Forza Horizon

Gameplay

Forza Horizon is an open-road game based around the fictitious Horizon Festival, a street racing event set in the state of Colorado. The game incorporates many different gameplay aspects from previous Forza Motorsport titles, like the large variety of cars, specifically around 300 cars, realistic physics and high definition graphics. The aim is to progress through the game by means of obtaining wristbands via winning races, while also increasing their popularity level by driving fast, destroying property, and performing other stunts and antics. Horizon features the physics of Forza Motorsport 4, which have been optimised to work on the 65 variants of terrain said to be present in the game. Players can drive off-road in select areas, while others are limited by guardrails or other means.

Multiple race types are included, from drift to rally and point-to-point races. AI traffic will be present on the roads under single player, which provides a new dynamic to the Forza racing system. Players may also challenge other Horizon festival drivers they encounter in a one-on-one race to a given location. The location is random each time, and the AI have the ability to use shortcuts to their advantage. Races will take place at different times throughout the day/night cycle included in the game, including night races. A skill system is implemented in the game; players earn street cred during races by driving aggressively. Acts such as drifting, jumping over obstacles and getting a car on two wheels all contribute to the cred. These can be chained together in a combo, which in turn affects the money players are paid at the end of a given race. Cred also affects a player's popularity level in the game. As a player's popularity increases new special events are unlocked, such as races against helicopters and planes.

Speed traps are present in the game, and players can challenge each other for the top speed in a given area. Cameras record player times, which can then be shared among rivals. Those rivals can then attempt to beat the shared time. A photography mode is also included. In addition to races, players can search for barn find cars, have them restored, and add them to their car collection.

Other aspects of gameplay include an autoshow, in which the player can buy or sell cars, a garage, in which the player can manually or automatically upgrade their cars, and a paint shop, in which the player may create paint loadouts for their cars. When driving around the map in free-roam mode, the player may encounter discount signs which, when smashed, give a price reduction on all upgrades from that point forwards. All paint loadouts are free to create and may be bought or sold online for in-game money.

Development

Forza Horizon was developed by UK-based Playground Games, which is composed of employees who formerly worked at various studios renowned for earlier racing titles and series such as Project Gotham Racing, Driver, Colin McRae: Dirt, Colin McRae Rally, Race Driver: Grid and Burnout. When asked about Playground Games' involvement, Dan Greenawalt, the head of Turn 10 Studios, said, "I wouldn't trust this partner as much as I do if I didn't expect them to surprise me and surprise our players. I have respect for their ability to come up with great ideas. So I think yes, they are challenged by the customers the same way we are to surprise them with innovation. That's how they see themselves, that's how we see them, it's how they see us. It's really a shared goal."

Though Forza Horizon is in the hands of an outside developer, Dan Greenawalt believes such risks are needed to meet the vision for the franchise. "Of course it's a risk," Greenawalt told VideoGamer.com. "But some of the best racing games in the last twenty years have come out of the UK racing game development studios, and that's Black Rock, and Slightly Mad, and Bizarre Creations, and even Criterion Games. There's a whole lot of these great racing game developers in the UK, and the talent Playground Games has attracted and distilled down into this team gives me great faith."

Development of the environment began with research on almost 30 real-world locations. After initial research, creative director Ralph Fulton stated that there was "one clear winner", Colorado, USA. Trips were made to the state to take footage and over 50,000 still photos for reference. The goal, stated Fulton, was to "build our own take on Colorado". Initial world design began with a 2D layout which then evolved into multiple areas created with 3D models. The game features several types of landscape including snow-covered mountain roads, plains, foothills, and an area inspired by Colorado's Red Rocks Park; all are featured in a fictitious form alongside the game's Horizon festival location. The developers stated that finding ways to transition between these areas was one of the greatest challenges. Flora and fauna are also visible in the game for increased realism and depth.

A partial reveal of the vehicle list began on Forza's Twitter and Facebook pages on 23 August 2012. The list includes a 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge, a 2012 Hennessey Venom GT, and a Lamborghini Countach LP500 QV, among many others. A season pass was confirmed for future downloadable content on 25 September 2012. It allows players to download the first six car packs, consisting of six cars each, gives players five exclusive cars, and will grant access to the game's rally racing expansion pack slated for 18 December 2012 release. Vehicle selections vary between monthly instalments, and each vehicle can be purchased individually if players so choose. These vehicles include the Lamborghini Aventador J, Gumpert Apollo Enraged, Alfa Romeo 8C Spider, 2011 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Halo Edition and the 1993 McLaren F1. Unicorn cars — cars that are rare and unobtainable through conventional means — can be given to players by the developer for community involvement in both in and out-of-game situations and events.

The 1000 Club was released on 16 April 2013, as a free DLC pack in the Xbox Marketplace. It was designed to extend the gameplay of Forza Horizon by adding new achievements and in-game medals. It includes two free cars, the Ruf CTR2 and the Ford F100. With the 1000 Club, each car in the game has about five or six in-game achievements that can be unlocked. By completing some of these achievements, players can unlock actual Xbox achievements.

According to Dan Greenawalt, director of Turn 10's Forza Motorsport series, the game's soundtrack contains several dubstep tracks, with a demonstration showing a variation of Avicii's "Levels" remixed by American music producer Skrillex. Three virtual radio stations were announced in conjunction with the season pass announcement. Each represents a different genre of music and has approximately 20 songs. The Horizon Bass Arena station will feature artists such as Avicii, Madeon, Rusko and Nero; the Horizon Pulse station artists like Electric Guest, Ladyhawke, and Santigold; and the Horizon Rocks station The Black Keys, Neon Trees, The Hives and Arctic Monkeys.

Community Manager of the series, Brian Ekberg announced in September 2016 that the game has reached the "End of Life" status, meaning that the game and all its downloadable content has been removed from storefront effective 20 October 2016.

Reception

Forza Horizon received favourable reviews from critics. Aggregate review website Metacritic reported score of 85/100 respectively. Scores range from a two perfect scores given by Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb and David Wahlström of Eurogamer Sweden to a 60% approval from Phillip Kollar of Polygon. The majority of scores were of an 80% approval rating or higher. It ranked in the top 20 Xbox LIVE titles for the first two months following its release.

Eurogamer deputy editor Oli Welsh called Horizon "a big, exciting game that finally brings car enthusiasts together with the realistic open roads they crave." Welsh noted that the control scheme and realistic handling allows players to enjoy driving even the slowest of cars. GamesRadar's Sterling McGarvey felt that sometimes the cars lacked precise handling, but gave high marks for the game's environment and vast amount of activities to do. Matthew Kato of Game Informer praised the game's visuals. He gave high marks for the dynamic day/night cycle and the detailed environment and vehicles. He also praised the online multiplayer, including the game's Cat and Mouse multiplayer chase mode. Kato did note that much of the open world is blocked by guardrails, thus blocking a player's ability to chart their own paths during events such as a race against a plane.

In a more critical review Polygon's Phillip Kollar noted that he felt the open-world environment felt empty. He further criticised the game's aggressive and expensive downloadable content plan. He stated that while the content is not forced on the player "it feels like the game is desperate to squeeze your wallet empty." Kollar said that Forza Horizon "is at its best when it drops the sim pretence and embraces its arcade nature".