Forza Horizon 5

[DEALUX]

It was just announced. The Mexico location is now confirmed. I guess that was technically spoiled by the Series X reveal trailer (it featured an AMG in a desert location).

 

 

 

 

[Misumi]

It's Forza Horizon 4: Chipotle Edition

[Pizzahut]

Finally, a place where souped up sh*tboxes actually kinda makes sense.

[Misumi]

I'm looking forward to driving a 3000HP taco truck while being shot at by cartel members.

[Ivan1997GTA]

Mexico? That's an interesting choice for a location in the next Forza Horizon game, though I was kinda hoping for a dual continent FH game, taking place in Russia and Japan, across two different maps.

 

Hope there's gonna be a radio station dedicated to Latin rap and rock. It would be killer to have some Molotov in there. (and they should update the game's rating to an E10+ with mild lyrics so that we could avoid the same fiasco of FH4 songs being either censored or removed entirely).

Edited June 14, 2021 by Ivan1997GTA

[Misumi]

I hope it doesn't rain in Mexico as much as it did on the Forza Horizon 4 map. It didn't matter what season it was, the ground seemed wet 90% of the time. Drifting is less fun when the wet ground takes all of the smoke away.

[Jason]

Announcement of E3 for me, cannot wait for this.

[Testarossa]

as someone from Mexico i'm incredibly hyped for this, the game looks absolutely beautiful and I feel there's a lot more variety in the map compared to FH4's UK. 

[Jason]

11 minutes ago, Testarossa said:

as someone from Mexico i'm incredibly hyped for this, the game looks absolutely beautiful and I feel there's a lot more variety in the map compared to FH4's UK. 

 

Yea 100% there is. I'm from the UK so I loved the UK map and will miss it, but seeing the footage here reminded me of how little variety FH4's map has.

 

Lush jungle like areas, deserts, volcanoes, decent sized looking town, all looks great.

[dieseltech20]

Looks great, can't wait to play it.

[Commander S]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

 

Yea 100% there is. I'm from the UK so I loved the UK map and will miss it, but seeing the footage here reminded me of how little variety FH4's map has.

 

Lush jungle like areas, deserts, volcanoes, decent sized looking town, all looks great.

 

 

Same here - FH4 is uniquely good at pushing my nostalgia buttons, and that's because it's such an uncanny replica of that particular neck of the woods. But the downside of doing a scale replica of the Lake District and the surrounds is that ...well, if you're not bowled over by realistic British woods, fields, cottages and dry stone walls, it'll probably just come across as somewhat dull and same-y. Shades of Yahtzee's gag about why open-world cities lean more towards New York than Coventry, or why there's never been a Grand Theft Biggleswade... 

 

It's a bit like the jump to the more varied and exciting scenery of Australia in FH3 after the lovely-if-same-y fields and rustic towns of FH2 - except with the added advantage that Playground has only ever improved things like skies, terrain elevation, and the ability to break off from the road and drive 'as the crow flies' (I've been dipping back into the older games recently, and it's jarring going from being able to smash through barriers in 4, only to have your car slam into them in 2 - and 3, to a lesser extent). So from what they've showed off today, FH5 could be the best of both worlds: all the advances made by 4 (and then some), but in a map with more of the pizzazz of 3.

 

For example, you've got deserts for the first time since 3, but (presumably) with the improvements made for off-roading and cross-country driving/racing made in 4 - that sounds like the perfect recipe for proper sand duning. Particularly with a really, really good initial selection of off-roaders in that trailer: "Desert Flyer" Porsche 964, LP Racing Macan, and both the new Bronco and new Defender (I thought they'd save one of those for the usual rally/off-road expansion, so it's great to see both in at launch). Makes me hope that they use Baja as the basis for the first DLC map - goodness knows what they'll do for the second, more outlandish one, though...

[Misumi]

Forza Horizon 5 page is up on Steam if you're a wishlisting kind of person.

[DEALUX]

13 hours ago, KDA said:

Forza Horizon 5 page is up on Steam if you're a wishlisting kind of person.

I don't know if the Steam version will be the sh*t version or not in the long term. FH4 is allegedly the worse version vs Windows Store version but the Store is a steaming pile of sh*t generally and it can f*ck with game's compatibility long term.

[Lotte]

im probably not gonna get it on launch like i did with horizon 4 but like, i'm sure i'll pick it up eventually

[Jason]

Day 1 for me, especially as I have Games Pass so... no reason not to, I'll probably buy the ult upgrade as well for the VIP and DLC packs.

[Misumi]

2 hours ago, DEALUX said:

I don't know if the Steam version will be the sh*t version or not in the long term. FH4 is allegedly the worse version vs Windows Store version but the Store is a steaming pile of sh*t generally and it can f*ck with game's compatibility long term.

 

At this point, I'm convinced I must be the only one on the internet that has had no problems with the Windows store/Xbox on PC. 😂

[DEALUX]

6 minutes ago, KDA said:

 

At this point, I'm convinced I must be the only one on the internet that has had no problems with the Windows store/Xbox on PC. 😂

There are odd v-sync issues that come and go on Windows 10. I was running Forza games with v-sync turned off everywhere but G-sync + Fast sync on and the game was acting like I had v-sync on which tanked the framerate in some scenarios. There are weird bugs like that which can happen due to Windows updates and it only seems to affect their games. Not Steam stuff.

 

Edit: Forza Horizon 3 was prone to crashing a lot and had very frequent stutters depending on the performance target you selected and your CPU.

Edited June 15, 2021 by DEALUX

[Misumi]

2 minutes ago, DEALUX said:

There are odd v-sync issues that come and go on Windows 10. I was running Forza games with v-sync turned off everywhere but G-sync + Fast sync on and the game was acting like I had v-sync on which tanked the framerate in some scenarios. There are weird bugs like that which can happen due to Windows updates and it only seems to affect their games. Not Steam stuff.

 

Edit: Forza Horizon 3 was prone to crashing a lot and had very frequent stutters depending on the performance target you selected and your CPU.

 

I'm not denying that it might be sh*t for others, but I swear, if you read things online, it seems like 99% of people have a terrible experience with it. So I've always found it funny to see everyone else having problems, while I'm just here coasting without a fuss.

 

1,000+ hours in FH3, and coming close to 1,400 hours in FH4. Smooth sailing in all of those hours. None of the Windows updates have done anything negative to impact my gaming on Game Pass, and I update my PC almost as soon as I get notified for them.

 

 

[Mister Pink]

Jeff Grubb et all were right about this being revealed at E3. I think it looks great. However, I'm not a huge fan of off-road stuff. It looks like I might just try get into it. Its looks for fun in Mexico than it does in 4, for the most part. 5 might be the game were off-road adventure clicks with me. 

 

It's been rumoured to be in Mexico for a good while now, that was also true.  I would have loved Japan or somewhere else in Europe. However, Mexico is nice and I like that Playground keep it fresh by bringing the series to unexpected places. I wish Rockstar would bring us to unexpected places 😛 

 

I'll certainly being playing this on release day. Interested in what kind of "campaign" they have. 

[DEALUX]

3 hours ago, Mister Pink said:

Jeff Grubb et all were right about this being revealed at E3. I think it looks great. However, I'm not a huge fan of off-road stuff. It looks like I might just try get into it. Its looks for fun in Mexico than it does in 4, for the most part. 5 might be the game were off-road adventure clicks with me. 

 

It's been rumoured to be in Mexico for a good while now, that was also true.  I would have loved Japan or somewhere else in Europe. However, Mexico is nice and I like that Playground keep it fresh by bringing the series to unexpected places. I wish Rockstar would bring us to unexpected places 😛 

 

I'll certainly being playing this on release day. Interested in what kind of "campaign" they have. 

I think it was spoiled in the Series X trailer nearly 2 years ago which featured a car similar to the AMG One. The trailer starts with a desert setting and ends once the hypercar enters the scene suggesting all along that this was some sort of Forza game. It could have easily been some American location but I honestly didn't piece it together at the time. I thought they were just mixing video games in one big trailer.

 

 

[Mister Pink]

42 minutes ago, DEALUX said:

I think it was spoiled in the Series X trailer nearly 2 years ago which featured a car similar to the AMG One. The trailer starts with a desert setting and ends once the hypercar enters the scene suggesting all along that this was some sort of Forza game. It could have easily been some American location but I honestly didn't piece it together at the time. I thought they were just mixing video games in one big trailer.

 

Yeah what a nice little hint that was.  

 

Playground must be really growing because they said Horizon 5 is built from the ground up. I thought it was only FM7 that was getting that treatment.  Playground must have been working on H5 immediately after H4 if not, there being some overlap - with Fable 4 too. 

 

I think Horizon 5 is going to feel like a real "next-gen" experience. 

[DEALUX]

1 hour ago, Mister Pink said:

Playground must be really growing because they said Horizon 5 is built from the ground up. I thought it was only FM7 that was getting that treatment.

I think the upgrades are mostly related to the graphics side of things. Everything looks more HDR but the physics actually seem more arcadey, which is an interesting change.

 

I don't think they're using the new wheel model from the updated ForzaTech in the upcoming Motorsport game. If you look at the slow-mo shots in the trailer you can actually see how the tires collide more realistically with the ground compared to the rest of the Forza games.

 

 

[Jason]

Good interview here on the game: https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2021-06-17-the-big-forza-horizon-5-interview-theres-not-any-point-being-bigger-if-its-more-of-the-same?__twitter_impression=true

 

This bit caught my eye:

 

Quote

And what about stuff to do organically with other players out on the map? Because when Forza Horizon 4 first launched, I think the main thing to do was Forzathon Live. And, for me anyway, that didn't quite work. It felt like it was great seeing all these other players driving around, but I wasn't sure what to do with them.

 

Mike Brown: It's a good call out. So, Forzathon Live has been retired and replaced with the Horizon Arcade. Whereas Forzathon Live gave you one game mode on the hour, every hour, which was cool, it had a negative in that once you'd completed it, it just kind of ended. You were left to your own devices and everybody just kind of drove off, which always just felt a little bit sad.

 

Horizon Arcade means that there's these public events on the map going on all the time. Really low friction, you can drive into the area to take part, there's no loading screens, no menus or anything. Rather than the one game mode we had in Forzathon Live, there's now 12 different game modes as well, they're all intended to be little, fun minigames, and they're all collaborative as well. So none of them are a case of like, we're going to find out who's the best driver - it's all things you can work together as a group to overcome the objective. And as soon as one finishes, because they're happening all the time, it'll just route that group to the next one. You can just drive away and not take part if you want to, but the kind of natural flow is that you stick together and you go into another one, you just kind of hop around the map taking part in these different minigames.

 

I really like the sound of that. I did really like Forzathon Live in 4 but it got very repetitive very quick and the hourly format sorta pressured you into going out your way to do it if it was about to start. This though sounds like a really good, drop in, drop out replacement that you can do whenever you want.

[Jason]

Stream showing off some of the new engine sounds they've done for the game: 

 

 

 

Gameplay starts around 17:40 into the video.

 

They're using bloody raytracing for some of the audio lmao.

[Mister Pink]

The attention to detail by using different tire sounds based on their size and softness is really nice. 

 

I'm also in awe of the level of detail of the foliage is superb. Going from mostly grey Britain to sunny Mexico is a nice change, visually too. 

[DEALUX]

I'm curious if they were actually recording each specific car engine sound before. That seems impossible to do with every single car in the game but honestly I couldn't really complain about car sounds in previous games.

[Failed Again]

 

 

On 7/13/2021 at 1:30 PM, DEALUX said:

I'm curious if they were actually recording each specific car engine sound before. That seems impossible to do with every single car in the game but honestly I couldn't really complain about car sounds in previous games.

 Developer stated they recorded  320 cars

[Mister Pink]

On 7/27/2021 at 6:37 PM, Failed Again said:

Developer stated they recorded  320 cars

That is insane. Just to think the mammoth task of securing those cars to record gives me a headache. I love this commitment to the game. 

 

The dirt and gravel rallying in this looks really good. Takes me back to my WRC/Colin McCrae Rally days.

 

New screens show casing the different biomes. First one reminds me of Horizon 2  
 

Spoiler

 

 

The water just on the left.. wow

 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Mister Pink

[Failed Again]

Terrain is better than RDR2, and more Horsepower

[Jason]

At this point I think I'ma go dark on footage, don't want to spoil the map for my self and I've already seen enough to justify my... uh, I'd say pre-order but Games Pass yo.

 

Might have to buy the VIP/Ult upgrade day 1 though...