Forza Horizon is the zany, arcade racer cousin to Microsoft's Forza Motorsport series - and often has a cavalier attitude to things like health and safety. In the games, players drive at high speeds, across varying terrain, and often engage in reckless stunts in the name of finding glory on the racing circuit.
To celebrate (and market) the fifth entry in the series, the Xbox Australia & New Zealand team decided to offer some free copies of the game to a fan. Pretty normal, right?
Well, the fan was stunt man Ossie Khan. And in order to claim them, he would need to drop a car from 4,500 in the air, skydive out of a helicopter, and take it for a test drive on the ground. Using a Polaris with a custom Forza Horizon livery, the car was dropped and thankfully survived the fall, with Ossie parachuting in to drive it (and the free copies of Forza Horizon 5) home with him.
The stunt was reminiscent of (and inspired by) events from Horizon's story mode, which starts with cars being thrown out of a plane into the Mexican desert for a racing festival.
Real life stunts, albeit expensive and sometimes even dangerous, can also make good marketing stunts. In this case, it certainly produced a compelling short video that fits with the tone and spirit of the Horizon franchise, and attracted press from outlets such as GameSpot, Windows Central, and PC Gamer.
