Free Fast & Furious Races Ahead of Furious 7 Release

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious, the video game add-on and tie in for this spring’s Furious 7 movie premiere, is now available for Xbox One owners to download to their console absolutely free.

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious arrived as video game download in the Xbox One Store this morning. The game is technically an expansion of the Forza Horizon 2. Forza Horizon 2 was the $60 arcade racing simulator that arrived on the Xbox One last year. Being an expansion pack, one might expect Microsoft to require that users own Forza Horizon 2 before doing anything with Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious. That’s not true though. The download is free and works for anyone, whether they have a copy of Forza Horizon 2 or not.

In Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious Xbox One owners get to experience all of the action from Furious 7 and other movies in the franchise. Each car is a replica of a car included in the live-action movies like Furious 7. A promotional video for the game last year indicated Microsoft’s developers tried hard to deliver an authentic driving feel taken straight out of the movie franchise. Drifting in Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious should give players the same sensations. Every car has the same customizations as its movie counterpart in Furious 7 too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z4_CdMlgIs

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious was developed by Playground Games, the same studio that developed Forza Horizon for the Xbox 360 and Forza Horizon 2 for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Another Forza title is due out at the end of this year. Called Forza Motorsport 6, this version of the game will be exclusive to the Xbox One. Typically, Horizon titles try to strike a fun, arcade racer feel while Motorsport titles are really about customizing vehicles, finding the perfect upgrades, assembling a fleet of cars you trust and racing against your friends on the world’s most famous tracks. We still don’t have an actual release date for Forza Motorsport 6. We’re not expecting more news about Forza Motorsport 6 until this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in June.

Read: 7 Xbox One Games to Get Excited for in 2015

To be clear, Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious, the expansion, is absolutely free for users to download. That being said, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t fees involved. Microsoft says that it does plan to start charging for Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious on April 10th. When it does, the standalone game will cost all Xbox One owners $9.99. There’s also Forza Horizon 2 G-Shock Car Pack that the Xbox website says is compatible with the game. It costs $4.99 and adds another set of vehicles.

There’s also the very real price of upgrading if you don’t have an Xbox One already. Forza Horizon 2 may have arrived on the Xbox One and Xbox 360, but Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious won’t. It’s exclusively available on the Xbox One, leaving users to upgrade if they really want to get their hands on the free game.

The Xbox One is available on store shelves now for $349 without a Kinect 2 sensor and includes a copy of Halo: The Master Chief Collection. $449 gets users an Xbox One with Assassin’s Creed Unity, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, Dance Central Spotlight and a Kinect 2 sensor for voice and gesture control in apps and some games. Buying an Xbox One just to get Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious seems a bit extreme, but those who are already planning to purchase the console sometime in the future can add the title to their collection on the Xbox website so that it’s there when they make the leap.

Furious 7 arrives in theaters April 3rd.

Update: There’s an Xbox 360 version of Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious available in the Xbox Store now.