HOONIGAN & 'The Crew Motorfest' : A Perfect Fit

Source: Ubisoft / Ubisoft Ivory Tower / The Crew Motorfest / HOONIGAN

Video games collaborating with companies and brands is nothing new, but most of the time, the collabs come off as cash grabs that don’t add anything to the base game, but that’s not the case with The Crew Motorfest’s collaboration with HOONIGAN. Ubisoft Ivory Tower’s surprise hit The Crew Motorfest revved into its second season late last year, collaborating with HOONIGAN to introduce a new playground to the locale of Hawaii that serves as players’ race track in the game.

Source: Ubisoft / Ubisoft Ivory Tower / The Crew Motorfest / HOONIGAN

HOONIGAN is defined as “a person who operates a motor vehicle in an aggressive and unorthodox manner, consisting of, but not limited to, drifting, burnouts, doughnuts as well as acts of automotive aeronautics. One who hoons.” The brand was founded by rally-race car driver Ken Block and is regarded as one of the most successful viral video franchises, boasting over 7 million subscribers, close to 1 billion views, and numerous awards and accolades, including three Emmy Award nominations for their Amazon Prime Original Series The Gymkhana Files. For those who don’t know, Gymkhana is a type of motorsport where drivers must “achieve the fastest time possible; memorizing the course is a significant part of achieving a fast time” while navigating through obstacles.

Their tricks are not the only star of their videos; they’re the custom-built vehicles that team members admit they build to essentially push to the limit, in essence, to break them, which have also gained tremendous popularity. The game already introduces elements like drifting into the game, but in season two, with collaboration with HOONIGAN and the Gymkhana Grid Masters playlist, players get to become members of the brand best known for pulling off tricks with cars people did not believe were possible.

Source: Ubisoft / Ubisoft Ivory Tower / The Crew Motorfest / HOONIGAN

HHW Gaming spoke with HOONIGAN’s co-founder, Brian Scotto, about collaborating with The Crew Motorfest during an event at Ubisoft’s San Franciso office.

How This Collaboration Came Together

Source: Ubisoft / Ubisoft Ivory Tower / The Crew Motorfest / HOONIGAN

So I think for us, we felt like this fit our [brand.] What we felt it was like to do stuff with HOONIGAN.

The collaboration between The Crew video game franchise and HOONIGAN is a match made in heaven. Speaking with Scotto about it, he revealed that he wanted to do something where the HOONIGAN brand was more than just cosmetics and free cars to unlock.

“We were looking to have a gaming partner and trying to do something again where we were more involved in the game than just them having our cars as a pack or a DLC or something, ” Scotto begins. “So when they were mentioning that The Crew was coming out and knowing that the game was going to have this element where it keeps changing and evolving, we were super interested. Realize that we make YouTube content, and the thing about YouTube content is you have to up the bar every week. Every week, there’s got to be something new to keep people interested and hold off all the other competitors and everything else that people are doing. So I think for us, we felt like this fit our [brand.] What we felt it was like to do stuff with HOONIGAN.

The Crew Motorfest Was The Perfect Vehicle To Push Gymkhana

Source: Ubisoft / Ubisoft Ivory Tower / The Crew Motorfest / HOONIGAN

HOONIGAN’s brand of car tricks is not easy to emulate in the real world or in the video game space, but the world and mechanic’s Ubisoft Montreal in The Crew Motorfest was the perfect vehicle for Gymkhana.

“I really do enjoy a good sim game. The arcade element of this is a lot more common brand for what we do, and being able to kind of just have that full open course, open world kind of space and get to just do ridiculous things, Scotto said. “We were spending hours last night trying to toggle between being a plane and being a boat and then landing as a car on a rail slide. And I don’t know, it’s the fun stuff.”

He continued, “A lot of what we do on the Gymkhana films is you just sit there and try to think of the craziest thing we can do. And this game, I think, kind of feeds into that. So, for me, that part was super unique for what we could do with the crew. Because we’ve had our cars in other games before, but what we do isn’t really in it. It’s just like, oh, you could race with our car. Where this, the idea of creating something more respectable, spectacle, and just doing the unexpected is more like what the brand is built on. So that part’s cool and unique for us.

Motorfest Captures The Gymkhana Vibes

Source: Ubisoft / Ubisoft Ivory Tower / The Crew Motorfest / HOONIGAN

…we spent an hour just trying to do a trick, one thing. And that feels very much to me what the Gymkhana experience is for us.”

Another reason this collaboration works so well is because it perfectly captures the Gymkhana experience, according to Scotto.

“Yeah, I think one of the things… I’m going to actually steal something that Micah [Diaz] said the other day because Micah just competed in a Gymkhana event that I built in Vegas. And he said that what made this feel kind of true to life was that it actually was kind of hard to remember where you were supposed to go and watch the arrows. And that’s actually one of the big parts of Gymkhana as a motorsport: you have to memorize, you have to remember where you’re going. You got to pay attention to all that kind of stuff. And he felt that he was like, that’s kind of pretty true because it wasn’t as easy to remember where that needs to be,” Scotto tells HHW Gaming.

He continues, “But I think that there’s, for us, we break Gymkhana into two things. There’s the Motorsport side of it, which is against the clock, and then there’s just the film side of it, which is just creating these crazy moments in all of it. And last night, we spent an hour just trying to do a trick, one thing. And that feels very much to me what the Gymkhana experience is for us.”

Brian Scotto’s Reveals His Favorite Vehicle To Use In The Game

Source: Ubisoft / Ubisoft Ivory Tower / The Crew Motorfest / HOONIGAN

Of course, we had to ask Scotto which of the HOONIGAN vehicles he loves playing with in The Crew Motorfest. Surprisingly, he didn’t choose his custom 911, his favorite vehicle in real life, but instead went with fellow Team HOONIGAN member Ron Zara’s custom vehicle.

“I kind of feel like the Evo, which is Ron’s car, the cheat code. Okay. It seems to be one of the easier cars to drive. Especially for the sliding tricks, the Evo, I think, is the cheat code. I think that the Coupe [Scotto’s Audi], my car, is easier to drive. I actually find that 911, although it’s my favorite car, one of the hardest. So, I think Queens wins that time. The Crew Motorfest was one of HHW Gaming’s best games of 2023. Season 2 is live right now and will wrap up in the coming weeks. So, if you still haven’t gotten a chance to get behind the wheels of one of the HOONIGAN brand’s creations and take it to the unique Gymkhana island, do yourself a favor, hit the gas, and drift on over there immediately.