Will Fast & Furious Crossroads be a flop?

The Games Awards arrived with a slew of news, including the trailer for Fast & Furious Crossroads, and as the first F&F title to get the triple A video game treatment the question is whether or not it’ll be a flop or a hit. It’s a pretty bold move for the franchise trying to break into the gaming world to go with its long-standing success on the big screen, so will the risk pay off?

Games that get made into films usually suck arsenic in a major way, but that isn’t always the case for films or big name franchises that get the pixel treatment. You’ve only got to look at the likes of Spider-Man on the PS4 last year, or the Telltale games, to see that there’s definitely the potential for F&F Crossroads to land big when it launches on the Xbox ONE, PC and PlayStation 4 in May 2020.

However, it’s far from a guarantee and while we’re hoping it lands well with a beautifully delivered masterpiece of gaming genius, it could easily be a pile of steaming, overblown dross designed to capitalise on the success of the films. That’s a very cynical outlook, and far from how things are shaping up from the look of the trailer (see below), but it is a possibility.

Grand Theft Auto comparisons

You can read more about our thoughts on the Fast & Furious Crossroads below, but one thing you can’t get away from is the unmistakable comparisons to Grand Theft Auto V. The cars, the crime, the girls and the style all take a leaf out of the GTA playbook, which you can either look at negatively or positively depending on your perspective.

If this is done well then it could give F&FC some strong mechanics to build on and a solid platform to layer up the more distinct elements of the movie franchise. However, if it just ends up being a cheep knockoff with little substance or distinction then it’ll end up getting panned in the reviews, resulting in a unanimous flop.

The power of Vin Diesel

One big plus point it has in its favour is that it’s got Vin Diesel in the leading role as Dominic Toretto and that’s bound to be a big draw for Fast & Furious Crossroads. It may not be as big as the announcement of Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077, but it’s definitely up there and should help to ensure game shifts a fair few units even if it isn’t the most impressive game of 2020.

He’ll also have Michelle Rodriguez alongside him as Dom’s wife Letty Ortiz, and Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce. If that isn’t enough star power to put it on par with Cyberpunk 2077 and Death Stranding, the game will also feature Sonequa Martin-Green (Star Trek: Discovery and The Walking Dead) and Asia Kate Dillon (John Wick 3).

Vin Diesel also has the honour of featuring in one of the best movie-to-game crossovers ever in The Chronicles Of Rodrick: Assault On Dark Athens. That shouldn’t really bear too much on whether or not his latest pixelation is a flop or not, but when it comes to games history can have a big impact. The name, his link to the movie series and his past success in gaming combined is a fairly heady cocktail that would be foolish to ignore.

The even bigger power of the Fast & Furious franchise

The star power is bolstered ten fold by the fan following for the Fast & Furious film series. Every film in the series has been a massive box office hit, including the recent spinoff Hobbs & Shaw. If just a fraction of the fans of the film go on to pick up the game then it is pretty much guaranteed to sell well enough, but then in all fairness that would hardly make it a hit.

Other recent movie games like Jumanji 2 have struggled with an unforgiving gaming review system, which met it with a poor to middling response, and a packed release schedule. It’s the same reality that Crossroads will need to face with its May 2020 release date, so it will need to make sure that the gameplay and story elements are at their best to win over the critics and scrap it out with some chunky competition.

It’s coming out a little over a week after Minecraft Dungeons and then it’ll face competition from Marvel’s Avengers a week later, so it’s tightly packed either side by two of the year’s biggest releases. This gives it two big problems. The first is that it will have to compete for retail space and gamer dollars with two absolute behemoths and the second is that it might struggle to get much attention from YouTube gamers with so little time to cover all three games effectively.

If that isn’t enough, there’s also The Last Of Us Part II out later in May, so it’ll also struggle to get much attention from the gaming press. On a positive note, Fast & Furious 9 is out on May 22nd, so it’ll be able to tie into a little of the PR from this, but then that didn’t really help the Jumanji Video Game, so it might not be enough for Fast & Furious Crossroads.

Is the Fast & Furious trailer a flop fiasco?

On a positive note, the trailer is pretty decent. To begin with there’s definitely an initial grown at the thought of a cheep movie tie-in, but as the trailer develops you definitely get a sense that this is going to be something in its own right. The combat with the supersized tank out in what looks like Wild Wild West country is very cool and then there’s the moving train jump and the swinging wrecking balls.

The gameplay is all car combat and racing, which is a relatively small genre in the gaming world, so it’s going to start off with a smaller target audience right off the bat. It looks like it’s all going to come down to reviews, so the gameplay, content and story will all need to be top notch to prevent Fast & Furious Crossroads from being a flop.

Will Crossroads be a hit or flop?

Overall, you’ve got to expect Fast & Furious Crossroads to do well enough, even if the game itself ends up being a sack of Vin Diesel exhaust fumes. F&F has got a strong fan following and the tie-in with the film release should give it a nudge, but the biggest concern is that it’s coming out at a really crowded time for gaming. As a result, it’s bound to struggle to get attention, even if the game is amazing. 

As things stand, there’s a good indication that Fast & Furious Crossroads is going to be a minor flop, or at least an overshadowed release. However, it’s not too late for developers Slightly Mad Studios and distributors Bandai Namco to fix a few issues before the game arrives. Making sure it gets great reviews is going to be a big part of the equation, so getting the game tested by industry pros and YouTube gamers will help them to iron out any kinks.

The other thing that it might want to look at to prevent it from being a flop is to push back the release date. May is just too crowded, even though it’s the month that Fast & Furious 9 is out. The better option would be to link it to the DVD, Blu-Ray and digital release, which would give it less competition and the ability to use the home entertainment launch to bolt in promos for the game with inserts and bonus content featuring the game. 

If it did all of this and treated Crossroads as it’s own entity to promote with similar activity to the film itself then it could easily be a hit instead.