As far as quality video game movies go, the bar is set pretty low, which is why it came as a pleasant surprise to hear that Free Guy,a film based around the life of an NPC in an open-world sandbox game,was received well in early screenings. During last night's red carpet debut for the feature, a surprise guest of honor made an appearance: the Halo Infinite Warthog.
As shown by both the official 20th Century Studios and Halo Infinite Twitter accounts yesterday evening, Free Guy star Ryan Reynolds wasn't the only one turning heads at the premiere. The tactical offensive vehicle was placed right in the center of the red carpet for photo ops. Although it doesn't feature the iconic chaingun that usually sticks out of the top of the vehicle, because of its UNSC decal and green color, there was no mistaking it for a more typical open-roof jeep.
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So far, only photos of Free Guy's cast and crew standing with the Warthog have been made public: the four photos posted by 20th Century Studios feature Ryan Reynolds, Lil Rel Howery, Ninja, and Free Guy's director, Shawn Levy standing and sitting on the classic Halo humvee.
Although both tweets about the film call the vehicle a Warthog, diehard fans of the Halo series would specifically classify this variant of the humvee as an M12 or M12B as it doesn't feature the M41 heavy machine gun mounted on its back. Questions regarding its status as a functional car were answered in detail by Microsoft in an Xbox Wire post.
Halo Infinite studio 343 Industries teamed up with motorsport brand Hoonigan Industries to create a working replica of the Warthog. The Xbox Wire post boasts that the vehicle was entirely custom-built and is "fully functional and off-road tested featuring a 1000+ horsepower, twin turbo small block Ford V8, the same engine that powers Ken Block’s Ford Mustang Hoonicorn V2."
In addition to providing the Warthog to Free Guy's red carpet, Xbox made sure to mention in its blog post about the vehicle that fans can expect to see it featured in the film itself alongside some other tanky-er vehicles from the Halo universe. It's unclear if that's to mean that Free Guy will feature exclusively UNSC tech, or if Covenant Wraiths, Ghosts, or Banshees are also inbound.
This won't be the only on-screen appearances that the Warthog will be making, as the upcoming Halo TV series on Paramount Plus will also include the humvee. Onset photos that made their way to Twitter earlier this year confirm that Warthogs, among other iconic Halo vehicles, will be featured in the series.
Halo Infinite is in development for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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Source: Xbox Wire
