Carpenter Brut in Fortnite: Turbo Killer Experience

The track Turbo Killer becomes an interactive race in Fortnite

Discover Turbo Killer Experience

An interactive show

With Turbo Killer Experience, we imagined a new way to discover Carpenter Brut’s universe.

Inspired by the music video and the energy of Turbo Killer, the experience plunges players into a retro-futuristic chase where everything evolves with the music: the road, the vehicles, the scenery, the visual effects and the actions they perform.

The result is neither a virtual concert nor a conventional racing game. It is an interactive show that puts players right inside the track.

Le résultat n’est ni un concert virtuel ni un jeu de course classique. C’est un show interactif dans lequel le joueur entre littéralement dans le morceau.

Turning Turbo Killer into a playable experience

Turbo Killer was a natural choice. Its rhythm, its visual identity and the chase at the heart of the music video gave us particularly rich material to work with.

But we never set out to recreate the music video shot for shot. We wanted to capture what makes it so powerful: the speed, the tension, the excess and the cinematic atmosphere, then adapt it into an experience designed for Fortnite.

Playing solo or with up to three other people, players choose a car and set off in pursuit of the band. Along the way, they have to keep moving, collect inspiration fragments and complete a series of action sequences to increase their score.

The four cars do not offer exactly the same experience. Each one gives players a different view of the chase and Carpenter Brut’s performance. To see the whole show from several angles, players need to play again and try a different vehicle.

A race driven by the music

One of the main challenges was to build the gameplay directly around the track.

In many music games, the music accompanies the action. Here, we approached it the other way around: the music controls how the experience unfolds.

The acceleration, changes of scenery, obstacles, appearances by the band and camera movements all follow the different phases of Turbo Killer. The interactions were also timed to the rhythm and the track’s rising intensity.

To make this work, we developed a road system that can evolve during the game. The route changes as the track progresses, supporting the staging without interrupting the chase.

Players are not simply watching a music video recreated in Fortnite. They are inside a sequence that moves with them and responds to their actions.

Four vehicles designed specifically for the project

We chose not to use the vehicles already available in Fortnite. Our teams designed all four Turbo Killer Experience cars from scratch, giving us greater freedom over their appearance, movement and role in the staging.

This is not a race between players. It is an interactive show that can be experienced alone or with others. Each car offers a different experience and view of the band’s performance, so players can return in another vehicle to discover the show from a new angle.

This custom development allowed us to synchronise the cars’ movements with the music and the different sequences of the experience.

Bringing Carpenter Brut and his musicians into Fortnite

The band’s presence was essential. Without it, the experience would have lost much of its energy.

We welcomed Carpenter Brut and his musicians to our MULTIVERT studio to record their performance. The shoot combined two capture techniques.

Our markerless motion capture system recorded their movements and expressions without requiring them to wear sensor-equipped suits. We also used an OptiTrack system to capture their instrumental performance with greater precision.

It was an unusual exercise for the band: performing the same track several times, surrounded by cameras, while the cars, scenery and final world did not yet exist around them.

We used these recordings to animate the avatars created for the project. We paid close attention to the musicians’ posture, gestures and stage presence. The aim was not simply to make Carpenter Brut appear in Fortnite, but to retain something of the band’s real performance.

Capturing Carpenter Brut's universe without copying the music video

Carpenter Brut’s identity draws on a distinct set of references: genre cinema, film soundtracks and video games from the 1980s, with influences including John Carpenter, Speedball 2 and Wipeout.

Adapting this world required more than adding neon lights, cars and a dark colour palette. Above all, we needed to capture its atmosphere, its energy and the way it translates music into images.

We therefore treated the environments, lighting, effects, framing and camera movements as parts of a single whole. These choices had to evoke the world of Turbo Killer immediately, while remaining suited to the gameplay and the technical constraints of UEFN.

The experience captures the spirit of the music video without trying to copy it. It offers a new chapter in this universe, designed from the outset to be played.

What SoWhen? brought to the project

Our teams worked on the project from its earliest ideas through to its integration into Fortnite.

Our work included:

the creative adaptation of Carpenter Brut’s universe;
the writing and direction of the experience;
the design of the gameplay and route;
the creation of the environments and vehicles;
the development of the road system;
the synchronisation of each sequence with the music;
motion capture for the artists;
the creation and animation of their avatars;
the direction of the cameras and cinematic sequences;
development and integration in UEFN.

Turbo Killer Experience brings together disciplines that still rarely work side by side on the same project: music, direction, video games, animation, motion capture and real-time 3D.

This combination allowed us to give the track a new form without losing what makes it distinctive.

Go behind the scenes

In our making-of film, Carpenter Brut and the SoWhen? teams look back at how the project began, the motion capture session and the creative and technical decisions that brought Turbo Killer into Fortnite.

A new dimension of ARTE Riff Mountain

Turbo Killer Experience extends ARTE Riff Mountain, ARTE’s first project in Fortnite, co-produced with SoWhen? and created with Zorba, in partnership with Hellfest.

This experience dedicated to Carpenter Brut shows how the island can evolve and host very different artistic projects. It becomes a stage in its own right, but one that the audience can take control of.

For an artist, this kind of format can extend a musical universe without remaking a music video or reproducing a concert. For players, it offers a more direct way to encounter a work: they can step inside it, take action and return to experience it differently.

Experiences that combine creativity and technological innovation in the service of meaning

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