No Going Back

Independent global creative agency CUBO has joined forces with leading production house HALAL to create a festive blockbuster like no other - made using a creative process like no other. Every year, Wargaming organises a seasonal takeover by a movie star for its World of Tanks games across PC, mobile, and console. This year, the responsibilities fall to the renowned British football legend and movie star Vinnie Jones. Vinnie has a key role as an ambassador of the new Holiday Ops game, which will thrill millions of expectant fans around the world.

To reveal Vinnie Jones’s starring role, HALAL director Andzej Gavriss directed ‘No Going Back’ - a beautifully crafted, sumptuously filmed, five minute opus featuring Jones exuding star quality alongside a hardman Santa, and his gang of misfit elves.

For years, Vinnie Jones has been working covertly as Santa’s enforcer, dealing with those who have been naughty rather than nice. This year, however, Vinnie isn't here to hand out the punishments, but to hand over his resignation to Santa. He is leaving his post to seek a new opportunity: becoming a commander in World of Tanks ... but not before he and his crew knock out one last “naughty list.”

Created to promote World of Tanks’ 2023 Holiday Ops event, the ambitious film is an antidote to unoriginal and saccharine Christmas campaigns. Fittingly, this unconventional campaign was made in an unconventional way, using NYC-founded creative shop CUBO’s agile methodology. The entire campaign was conceived, written and approved in a ‘creative sprint’ that took just five days - with creatives, director, stand-in actors, production and client brainstorming and collaborating throughout. Incredibly, the idea, characters, script, storyboard, director’s treatment, animatic and scenes shot right then and there - plus multiple rounds of consumer testing - were not only achieved in a single week, but the result was a meticulously crafted film on a level with a classic gangster movie.

By fusing deep gaming audience knowledge with film-making craft and aesthetics, CUBO, HALAL and game publisher Wargaming created a festive spectacle that works across multiple markets, platforms and different audiences. The film is targeted at current and potential World of Tanks’ players on PC, mobile and console - amounting to a 200 million+ global niche of gamers.

The multilayered film unapologetically leans into tension and drama on the one hand - but offers belly laughs on the other. Bringing together iconic casting, art direction, production values and cinematography - all steered by a Hollywood-worthy script written by CUBO creative director Henry Scott together with copywriter and playwright Ryan Delehanty, with input from the entire team, including the cast - who were encouraged to improvise additional jokes and lines.

The campaign is directed by Andzej Gavriss, a rising star from Latvia who is now based in Berlin, and who shot to fame in 2022 after directing ‘We Will Become Better’, also via HALAL, an LGBTQIA+ PSA championing gay rights in Russia, which won two Cannes Lions. ‘No Going Back’ was filmed during an intense four day shoot, with a huge crew, complex production design - and not to forget 55 tons of temperamental vintage tank. All these moving (or not moving) parts were carefully orchestrated by HALAL’s Head of Production, Job Sanders.