Forza Horizon 5: The king of racers?
Forza Horizon 5 is the biggest racing game of the year. Here is the good, the bad and the ugly, having completed basically everything.
As a veteran Gran Turismo fan, I have fond memories of starting out with a fairly normal car that, once upgraded and honed by a string of pole positions, becomes cherished. That slow pacing made you bond as man and (digital) machine.
Forza Horizon 5, like its four predecessors, has no time for such sentiment. Within the first few minutes a number of dream-worthy machines are dropped out of a cargo plane and it is your job to bounce off their limiters and test the edge of grip. Forza time is as fast as its cars.
Not that I minded being given a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Coupe, Ford Bronco and Toyota Supra right off the bat. (The new versions, that is. No time for sentiment, remember?) Because the Forza games have always been about big highly accessible thrills and open-world cruising.
Forza Horizon 5: Viva la Mexico
Fame at last
That lovable recipe is the same here, only we now get to casually break traffic laws in Mexico (farewell, UK drizzle). It is Forza's largest and most diverse map, with 11 biomes that include seaside highways, colourful suburbs and dense jungle with hidden Mayan structures.
Compared with the UK, Mexico's scenery is more varied and less prone to seasonal shifts. A couple of areas are sparse, but generally it compels you to find every little hilltop church, Mayan temple, coastal arch, waterfall and gorge. It also has the longest runway since that Fast & Furious movie.
Exhibition races remain the jewel in the Forza crown as they are both ridiculous and grin-inducing. Without giving too much away, you race against and drive more than just your typical vehicles as you progress towards the new Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame is a new feature that displays your total number of points in Forza Horizon 5. Points that can be earned via racing, creating liveries, car tunes and, new to the series, accolades, which are mini challenges such as 'unlock 10 Forza Edition cars'.
What's new?
Not all vehicles in Forza Horizon 5 are created equal
Fundamentally, under the hood of Forza Horizon 5 is the same crack cocaine reward drip-feed as in previous Forza Horizons. Considering horizon in its name, there has less broadening than I had hoped. As I said in the early access preview, it is a case of refinement and not revolution.
That is not to say there is nothing new. Career progress via the new expedition system lets you unlock your favourite (or least favourite, perhaps) race types and complete them before moving on to the next. So if you favour rally over street racing, you can do that first.
These expedition moments can involve exploring a specific area while photographing hidden statues or locating a barn find rumour (spoiler-free guide here). Nothing too radical, but a welcome change of pace nonetheless. I wish there was more of this stuff.
As you complete events, tasks or whatever you enjoy doing, you earn money and experience. Both things help you unlock more cars that can be upgraded with parts for added potency. Want an engine conversion? No problem. You can even sample the engine noise before purchase.
Different cars, setups and driving styles are required for each race type. Fortunately for the less motoring savvy, you can download car tunes from other players. Or choose to target a certain class and auto upgrade fits parts automatically. D class being the slowest, X the fastest, with C, B, A, S1 and S2 in between.
Launching with 526 cars at launch, I doubt you will struggle to find a car that appeals to your inner petrolhead. However, many are repeats from Forza Horizon 4 and some models have been updated in real life since. Still, it is early days and DLC content is afoot.
Also new to Forza Horizon 5 are improved visuals, the ability to gift other players cars, new upgrade parts such as semi-slick tyres and a rally gearbox, custom Event Lab challenges made by the community (and involving piñatas) and improvements to online racing.
The grind is real
The storms in Mexico are absolutely brilliant
Familiarity is definitely a theme as you sink a lot of hours into Forza Horizon 5 (30 hours and counting for me, oops). The tuning menu, upgrade system, game modes, progress system and certain races are borrowed from previous Forza games.
With the brilliant set pieces in your rear-view a more grindy experience presents itself. Players are already buying up Toyota Supras to get cheap access to Super Wheelspins (randomised rewards where you can win three prizes such as a new car).
Option paralysis is also a thing. A combination of the still bloated user-interface and about a billion events strewn across Mexico’s vastness can make progress more tiring than it should be. Perhaps more of Gran Turismo's more rigid structure would occasionally be welcome?
So is Forza Horizon 5 worth it?
The McLaren Senna launch was not like this
Let’s get one thing straight. No doubt I will sink at least another 30 hours of my life into buying every car, finishing all events and hoping to win the overpowered Lamborghini Sesto Elemento Forza Edition.
And the main reason is that the core driving mechanics are far better. Cars feel heavier and more realistic. You can still turn many of them into F1-esque beasts, but generally everything drives more naturally. A to B has never been so thrilling.
It is that lovely handling feel (not necessarily as unrealistic as many people suggest) that helps you forgive the fact some tasks can be done in under a minute. A good shortcut means you would be old and grey by the time your opponent gets over the finish line.
And that most tasks are just normal races disguised with a few props such as movie cameras, bookended by mostly mundane, forgettable and un-skippable dialogue. Some is amusing, but having to sit through it over and over while you try to finish a race can grate.
Given how stunning Mexico is on all platforms (even on a Day One Xbox One), I was left wanting more gameplay variety and some sort of impact on the world.
Salt water erosion is not a thing in Forza Horizon 5, thankfully
The last three years of development have not been typical, of course. And even if Forza Horizon 5 has not had a flawless launch, the end result is top-notch. Not just for car guys, but anyone.
Little else makes such a compelling case for upgrading to an Xbox Series X or Series S and it is a no-brainer on Gamepass. At least tens of hours of entertainment for about as much as a monthly Netflix subscription? Hell yeah!
Forza games have always been about the enjoyment of driving. You, your chosen ride and the scenery. Forza Horizon 5 is as good as it gets in this department. Even if the time to get your favourite cars is shorter than elsewhere, the ride is no less rewarding.
If you enjoyed this review, feel free to see my car and game ramblings over on A Tribe Called Cars.
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Comments (21)
Had a first go last night for about 90 minutes so to early to make a proper call. I agree it plays surprisingly well on my relatively old Xbox one although the load times are quite long in some cases. It's a visual improvement over FH4 but so far I'm not seeing that much difference in the vehicle dynamics, also the stock brakes on the Porsche Taycan (Welcome Pack) are terrible, or is it just the lack of engine noise making me overshoot the marks?
I think it's great but they missed the mark in some areas, there should be more trucks and more suspension and tire options, it's Mexico! There famous for 3 things food, desert racing and the cartel
Just given it a whirl on my Series X. Whilst the quality graphics mode makes the cars look super shimmery in the sunshine, the fluidity and arcadey handling feel of the 60fps is the option to go for. Basically the extra Series X horsepower goes into making Forza Horizon 5 at 4K/60 play much better than FH4 on XBox one X at 4K/30. Looks, sounds and feels great, a genuine showcase for the power and wouldn’t be at all interested in a Series S as not worth the bother, stick with a XoneX until Series X is available. Only thing I’m missing is a dynamic scale at 8k as would love to see how it could look on my 82inch but hey, 4K upscaling does the job. Handling perhaps a little ‘on rails’ and feels like an arcade game with a CRT display from the early 90’s with a great sense of speed, despite not being realistic I prefer this feel to the catastrophic oversteering and lack of grip familiar to Gran Turismo. Good job Playground Games.
Forza Motorsports was once great. Not the best sim, but a good community. Now the entire Forza series has been tainted by Horizons. Horizons ruined the motorsports series. It's turned me off of the series entirely. Although I'll give Horizons credit for being a "pretty" game, it's not exactly good. Well, the Hot Wheels expansion was pretty good, but other than that it's bad racing. I an a person who wants to race on tracks and set fast lap times and have wheel to wheel racing with out worrying to much about getting smashed off the track. And Forza/Turn10 have been to slow to do anything about those who ruin races/lobbies. Then they create the "race marshal" program, which leads to corrupt officials. I speak first hand on this, as I had a falling out with a guy I raced with for years. He became a race marshal, and was only trying to get people banned. That was his only real goal. Instead of just booting someone from a lobby, he'd let them stay in until he would get a bunch of video to get them banned.
I moved on to GTSport, which even at a 1/4 of a GT game, it provided better racing than anything Forza had to offer. Getting into the leagues was great, because they'd use the F1 style tire requirements meaning you had to pit 1-2 times a race to change compounds. They used a ranking system and once you got out of the novice stuff, the racing got REALLY good. (similar to iRacing) Gran Turismo has the right ideas. Forza? They are after the dollar sign, and gemics. GT? They've at least stayed true to their original concept - provide great racing for the console users with street cars, and race cars.
GT is in my opinion the best driving game out there. The physics aren't perfect but still pretty damn good, graphics always stunning and traditionally one of the best careee modes (or GT modes) out there. Race strategy is important as you...
Read moreI’m excited to play this in 4k! Really hoping the visuals live up to the hype on series x. Still more excited about gran turismo and Forza motorsport though. At least it’s a new map either way i never cared for the last one.