Game Fuel (Mango Heat) (formerly known as Mango Habanero during taste testing) was a Mountain Dew flavor test marketed in a "Dew After Dark" campaign program from October to November 2014 alongside three other Vault flavors. After testing, two years later, it was released as a Game Fuel flavor alongside Game Fuel (Citrus Cherry) as a part of the Game Fuel Promotion to promote the video game Titanfall 2.
Description[]
Game Fuel (Mango Heat) was a Mango flavor of Mountain Dew and had a orange look. The student from the Reddit post stated that "The Habanero Mango tasted like really Spicy Mango."
Half-diet formulation[]
- Main article: Flavor 514C
Game Fuel (Mango Heat) alongside the reformulation of Game Fuel (Citrus Cherry) were the first Mountain Dew varieties to receive a "half-diet" formula, with the High Fructose Corn Syrup content being reduced by half and also featured the addition of the artificial sweeteners Sucrolose and Acesulfame Potassium. This change lowered the calorie count to 100 calories for a standard can and 170 calories for a bottle.
Tagline[]
Its tagline was "DEW with a Blast of Mango Heat Flavor with Other Natural Flavors."
History[]
2014 Colleges and Universities test release[]
From October to November 2014, PepsiCo launched a campaign program named: "Dew After Dark," aimed at college students in colleges and universities to taste test four Flavor Vault flavors as potential limited-time Game Fuel flavors. The flavors tested here were as follows: Lemonade with Ginger (Vault flavor 1), DEWitos (Vault flavor 2), Mango Habanero (Vault flavor 3), and Rainbow Sherbet (Vault flavor 4).
During testing, DEWitos went viral from a Reddit post alongside the other vault flavors in other headline news sources. As a response, PepsiCo confirmed that this is a real in a statement: “We are always testing out new flavors of Mountain Dew, and giving our fans a voice in helping decide on the next new product has always been important to us,” and “We opened up the DEW flavor vault and gave students a chance to try this Doritos-inspired flavor as part of a small program at colleges and universities.”
After the taste testing, DEWitos, as well as Lemonade with Ginger and Rainbow Sherbet didn't receive a release, while Mango Habanero was modified into a Game Fuel flavor named Mango Heat and released in Late 2016.
2016 U.S. Game Fuel release[]
On March 24th, 2016, Mango Habanero (now called Game Fuel (Mango Heat)) was first leaked from a Tumblr post and showed a photograph of a PepsiCo 2016 release schedule from a Mountain Dew fan-page named MountainDewFTW. The schedule was sent to MountainDewFTW from a fan with ties to a Pepsi representative, and there was no additional information until May 24th.
On May 24th, 2016, on a deleted r/Titanfall post that Titanfall 2 would be releasing in October, and was confirmed that the Mountain Dew leak was legitimate. A day later, a clear photograph of Mango Heat and Citrus Cherry was leaked on a Facebook post, further corroborating that both flavors would promote the video game Titanfall 2 as a part of the Game Fuel Promotion.
It was officially released in stores in the United States on October 1st, 2016, for a limited time alongside Game Fuel (Citrus Cherry) and was sold in 12-packs and 20-ounce bottles. Both flavors stayed on store shelves until December 31st, 2016 when the Game Fuel promotion concluded.
International release[]
Canada[]
Game Fuel (Mango Heat) was released in Canada for a limited time exclusively at 7-Eleven stores in April 2017, available in 16-ounce cans and in Slurpee form. It had none of the usual Game Fuel branding that its American counterpart had, and was instead sold as a regular Mountain Dew flavor.
The Canadian release, as with the US version, also utilized the same "Half-Diet" formula.
Trivia[]
- This event was one of the many taste test sessions that Mountain Dew has hosted in a long time. Another test session was in 2009, where they held a tour of 17 cities in the United States to taste test seven flavors for the DEWmocracy 2 campaign.
- When both Game Fuel flavors promoting Titanfall 2, it broke the two-year Call of Duty promoting streak set with 2014's Game Fuel (Lemonade) and 2015's Game Fuel (Berry Lime).