Conquer 2 and Yuri's Revenge is currently unavailable due to the flow of interested customers, but it will go back up again shortly.
"The demand is so high that we need some time to cool down our servers," EA explains on its Origin website.
In other words, the offer should become available again once traffic clears up a bit, and it shouldn't take too long. Such situations are common when large companies announce free games, as the demand is high and it can even drive the website offline due to too much traffic.
Just recently, Frictional Games offered the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent for free and it saw so much demand that it overwhelmed Steam and the massive traffic drove the Amnesia page offline for a while.
It's nothing new for EA either. Being both a publisher and a distributor with its own Origin website, EA's On The House offers frequently result in high demand that overwhelm Origin.
Considering the great popularity of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, it's understandable that this free game offer is in such high demand. Origin may face some more intermittent issues due to traffic, but make sure to check back on the website frequently to take advantage of the offer when it goes back up. Lastly, EA doesn't note when this new On The House offer will expire, but it may not last for long.
