Forza Horizon 5

[GTA3Rockstar]

Can't wait to play it on my new 3080 build!

 

 

[lndex]

I've got it downloaded on the pass, though i didn't realise it was early access for those who bought the £80 version, right? Me and my mate wanted to play it tonight aswell. I'll probs give it a whirl on the 9th i guess... But with BF ea and that coming out on the 12th. 

Edited November 4, 2021 by DEADWOODZ

[Misumi]

I'm still killing time on Back 4 Blood so I don't even mind. I have a feeling this is just gonna be Forza Horizon 4 on a new map so I'm in no rush. I bought the Ultimate edition of FH3/FH4, and it was not worth it. Playground isn't fooling me again.

[Jason]

25 minutes ago, DEADWOODZ said:

I've got it downloaded on the pass, though i didn't realise it was early access for those who bought the £80 version, right? Me and my mate wanted to play it tonight aswell. I'll probs give it a whirl on the 9th i guess... But with BF ea and that coming out on the 12th. 

 

Premium edition or the Premium add-on's pack, the latter is made for GP users and is about £35 or so.

[Commander S]

No Alfa at launch = no 33 Stradale for the time being, which is a bummer.  Still, so many, many fantastic cars did make the cut (it's a trade-off: didn't have the Eclipse GSX at launch for FH4, but it's in as standard here) - particularly the new stuff in the Day 1 car pack. Mild spoilers below:

 

Spoiler

New Formula Drift/Forsberg Racing car pack - so in addition to the FH4 Formula Drift cars (which are in as standard, similar to Hoonigan), you've got stuff like Fredric Aasbø's new A90 Supra, and Ryan Tuerck's Corolla (possible new favourite hot hatch?). Oh, and Chris Forsberg's 2JZ-powered NASCAR Camry, and his personal "Gold Leader" 280Z, which might wind up being my new daily, when I get around to buying all the DLC extras (bring on those January sales...):

 

 

 

 

Also, here's Digital Foundry's article with comparisons on all platforms - nice to see that even for what is (almost certainly) the last Xbone Forza title, Playground still managed to squeeze a good-looking 1080/30 on base machines, just like they did with going back to Horizon 2. Lord knows what an Xbox Series-only FH6 is going to achieve by the time 2024 (I presume ?) rolls around...

Edited November 4, 2021 by Commander S

[ddarko12]

The game is quite frankly amazing. They revised most, if not all sounds. I mean I even drove old, niche cars like the Jag XFRS, car that has sounded weak since FH3. It now sounds like FH1 or FH2, deep growly and raspy. RS6 V10 sounds a whole lot better... that's the small stuff.

 

The maps huge, the switchback on the caldera is almost as awesome as Red Rock in FH1, and even with the map on I have no clue where I'm going most of the time. I use the volcano as a guide lmao.

 

It's just a great game, you can tell they really did it up and put in their best effort... I mean I found a lot of things to complain about after the initial novelty of FH4 wore off... this game the only thing Im bitchin about is the 458 speciale, gtc4lusso and new e63 being wheelspin exclusives. 

 

The games just gorgeous. I can tell im probably gonna wind up playing 2000 hours of it before the next installment lmfao.

 

I mean, even the way automatics shift now is amazing. They sound like modern autos not sluggish and manual.

Edited November 4, 2021 by ddarko12

[Jason]

The regions surrounding the volcano are straight up 10/10.

 

[Mexicola9302]

Maybe this helps some ppl.

 

Release Countdown for Steam (Works Worldwide)

Edited November 5, 2021 by Mexicola9302

[Ivan1997GTA]

10 hours ago, Commander S said:

No Alfa at launch = no 33 Stradale for the time being, which is a bummer.  Still, so many, many fantastic cars did make the cut (it's a trade-off: didn't have the Eclipse GSX at launch for FH4, but it's in as standard here) - particularly the new stuff in the Day 1 car pack. Mild spoilers below:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

New Formula Drift/Forsberg Racing car pack - so in addition to the FH4 Formula Drift cars (which are in as standard, similar to Hoonigan), you've got stuff like Fredric Aasbø's new A90 Supra, and Ryan Tuerck's Corolla (possible new favourite hot hatch?). Oh, and Chris Forsberg's 2JZ-powered NASCAR Camry, and his personal "Gold Leader" 280Z, which might wind up being my new daily, when I get around to buying all the DLC extras (bring on those January sales...):

 

 

Wow, looks like drift cars now finally have their own category instead of being Extreme Track Toys.

[Plage]

The game makes a good impression. Some nice new features like for example different FFB settings for offroad and asphalt make driving with a wheel much more pleasant.

 

Importing liveries (Designs) from FH4 also works already. Here's the first port.

 

 

[Mister Pink]

This is easily the best Horizon map so far. The map seems so complete, so balanced. I love that the long highway practically goes east to west but then north and south of the map have their own beautiful and brilliant winding roads that there isn't a point of the map I want to avoid. Often the roads at the end of the map, both ends are some of my favourite routes to cruise and take. And I haven't done any racing yet. I've only been cruising, collecting boards and speeding up and down the highway trying to get high multiplier scores. Most I got was over 800,000  I'm going to go for 1 million. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Commander S]

13 hours ago, Ivan1997GTA said:

Wow, looks like drift cars now finally have their own category instead of being Extreme Track Toys.

 

 

Oh, cool - makes sense, because there's a world of difference between something like the Formula Drift Viper and the Vulcan AMR Pro, but they're shoved together in FH4. Helps that there's now enough bespoke drift cars in FH5 to warrant a separate class, obviously!
 

 

Btw, quick money-saving PSA for anyone who's just getting the base version to begin with, and then considering the VIP/Premium stuff later: you get two houses (one of which is rather pricey) for free, plus a discount voucher off any car in the Autoshow. If you don't want to waste potentially millions of credits, consider holding off on buying:

 

- Lugar Tranquilo (orange-painted house on the east coast, with a mural on the wall): 700,000 CR, or free with the Welcome Pack

- La Casa Solariega (white mansion in the centre of the map, south of the highway): 1,500,000 CR, or free with the VIP upgrade

 

Plus maybe save the free car voucher for one of the more expensive cars, such as the Shelby Daytona (30 million!), Ferrari 250 California (18 million), McLaren F1 GT (15 million), etc. - likewise, check the Car Collection page for the unlock requirements for steep cars, because something like the Koenigsegg Jesko gets unlocked for free through accolades, so it's clearly cheaper to get it that way!

[Misumi]

Do houses do anything in this game, or are they just useless glorified festivals like FH4?

[Jason]

Two pet peeves so far really. I'm not much of a tuner my self so I rely on posted tunes but it seems like everyone is now using 7-10 speed gearboxes in their tunes (from looking it seems like there's not much choice in sticking with 5/6 speeds) which I'm finding tedious in actual racing due to the amount of shifting required. We'll see how it goes as the good tunes rise to the top, and I may end up dabbling it in my self if only so I can make sure my go-to cars are on 7 speeds vs 9-10 cause f*ck that's a lot of gears to go through.

 

The second is that the AI is pretty damn overtuned, especially on higher difficulties and especially when you get to S1/S2 class racing. Once you get into S1 and especially S2 the AI just takes off like a spaceship, there's no keeping up with them even in properly tuned vehicles like the Divo or Senna. Seen a fair few people talking about this as well, sorta hoping Playground can balance them a bit better before the trials start cause oh god they are gonna be annoying as f*ck with the AI as they are now.

 

Beyond that though I'm loving it. Got the formula drift cars and flew around the map 3 starring all the drift zones, saving up for a Jesko I think before I go nail on the speed traps and jumps.

 

[dieseltech20]

3 hours ago, Misumi said:

Do houses do anything in this game, or are they just useless glorified festivals like FH4?

They are exactly the same thing they were in 4.

[Misumi]

[Quinn_flower]

how is it im dl now on pc. 

[ddarko12]

11 hours ago, Mister Pink said:

This is easily the best Horizon map so far. The map seems so complete, so balanced. I love that the long highway practically goes east to west but then north and south of the map have their own beautiful and brilliant winding roads that there isn't a point of the map I want to avoid. Often the roads at the end of the map, both ends are some of my favourite routes to cruise and take. And I haven't done any racing yet. I've only been cruising, collecting boards and speeding up and down the highway trying to get high multiplier scores. Most I got was over 800,000  I'm going to go for 1 million. 

It is by far the best map. And enormous. I did Goliath (which is 34 miles mind you) in a Centenario and it took 13 minutes. It's honestly amazing how many random isolated roads there are. You could just go driving for hours on end, and it's really fun with the map off, although even with the map on I sometimes struggle to figure out where I'm going.

 

With a map this good, the car selection is even better. What other modern racing game lets you drive cars like the M5 E34/E39/E60? Or the RS6 from 2003 and 2006? There's just so much variety, and now with better sounds and detail ... idk, it's just astonishing. I see why IGN gave it a 10/10. It's damn near that.

 

And I forget that we have seasons. So what we have rn is only 1/4th of the experience lol. Thunderstorms, snow on the volcano, tropical storms, etc are to come later.

[Testarossa]

Was gonna write a long post about my thoughts so far but I forgot so here goes. This is probably my new favorite racing game ever, even topping out FH1. Honestly the best Horizon game so far. I think I will make separate posts for my thoughts so I wanna start off by talking about the map.

 

The love and detail that got put into the map, as a Mexican, is incredible. They absolutely nailed the design and architecture of the rural buildings and structures found roadside, like this cafe I found, and you can totally see this typical design for restaurants (specifically seafood and seaside restaurants!) in rural Mexico. It's a concrete block structure with a straw roof, thin wooden pillars supporting it and outside of it a bunch of plastic tables and chairs that in real life would be usually Corona or Coca-Cola/Pepsi branded. Even the building next door has the typical cable satellite dish you can find on the facade of actual homes, usually Sky or Dish branded.

 

 

Houses have water tanks (or tinacos) on their roof, most of them concrete brick built and slightly in need of a new lick of paint after the sun has faded their paint or peeled it off. Some are even half built or "en obra negra" with steel or aluminum pillars sticking out of them for further expansion or construction. Most rural homes found off the side of the road aren't even painted, or are built out of wood and have a metal roof because those were the cheapest materials available.

 

 

 

The main city, Guanajuato, is dense and full of tight, twisty corners and maze-like roads, it's really fun to drive through. The city is so colorful and vibrant, and the landmarks are really cool to admire. You can even visit the regional museum, the Alhóndiga de Granaditas, which is where the first major battle in Mexico's War of Independence happened. Also included is the University of Guanajuato which was heavily featured on the 1000 peso bill for a while. There are also street markets filled with stands selling raspados (a Mexican sort of iced dessert) traditional clothing, and other arts and crafts.

 

 

 

As for the archeological sites, I haven't been privilieged enough to visit all of them, but I've at least gone to visit Teotihuacán, and they managed to capture it pretty well in this game, and even went a step further by making the main street, the Calzada de los Muertos, a drag strip. Only gripe is that the Pyramid of the Sun was rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise to what it looks in real life, the steps should be facing the main strip and not be facing southwest. Other than that, it was pretty fun visiting a place I've gone to a few times during my childhood. 

 

 

Overall, I think this is such an incredibly good and varied map, and what I've talked about so far barely scratches the surface of how big it is. In comparison, FH4's Goliath at max speed in an S2 car took around 8-9 minutes, this takes about 10-15. It is absolutely massive compared to FH4 and the different biomes really feel different from one each other, like a sort of world within a world. I can't recommend exploring it day one enough just to get a feel of it enough. It reminds me a lot of FH3 and FH1, with the main city reminding me a lot of towns like Saint-Martin and Montellino in FH2 with how twisty it is. ¡Buen trabajo, Playground!

Edited November 6, 2021 by Testarossa

[Ivan1997GTA]

I know that it's too early to tell, but what DLC map expansions do you think we'll get in the upcoming year?

 

The first one's obviously gonna be a Storm Island/Blizzard Mountain/Fortune Island-styled expansion, and the second map expansions (with the exception of the Porsche expansion pack in FH2 and its standalone Fast & Furious expansion pack) were usually themed after a toyline, like Hot Wheels in FH3, or the disappointing Lego Speed Champions in FH4. I'm gonna guess that, for the second map expansion in FH5, Playground Games and Turn 10 will probably do a partnership with Disney/Pixar to do a Cars-themed map expansion, with a possible variant of Radiator Springs, and add Cars-styled body kits and liveries to various vehicles, like a tow truck body kit for the Ford F-100 to make it resemble Mater. That, or maybe they could do a special "Forza Horizon 10th Anniversary" pack. Then again, they could do both.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Ivan1997GTA

[Jason]

Not that sure a Fortune Island style map is even needed here tbh, the map has far more extreme terrain than anything Fortune Island put out so one of the selling points of that map probs aint gonna sell as well here unless they go absolutely wild.

 

I think a stunt themed DLC would be good tbh, one thing I liked about the lego map was that it had a bunch of dedicated spots on the map designed with stunts in mind, be it jumps, smashables, drifting etc.

[Plage]

The problem with the gearboxes is that for the most part only 7-10 gear ones are available as tunable upgrade. I've no clue who came up with this idea but it's definitely a bad decision.

 

I've simply pushed the 7th or more gears that I don't want out of the working range. Meaning the car will reach top speed in 6th gear already. It's a bit odd but works at least if you shift manually.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Plage

[Jason]

7 minutes ago, Plage said:

The problem with the gearboxes is that for the most part only 7-10 gear ones are available as tunable upgrade. I've no clue who came up with this idea but it's definitely a bad decision.

 

Yea I noticed this when I went to investigate it my self. It's bizarre and hopefully they add 5 or 6 speed tunable upgrades in a patch cause 7-10 speeds just feel awful to race with on the lower end cars. It's alright if your car does 250mph+, but in A class or under racing it's horrible, there's waaaaay too much shifting and while the stats may say you're quick the amount of shifting hurts your launch at the start and out of corners like crazy especially with the AI tuned as they are atm.

[Mexicola9302]

9 hours ago, Quinn_flower said:

how is it im dl now on pc. 

The perfomance isn't good, it's very badly optimized this game. It doesn't look any better than FH4 and still the FPS is horrible. It also is totally buggy. You always lose connection if playing online, sometimes every minute, while freeroaming if you lose connection, your car just stops and you lose all points of the active skill combo, the points are just gone then. It's a bugfest.

 

I get like 55-85 FPS, playing it in 2160p, with the extreme settings unchanged on a 3500 euro rig. For comparison in FH4 i get 110-120 FPS that is my max FPS, also played all maxed out, with 4xAA. And in FH5 i only use 2xAA, and the AA barely even works, you barely see a difference between 0xAA, 2xAA, 4xAA or 8xAA, there always are aliasing effects, it looks horrible, and there are LOD bugs, you can see trees and bushes pop in. Some ppl even get blurry textures.

 

ASUS TUF GT501, ASUS TUF B550-PLUS, be quiet! POWERZONE 850W, Ryzen 9 5950x cooled with ASUS ROG RYUJIN 360, ASUS TUF RTX 3080 OC, Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 32 GB DDR4 3200 MHZ, Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 1TB NVMe, Samsung 860 QVO 2 TB SATA, WD Gold 16 TB HDD

 

I really hope they fix this mess very soon, in this state it's just playable but not fun too play. The game only utilizes 5% of my CPU, it's ridiculous, there is so much unused power, there also is a annoying memory leak. It's okay if you got 32 gb of ram, but it must suck real bad if you "only" got 16 gb. Yeah like i said, in this state it's not fun on PC.

 

Edit: This game is probably better played on Console atm, or if on PC limited to 60 HZ/FPS, maybe that is better. G-Sync does only half it's job somehow, it feels very stuttery getting down to 55 FPS, that doesn't happen in other games.

 

Going through the steam discussion forum, says all about the game. I got a friend in steam that already played the game for 15 hours, and he also says it perfoms really bad, he has R9 5900x, RTX 3090, 32 gb ram, and plays it on a M2 NVMe, the max FPS he is getting is 110 FPS, also in 2160p i think, not sure about his resolution tbh.

 

Long story short, it's badly optimized on PC, let's all hope they fix this mess for the real release date.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Mexicola9302

[Jason]

Runs at about 75% of the FPS I get in FH4 here, near max settings, 60fps+ at all times, had only 1 crash and none since. 5800x/3070/32GB RAM @ 3440x1440. No complaints with the performance really but I do wish it had DLSS or DLAA as I do agree the AA here isn't great and it's MSAA which is performance intensive.

 

Visually there's times when it looks just like a spruced up FH4 but there are areas in the game which are genuinely stunning and the reflections are much better from what I've seen too, and night time looks fantastic. It's a visual step up from FH4 overall though IMO.

 

The servers are indeed on fire though right now, it's pretty rough, constant disconnects and and annoying bug where your car stops dead when your DC in freeroam, which being freeroam isn't a big deal but the frequency of server DC's means you see it a bit too often.

[dieseltech20]

I was disconnecting a lot last night but my car never stopped. Other than that the game plays just fine, no crashes but I did notice it being a bit jumpy on scenes with lots of things going on, like the screens after a race. Only saw it once though.

 

I guess since I'm a life long console player that hasn't been playing on PC for all that long the FPS doesn't bother me in the slightest. Yes, I love 100+ as much as the next player but 60 isn't going to make me rage.

 

Love this huge map with lots of places to drive around. as great as 4 was, I wasn't a fan of the map. It seemed tiny compared to 3.

[Mexicola9302]

I tested it in 1080p and 1440p a few hours ago, it runs much better, but the weird fps drops are still there. In 1080p i mostly got 120 FPS (my max) with minimum FPS of like 85-90 ish, and in 1440p it's like 65-70 ish the lowest. These flowerfields are so heavy on the FPS, it's unbelievable. But it looks so ugly in 1080p, 1440p still looks okay, but i just stick to 2160p and live with the drops. Maybe if i try playing competetive at some point i switch to 1440p. But i got a real weird problem with my bluetooth headphones if i play at night without my surround sound. Whenever i get close to another player, the sound is gone. Probably because they drive around with open mic and that f*cks up something, then it switches to free hands audio or something, then all is mute until i restart the game. I will just not play online at night, temporary workaround until i got a solution for that.

 

I played it for 8.7 hours now, i got a little bit used to the game, yeah it's okay, but i hope it gets better, with some patches, back to FH4 greatness of optimization, something just feels weird playing this game, compared to FH4.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Mexicola9302

[Misumi]

Do they label player cars if they're using AWD or RWD?

[Mexicola9302]

10 minutes ago, Misumi said:

Do they label player cars if they're using AWD or RWD?

You mean next to their name or something? If so then no. Not that im aware of. I mean you can see if someone is using AWD or RWD at the start of a race. I don't "transform" RWD cars to AWD cars, it ruins the balance somehow, well in some cases, and it's extra weight.

 

I mean does it really matter lol? It's weird wanting to know that.

[Commander S]

11 hours ago, Ivan1997GTA said:

I know that it's too early to tell, but what DLC map expansions do you think we'll get in the upcoming year?

 

The first one's obviously gonna be a Storm Island/Blizzard Mountain/Fortune Island-styled expansion, and the second map expansions (with the exception of the Porsche expansion pack in FH2 and its standalone Fast & Furious expansion pack) were usually themed after a toyline, like Hot Wheels in FH3, or the disappointing Lego Speed Champions in FH4. I'm gonna guess that, for the second map expansion in FH5, Playground Games and Turn 10 will probably do a partnership with Disney/Pixar to do a Cars-themed map expansion, with a possible variant of Radiator Springs, and add Cars-styled body kits and liveries to various vehicles, like a tow truck body kit for the Ford F-100 to make it resemble Mater. That, or maybe they could do a special "Forza Horizon 10th Anniversary" pack. Then again, they could do both.

 

 

Since there's two expansions confirmed (same as FH3 and FH4), I reckon it'll be similar to past games: Expansion 1 being a bit more rally orientated (i.e. an emphasis on more difficult terrain, as well as letting Playground test stuff like weather effects, elevation, etc.), while Expansion 2 is probably going to be another more whimsical licensed thing, where Playground might again test out things like progression systems and whatnot for FH6 (like how the brick challenges in Lego Speed Champions were effectively a test run for FH5's accolades).

 

For #1, I'm leaning towards a full-on sand dunes thing, where PG might test out sand physics and whatnot - they've already added a new off-road stat with 5 (like how you previously had acceleration, braking, etc.), so that'd fit, IMO. As for the second, no idea - I'd personally say that they'll do something Fast & Furious themed (if only a car pack), since this'd be the first opportunity to add F9 cars (we've had F1-8 in everything from FH2 to FM7 previously), but looking at Lego Speed Champions, I reckon it doesn't really matter what the IP is, since it'll probably (IMO) be a case of coming up with some new loop (again, with FH6 in mind), and then just sticking anything on top of it. Maybe it'll be something where it lends itself to a unique driving experience (like Hot Wheels), or not (Lego) - could go either way.