Forza Horizon 5 preview: an arcade racer leans toward simulation, with solid results

The Great Caldera, Can Horizon 5Stratovolcano, takes both the player and the game’s promise of a decade (if you can see it, you can drive to it) to new heights. And it’s not just the postcard views from the top; the trip to either side gives a good idea of ​​what the latest Playground Games festival has under the hood.

From the west, you ascend to La Gran Caldera by a dirt road in wide and slippery curves; from the east, you get a paved route with tighter curves. It’s about 15 minutes, round trip, from one side to the other, from the central world. All that time it was a perfect transition.

From the rolling farmland to the forested mountainside, the cloudy skies in the beautiful sunlight, the green grass at the base, and the sulphurous yellow earth at the top, nothing suggested that, hard stop, I was leaving an area for other. Something like officiating at a soccer game, some of Forza Horizon 5The best features, for me, were the ones I noticed the least. I didn’t comment on how cohesive the expansive and diverse world of this game really was until I was taking notes after my time in a hands-on preview last week.

“One of the most important things is that because we have a much bigger world, it is the longest drawing distance,” observed Don Arceta, the game’s art director, in a call with viewers last week. “Seeing many of our details in the distance, further away than you could ever see, we have [had to] improve a lot of our rendering across the board, our shadows, our lighting. “

Image: Backyard Games / Xbox Game Studios

The fact that Forza Horizon 5 Charging from the Xbox Series X solid-state drive also gave developers a lot more freedom, said creative director Mike Brown. The traditional race opening to the game festival now comprises four vehicles testing four different courses, and the piece that follows immediately begins in the middle of the race, runs through farmland, then a hillside village, up and down the hill. mountain on which it is located. , and ends in a jungle. You cannot lose any races, which means both are declarations of intent from the Playground staff.

(Xbox One gamers, of course, won’t see as much image fidelity and will face longer load times in situations where one would expect to see them, Brown said.)

But Forza Horizon 5 nor did it strike me as a collection of flashy images and technical comforts. The vehicle handling feels like a seamless transition in its own way from the tightest simulation quality racing games. I recommend the game’s simulation steering option (as opposed to the standard, light assist or heavy assist setup), with traction control on and stability control off, even for the most casual drivers.

On the one hand, it is the only way to feel the active aerodynamics of the Mercedes-AMG One on the big stage that begins the festival. On the other hand, normal arcade steering makes some simple drifts harder to start and harder to maintain. Its emphasis on smaller, faster stick movements also means that small mistakes can quickly turn into fishtail overcorrections. Simulation direction in Forza Horizon 5 delivered faster times against tougher AI for me in the half dozen events I participated in, and was a must have for the impromptu rally I did, both on the volcano and through the wetlands of the map.

And going up and down the volcano, I saw how committed Playground Games is to their watch / drive values. Both ascents meet at a knot of side paths within the volcano bowl, but you can still directly carry the remainder of a nearly vertical rim, too easily, perhaps, in a concession to the casual curiosity of a large audience. But hey, it’s there and you can scale it. The run down the western dirt road produced a nearly 180-degree drift change, a perfect blind launch into the air and a safe landing, and many other serotonin bursts.

Image: Backyard Games / Xbox Game Studios

“Without going into the full arcade and making it look unrealistic, we have some small tweaks to the handling, which makes them drive, maybe not exactly like they would in real life, but they kind of shave the edges in a responsive way. a way a player would prefer they respond, “Brown said. Forza Horizon 5 it is complemented again with a complex adjustment system for drivers who know what they are doing and want to adapt a car’s curves or shock absorbers more to their tendencies.

“The other things that we have done in this title, which are almost a bit contradictory, is that we have invested heavily in the physical performance of our suspension and braking,” said Brown. “In both cases, we have endeavored to make them behave more authentically. So the brakes now, instead of being on / off, there is a much more gradual gripping of the discs on the brake. So you can really adjust while pulling the trigger. It’s a much more gradual braking application. “

When driving with an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller (in the standard configuration), I can attest to the better feeling under improved braking; Also, I can attest that the simulation address setting is again the best way to take advantage of this feature. In my experience, the binary on / off braking that Brown described in previous Horizons leads to a host of jerky changes, flicker movements, and other sharp, tiny movements common to arcade racing. As a result, the car becomes hypersensitive. Forza Horizon 5More realistic steering, braking, and suspension allow me to keep my hands on the wheel and be more involved in a turn, especially the forks and square rights that demand additional technique at speed.

“If there was a dial that went between the simulation and the arcade, we’ve actually pushed it further into the simulation,” Brown said, “but we’ve actually made it more accessible and easier to handle as a result.”

As always, there is a lot of competitive driving in Forza Horizon 5 – road races, rallies, dirt tracks and the like. However, the challenging AI rises quite remarkably again from average to above average, and the result is that many overtaking on higher difficulties inevitably involve contact. I always found this at odds with the theme of a festival of automotive culture, where people seemingly gather to lavish their rides with attention, not to wreck them. There is always a generous rewind buffer to undo mistakes in a player’s races. If you’re a clean-running neurotic like me, just turn the damage off entirely.

Image: Backyard Games / Xbox Game Studios

Wrapping all this up, there is a very welcoming presentation of Mexico, both geographically and culturally. The designers from the world of Playground Games have done a great job of offering both interpreted and fictional locations that still have their own sense of place. Fans of the first Forza Horizon (I am one) will truly feel called home by this landscape, a close brother to the Colorado of that game, but much more attractive. Seasonal weather (introduced in 2018 Forza Horizon 4) will change again on a weekly basis, but precipitation can (or may not) occur anywhere, and the weather is more of a complement to the landscape than something to distinguish one area from the next.

Once again, climbing up the side of La Gran Caldera, small streams of dust coming out of my hood let me know that I was in a system that would later cause a dust storm. At the top, patches of snow had sublimated in the bright sunlight, revealing a sulphurous yellow earth below. It rained very lightly, just a few specks of a shower, and then it returned to the bright skies. Like the braking of vehicles, the weather in Forza Horizon 5 it is also more subtle and gradual than intermittent.

Forza Horizon 5 It will be released on November 9 for Windows PC (via Steam and Microsoft Store), Xbox Series X and Xbox One. It also launches the same day on Xbox Game Pass for both console and PC subscribers.