Fast & Furious video game coming from Forza creators

Fast & Furious and Forza are hitching a ride together.

The hugely successful movie franchise is teaming up with the critically acclaimed Forza racing series for a video game featuring cars and missions inspired by Universal Pictures' Fast & Furious film series. The downloadable title will serve as an expansion to Forza Horizon 2, the latest open-world edition of Turn 10 Studios' Forza Motorsport game franchise.

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"We've been talking with the folks at Turn 10 for a number of years and have always wanted to work together," said 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."

Free game features cast and cars

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious will launch March 27 for 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, the latest instalment in the film series. After that date, the Fast & Furious-themed expansion will cost gamers $10.

Set before the movie, the game casts players as a driver in France tasked with sourcing vehicles for mechanic Tej Parker (portrayed by Chris "Ludacris" Bridges in the films and game). The automobiles are virtual renditions of those in the Fast & Furious movies, such as the iconic 1970 Dodge Charger R/T driven by Vin Diesel's character Dominic Toretto.

"We weren't interested in doing yet another movie-based game," said 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 last decade."

Hartman said Universal and the Fast & Furious filmmakers provided access to the series' cars, production designs and footage in order to virtually reconstruct them in Forza Horizon 2. He noted that the vehicles in the Fast & Furious expansion would be recreations of cars from the film series — right down to their scratches and customized options.

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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.

Dynamic partnership

While the Fast & Furious series has been depicted in a few poorly received console and smartphone games, this partnership is a car pool featuring a couple of dynamos: the Fast & Furious film franchise has made more than $2.3 billion at the worldwide box office, and Forza games are the most-played racing simulations on the current generation of consoles.

"It's kind of been a grand experiment," said 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."