Molson launches Relish-made Escape to Pil Country

1 December 2021

Alright, it’s 4:45pm and it’s time to burn the last 15 minutes of your workday. Why not escape to Pil Country with a new game we developed with Sid Lee and Molson Coors?

The fate of Pil Country is in your hands. Actually… it’s on your delivery truck. Five kegs of delicious Old Style Pilsner beer. All you gotta do is get them to the top of Mount Pil. Easy, right?

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic while many Canadians still weren’t travelling, Sid Lee tapped (pun intended) Relish for a ridiculously fun collaboration with Molson Coors to create the perfect travel destination for those in need of a quick adventure.

“To Pilsner drinkers, Pil Country already exists as a state of mind, so let’s take it a step further by giving this fictional country a real tourism campaign,” said Matt Fraracci, Creative Director at Sid Lee.

The objective of the game is to gather cans and kegs on the long road to the top of Mount Pil but beware — mischievous bunnies may try to snatch your stash! As players drive their way through each level — each inspired by landscapes across Canada — they get to choose their own adventure by making decisions along the way that make every trip a unique experience.

Pil Country drifter.

“We wanted to create a ridiculous narrative adventure game inspired by the trials and tribulations of the pioneers in the 1985 classic 8-bit computer game, The Oregon Trail,” said Justin Sadler, Relish Studios Creative Director. “The creative process was iterative and hilarious. It mostly involved imagining ways to bring Pil Country to life digitally and, of course, finding different ways the Pil Bunny could turn you into a corpse. So rather than dying of dysentery or snakebites, players of Escape to Pil Country might drown in a river of beer or find themselves victim to a scheming troupe of bunnies disguised as a drifter.”

“Since 1926, we have taken pride in keeping the same ingredients and sharing our sense of adventure with many generations of Pil enthusiasts,” said Stewart Yepes, Senior Marketing Manager at Molson Coors Canada. “The campaign brought Pil Country to life and provided Pil fans with a fun, safe way to explore.”

Dodge horse-drawn carriages, pay off bunny bandits, ford raging rivers of beer, and collect your kegs to make it to the top of the mountain before you get turned into a skeleton. Play Escape to Pil Country!

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