How do you turn Carpenter Brut’s cinematic and musical universe into a truly playable experience in Fortnite? From capturing the musicians’ performances to creating custom vehicles and synchronising the gameplay with the music, our making-of film takes viewers behind the scenes of Turbo Killer Experience.
When the decision was made to work with Carpenter Brut, Turbo Killer quickly emerged as the obvious choice.
The track, its relentless pace and the chase-driven universe developed in its music video offered particularly rich material for imagining an experience in Fortnite.
But our goal was not to reproduce the music video, create a simple driving game or transpose a concert into a virtual environment.
We wanted to design a hybrid format: an interactive musical experience at the crossroads of live performance, cinema and video games.
The player does not simply watch. They take part in the race, intervene at key moments, influence the vehicle’s trajectory and trigger actions in time with the rhythm and intensity of the track.
They experience the music in a new way by becoming an active part of what unfolds on screen.
To capture the energy of a real stage performance, it was essential to feature Carpenter Brut and his musicians directly within the experience.
We therefore welcomed them into our studio to capture their body movements and facial expressions.
Our markerless motion capture system allows artists to move and perform without wearing suits fitted with sensors. Through our collaboration with OptiTrack, we were also able to record their performances with their instruments in great detail.
It was a first for Carpenter Brut, who humorously describes the sometimes unusual nature of the exercise: performing the same track several times, surrounded by cameras, in an environment that does not yet exist.
These recordings were then used to animate the avatars created specifically for the experience and to reproduce the musicians’ posture, technical gestures and stage identity inside Fortnite.
The challenge was not only to represent them, but to give players the feeling that they were witnessing a genuine performance fully integrated into the game.
Carpenter Brut’s universe draws heavily on the cinema and video games of the 1980s.
John Carpenter, film soundtracks and games such as Speedball 2 and Wipeout are among the influences mentioned by the artist. Direct, powerful references brought together to build a coherent visual identity around his music.
Recreating this universe in Fortnite was a major challenge.
It was not simply a matter of reusing its colours or a few recognisable visual codes. We had to capture its cinematic atmosphere, energy and tension while adapting them to the rules, technical possibilities and uses of Fortnite and its creation tool, UEFN.
The result is therefore not a literal reproduction. It is a new interpretation of the Turbo Killer universe, designed from the outset to be experienced and played.
To maintain sufficient creative and technical freedom, we chose not to use Fortnite’s existing vehicle system.
The vehicles in Turbo Killer Experience were designed specifically by our teams.
This allowed us to shape their design, behaviour and movement around the staging of the experience, and above all to synchronise them directly with the music.
An adaptive road system was also developed so that the route could evolve alongside the different phases of the track.
The race, changes of environment, obstacles and interactions are not simply accompanied by the music: they are built around it.
The creation of the experience brought together several complementary disciplines.
We first designed the island’s environment, the race route and the different settings explored by the player.
We then developed all the interactive features and mini-gameplay sequences that allow the player to act at the right moment.
Finally, extensive directing work was carried out on camera placement and movement, particularly during the artists’ appearances and performances.
Every component had to serve the same intention: preserve the intensity of Turbo Killer while giving the player an active role within its staging.
Turbo Killer Experience brings together music, cinema, artist performance, real-time 3D creation and video games.
This combination is what makes the project so distinctive.
For Carpenter Brut, the experience offers a new way to extend his universe and explore what an artist can bring to an interactive environment.
For our teams, it demonstrates what Fortnite can become when it is considered not only as a game, but as a platform for cultural creation and expression.
A platform where audiences no longer simply listen to music or watch a performance, but can experience it, replay it and interact with it.
As Carpenter Brut sums it up in the making-of film: anything is possible, as long as it is done with style.
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