The Fast & Furious and Forza Motorsport are hitching a ride together. The hugely successful film franchise – the latest instalment of which, Furious 7, was partly filmed in Abu Dhabi and is due out next month – is teaming up with the critically acclaimed Forza Motorsport racing series for a video game featuring cars and missions inspired by the movies.
The downloadable title will be an expansion to Forza Horizon 2, the latest open-world edition of Turn 10 Studios' Forza Motorsport video-game franchise.
"We've been talking with the folks at Turn 10 for a number of years and have always wanted to work together," says Bill Kispert, executive vice president of digital licensing at Fast & Furious studio Universal.
“It was a matter of schedules, capacity and a film coming together at the right time. It finally has, and we’re excited to collaborate with Turn 10.”
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious will launch on March 27 for the consoles Xbox One and Xbox 360.
The stand-alone title will not require Forza Horizon 2 and will be available for free until April 10 to promote the April 3 release of Furious 7. After that date, the Fast & Furious themed expansion will cost US$10 (Dh37).
Set before the start of the latest movie, the game casts a player as a driver in France tasked with sourcing vehicles for mechanic Tej Parker (played by Chris “Ludacris” Bridges in the films and game). The automobiles are virtual renditions of those seen in the movies, including the 1970 Dodge Charger R/T driven by Vin Diesel’s character Dominic Toretto.
“We weren’t interested in doing yet another movie-based game,” says Alan Hartman, studio head at Turn 10. “That’s not what our franchise is about. When we started talking about this with Universal years ago, it was really about bringing both of our franchise’s strengths to the table. We’re building on top of everything we’ve done over the past decade.”
Hartman says the filmmakers provided access to the series' cars, production designs and footage to virtually reconstruct them in Forza Horizon 2, right down to scratches and customised options.
The game will include such Furious 7 rides as a 1998 Toyota Supra, 1970 Plymouth Road Runner, 2012 Nissan GT-R, 1970 Plymouth Cuda, 2013 Jeep Wrangler, 2014 Maserati Ghibli S and 2015 Dodge Charger.
While the Fast & Furious series has been depicted in a few poorly received console and smartphone games, this partnership is a carpool featuring a couple of dynamos: the Fast & Furious film franchise has made more than $2.3 billion at the worldwide box office, and Forza Motorsport games are the most-played racing simulations on the current generation of consoles.
“It’s kind of been a grand experiment,” says Hartman. “I hope what we’re doing here is a model for what we do in the future. It’s been a great relationship, and I don’t want to end it after this, so we’ll see what’s possible in the future.”