What really makes Forza Horizon 5 special, though, is that there's never a wasted second. It's a powerfully satisfying feedback loop that makes it very hard to put down the controller. You may not think you're a racing game fan, but spend a little time with Forza Horizon 5, and you might surprise yourself. FORZA HORIZON 5, the 2021 offering in a series of games spun off from the original Forza Motorsport series designed to reach an audience beyond just serious racing sim fans, brings the franchise's famed racing festival to Mexico.
Once this introductory race ends, the world is open for exploration. Players can freely race around hundreds of square miles containing nearly 600 roads and an enormous variety of events, including dirt races, speed challenges, multiplayer championships, drifting events, and more. You can alter AI difficulty and which driving assists to use, upgrade and tune cars, choose whether to play solo or to go up against human opponents, and even create and publish your own courses for others to try. As the game progresses, the player's garage will fill with hundreds of authentic cars, each of which can be assigned skill points earned for stylish driving, improving the rewards you receive while using that particular car. This is a massive racing game, with scores of hours of activities and content plus ongoing multiplayer challenges.
Parents need to know that Forza Horizon 5 is an open-world racing game for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PCs. This 2021 game in the Forza racing franchise puts players in the role of a star driver helping to introduce the Forza Horizon racing festival -- a collection of races, challenges, and other car-focused events -- to Mexico. This driver can be customized as the player likes, including gender, pronouns, skin tone, and even limb prosthetics.
Is Forza Horizon 5 Out Yet The high-speed racing action is set in an open world rather than closed circuits, which means players zoom through towns and in and out of civilian traffic, often getting into high-speed accidents. No one's ever killed or even injured, but the lack of consequences may give young drivers the wrong impression about the dangers of street racing. Parents should be aware that real-world brands feature prominently throughout, including dozens of car and auto parts manufacturers as well as consumer brands painted on vehicles. Players can also use real money to purchase additional in-game items, such as car packs and a treasure map.
Forza Horizon 5 is wonderfully welcoming, featuring instantly intuitive controls and a collection of cinematic events and activities bound to drop the jaws of both racing rookies and seasoned gearheads. Indeed, with a bit of tweaking in the settings menu, even first-time racers should be able to handle some of the game's fastest and wildest vehicles. Hard-core racing fans, meanwhile, can adjust these same settings to create a deeply realistic simulation-style experience, fine-tuning each of their cars exactly how they like. Forza Horizon 5 doesn't change the basic structure, and there's still a huge amount of stuff dotting the Mexican map.
But it does do a better job of easing you into its mountain of content. You're able to choose which specific types of events to unlock as you progress, so, for example, I preferred to focus on closed-track road races early on before delving into cross-country rallies. I feel like if I stopped playing the game and came back to it weeks later, I'd have a much better sense of what I'd been doing and where would be best for me to spend the next couple of hours. In turn, that makes me feel better about simply driving around the landscape in search of whatever esoteric quest I might come across. Unlike with 4, I've never felt like I'm wasting my time in Forza Horizon 5, as I always have more of a sense of what I could be working toward.
Forza Horizon 5 seeks to differentiate itself from the competition by how it plans to evolve. This is due in part to Playground Games' commitment to the Festival Playlist, which will provide monthly updates with more content and new cars. Like Forza Horizon 4, Playground recorded the real sky on location for hundreds of hours and handpicked the best bits, stitching everything together to achieve the majesty of the game's sky. This means it naturally evolves over time, with rolling cloud coverage that changes depending on where you are.
The new tropical storms and dynamic weather events look beautiful and even a little intimidating, with a real sense of depth and scale that many games lack. The sky isn't a quality many people talk about in video games, but nothing escaped Playground's commitment to visual perfection. Forza Horizon 5 is a deep and nuanced car nirvana for revheads and auto geeks to endlessly collect, tinker, and experiment. It's also an extremely accessible buffet of racing spectacle open to everyone, from Deluxe Edition diehards to Game Pass nomads – no matter their driving skill or mechanical knowledge.
It's an occasionally goofy but always earnest Valentine to Mexico's world-famous culture, and a romantic ode to the magic of road-tripping through postcard-perfect vacation vistas. It's a long haul, MMO-inspired racer that's exploding with more races, activities, and event types than can comfortably fit on some parts of the map – and yet it still always feels relaxed rather than daunting. It never locks you into something you don't want to do and steadily rewards you for however you choose to play it. It looks beautiful, it sounds magnificent, and it is glorious to play.
Above all, however, it is the result of a racing studio at the peak of its craft and the best open-world racing game I've ever played. Being the fifth instalment in the series, Playground Games has taken huge steps to make the driving experience more immersive. Starting with the map size, which is 50 per cent larger than Forza Horizon 4, the game features countless locations such as an active volcano, jungles, beaches, ancient Mayan temples, and the narrow, colourful streets of Guanajuato.
Besides the standard campaign mode, players can take part in online multiplayer races and explore the open world with no restrictions. Beginning with Forza Horizon 2, each sequel in the Playground Games-developed racing series used the previous title as a fun-filled foundation to build upon, and Forza Horizon 5 is no different. Longtime series fans will still sink hours into Forza Horizon 5, as its varied Mexico setting, ridiculously stuffed modes, and new features make it a game worth returning to on a regular basis. Newcomers, on the other hand, will be floored by the PC game's creative riches. In short, Forza Horizon remains the best racing game series, and this Editors' Choice entry is yet another example of why it's so beloved.
If you're an arcade racing game purist, Burnout Paradise has a lot to answer for. By taking the classic series open-world, Criterion essentially obsoleted the concept of traditional racers — here are your cars, here are your tracks, learn to drive the former to perfect the latter — at least in the eyes of major publishers. Ever since, virtually all big-budget arcade racing games have been made in the shadow of Paradise, with most tracks consisting of lines drawn across vast, explorable maps. Create your own expressions of fun with the powerful new EventLab gameplay toolset including custom races, challenges, stunts, and entirely new game modes.
Customize your cars in more ways than ever before with new options such as the ability open and close convertible tops, paint brake calipers, and more. Use the new Gift Drops feature to share your custom creations with the community. Throw in a robust paint and livery editor complete with paint finishes, rim styles, and vinyl stickers, and you got a stew goin', baby. And, just like the tuning setups, you can save custom liveries and upload them to share with other players and vice versa. So if you don't want to bother and just want to find one that another player has cooked up, just use their designs. For me, spending time on a car I love in real life and making it my own to show off in the game's world and races can be an all-consuming investment in the best way.
Whether you're a novice like me or someone more experienced with racing games, you'll find a ton to keep you busy. Ultimately, Forza Horizon 5 isn't wildly different from open-world adventure games — there's a "story" you can follow and unlock different chapters as you go, and there's also a huge variety of different challenges spread all over the map. I gravitated towards road racing events, but there's a huge variety of different courses. Others might prefer going off-road, trying drag racing or competing in events to rack up trick points.
A rethink in how the career mode unfolds has seen Playground add a new points system that allows you to take charge of what event hubs and special races you want to prioritise unlocking. These points, or "Accolades," are awarded for achieving major and minor feats, and essentially function as a dramatically expanded version of the Brick Challenges in Forza Horizon 4's LEGO expansion. What this has allowed Playground to do is add a handful of additional curated drives to Horizon 5, which it's dubbed Expeditions. One has you racing through trees as lightning strikes the ground ahead, while another has you racing up and back down the rumbling volcano as jets of steam break through the ground around you. To understand just how big Forza Horizon 5 is, we have to briefly look back at Forza Horizon 4, which truly ballooned into an absolute colossus of a racing game back in 2018.
Playground Games had taken the impeccable open-world racing of all the Horizon games to date, then stuffed in simulated seasons, a shared-world multiplayer overhaul, and a shift in how the team told their mini automotive stories. But that was day one; Playground then spent another three years cramming in even more things to do. The Festival Playlist, where new activities were available every week. The Eliminator, Horizon's very clever and effective take on bringing the battle royale format to a racing game. The Super7, where we could participate in custom-built racing, driving, and stunt-based challenges made by others, plus create and share our own.
This variety naturally adds to the music festival vibe while coalescing so perfectly into the game's selection of motorsport challenges. You'll have your pick of road, dirt, street, sprint, cross country, and drag races to choose from all over the map. These don't even include Showcases and Expeditions that feature those extravagant scenarios like, yes, racing a train again or literal underground street racing through the tunnels beneath the city of Guanajato. This time around, the Coachella-inspired traveling festival finds itself in a fictionalized and compacted take on Mexico with the series' biggest open world to date. The country boasts vastly different biomes that behave differently with dynamic weather patterns and seasons.
Start a drive at the top of a dirt road on the side of a giant volcano, drift off onto the grass and back onto that sweet, sweet paved road, and you'll end up splashing through rivers along the muddy trails of a remote jungle. Your tires will see more action in one race than most do in an entire lifetime. Except in Forza Horizon's world, cars don't just explode on impact after launching off the side of a cliff. Here, cars might lose some parts and get banged up, sure, but your performance is crucially not affected. Forza Horizon 5's controls aren't tough to get a handle on at its default difficulty and driver assist settings.
The options are there for things like manual transmission, but from the first moment you touch the controller this Forza handles like a responsive and perfectly tuned arcade racing game. It's great at conveying a sense of speed while making you feel like you're in total control of your ride at all times. Forza Horizon 5 has finally hit consoles and computers for all users , so racers ready for the latest racing experience can enjoy some truly impressive graphics and customization options. One of the things we love about Forza is how friendly its various Tours and racing matches are, from trying out different competitive modes to joining a team and making your way through a world tour together. Keep in mind thatHorizon 5 also includes Kudos and Gift Drops to share with the community, so teamplay is a core aspect for many gaming modes.
With just over 30 hours in Forza Horizon 5 at the time of writing, I still haven't even finished a third of what's available right now. It would probably take me at least 100 hours to 100% Forza Horizon 5 if I wanted to, and that's not even considering the replayability of everything in the game, especially the online portions. Once you get past how bloody gorgeous Forza Horizon 5 is, you sort of have to play the game. For those who have played past Forza Horizon games, this one should be familiar.
You're let loose in an expansive open world filled with dozens of events, challenges, races, and more. It's up to you to figure out where to go, what to do, and what to drive. Forza Horizon 5 feels great to play for those who enjoy that kind of freedom, and it's exactly why it isn't just another racing game. But whichever way I chose to drive, the handling in Forza Horizon 5 supported me. The range of control and freedom to delegate it, from just a modest set of options and adjustments, is better here than in any other arcade or action-style racing game. In terms of pick-up-and-play usability, it's better than any motorsports simulation I play, too.
Meet new characters and choose the outcomes of their Horizon Story missions.Take on awe-inspiring weather events such as towering dust storms and intense tropical storms as Mexico's unique, dynamic seasons change the world every week. Keep coming back for new events, challenges, collectibles, and rewards, and new areas to explore. No two seasons will ever be the same.Play on Xbox Series X and Xbox One consoles. You can run it at 60 frames per second on Xbox Series consoles, or there's a 30fps mode that further boosts the graphical features; I personally find it hard to play racing games at 30fps, but each mode delivers a convincing presentation. Create your own expressions of fun with the new EventLab gameplay toolset including custom races, challenges, stunts and new game modes. It's a lot more realistic than most arcade-style racers, but it's definitely not so unforgiving as to be inaccessible to people who aren't racing nerds.
With that said, I don't really think challenge is where Horizon is most at home anyway; it wants to be played for fun, the sort of game that soars when you take it casually, the ultimate thing to kick back to with a beer on Friday night. Sometimes it's surprising just how well the game manages to maintain this mood even while having a map that becomes icon soup, seemingly endless events and challenges spawning utterly everywhere. These sorts of maps sometimes make me feel overwhelmed in other games - but not so here. The game's tone is too welcoming to allow it to stress you out.
Forza Horizon 5 had the biggest launch week in Xbox history earlier this month, with 10 million players. International travel is opening up again, but it's probable that a lot of people are playing because they want to experience that feeling of a new country and new landscapes. Alcaraz likes to imagine that people will see Mexico differently as a result of playing Horizon.
"Mexico has its challenges, but anything that's positive will have a good effect," he says. Xbox gavean extended gameplay of "Forza Horizon 5" during E3 2021, showing off some of the locales, different modes, and social aspects. One of the biggest changes to the gameplay is the Horizon Arcade, which allows players to queue up to play wacky mini-games and challenges. The infamous battle royale racing mode from "Forza Horizon 4" returns, meaning that fans can still participate in the chaos of The Eliminator.
In this chaotic mode, cars fall from the sky to engage in races, with the loser of the race being eliminated from the competition. There's a near-overwhelming amount of content here; you could easily dump more than 100 hours into Forza Horizon 5 before running out of content, and there are weekly challenges to win specific cars to keep folks coming back. With Forza Horizon 5, Playground Games gives you even more tools to craft custom festival vibes. The overall gameplay changes aren't quite as radical as in past years, but once the community gets their hands on EventLab, you'll enjoy a steady, fresh supply of new racing content. Plus, the fictionalized Mexico setting is simply awesome, with its varied, eye-catching biomes. Whether you're a newcomer or a longtime series fan, Forza Horizon 5 has lets you cruise streets, blaze down steep hills, or participate in wacky contents as you unlock cars, character gear, and walled-off areas.
Forza Horizon 5 is a Play Anywhere title, so if you buy it on PC via the Xbox app, you also play it on Xbox with no additional cost. Microsoft's unified video game platform means that the racer features crossplay between PC and console. A Steam version is available for people who prefer to leverage Valve's game store and launcher. In a nice touch, Forza Horizon 5 features many accessibility options.
Despite the name and the hundreds of accurately modeled real-world cars, Forza Horizon has little in common with Turn 10 Studios' Forza Motorsport series, which is more of a serious racing simulator. While Horizon isn't exactly a Ridge Racer-style arcade game, it's certainly on the more accessible side of things. The physics feel somewhat grounded in reality, and you'll notice big differences in how various cars handle, but the driving model is very forgiving, and it's easy for anyone to pick up and play. But, truth be told, sound narrative justification and character motivation are likely the last things anybody cares about when playing a Forza game. All I wanna do is collect cars, drive 'em fast, and have my ego stroked a little.
And when it comes to that, Forza Horizon 5 absolutely delivers. Add some car-handling improvements, a dash of Drum and Bass, a heaping bucket of 4K HDR, and a fleet of shiny cars that I'll never afford , and we've got what might be the pinnacle of arcade racers available. Regardless of how you like to play, it's also a beautiful game; I was stunned by the variety of scenery across this little corner of Mexico I got to explore. Coupling that with events taking place at all different types of day and in different weather conditions and there's always something new to see.
I've only played it on the Xbox Series S on a 1080p TV — I'm hoping I can give it a go on a Series X or well-tuned gaming PC soon and see just how good it can look with the right hardware. But even on my more modest setup, I'm enjoying this game in a way I never expected. But sometimes a game can be so pretty that it helps you appreciate an experience that you would normally feel mild about. For example, I'm not the biggest racing game fan in the world. When I do enjoy a racer, it's usually a more arcadey experience like Ridge Racer Type 4 or the more recent Cruis'n Blast. Forza Horizon 5 also features a brand-new weather system, where players will be able to experience different climates in different parts of the country.
