Forza Horizon 5 Preview – Coasting Through Costa Lacosta

Forza Horizon 5 may not reinvent the steering wheel, but it improves upon the series’ uber satisfying open-world driving.

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I’m not a car guy, either in real life or virtually. Unless they’re off-brand lookalikes being flung off the Los Santos hills or karts being driven by plumbers, cars tend not to do much for me.

That being said, if there’s one car-focused series I’ll always make time for, it’s Forza Horizon. The series’ focus on high-energy driving and open-world activities set it apart from other driving games and their wind-tunnel vision for car detail. I’m sure there are those out there who care how precise the GT Supra’s bumper is, but I’d rather be smashing into XP boards, thanks.

Nowhere is this focus more obvious than Forza Horizon 5’s intro. If you’ve played any of the Horizon games before, you’ll know exactly what to expect – ultra-detailed cars in big set-piece moments set to upbeat pop music – and that’s just the tutorial. In Horizon 5’s case, each car is dropped out of a plane into a different biome of Mexico, all the while the voice on the radio talks about what a superstar you are.

On the one hand, it’s pretty cringe and a bit formulaic by the fifth entry (don’t get me started on the main character’s awful TikTok bro voice), but damn it all if it isn’t a great piece of wish fulfilment. It’s no surprise Forza has crossed over with Fast & Furious before – they’re two sides of the same carburettor. Even with my limited car knowledge, I can tell the amount of love that has been put into each vehicle as it bounces around the Mexican vistas.

Thankfully, even if I don’t appreciate the majesty of the GT Supra (I’ve said it twice now, but forgive me, it’s the only car I know), I’m still impressed by Horizon 5’s detailed depiction of Mexico. It’s a great mix of different environments, with wide stretches of open desert to drift across and tighter jungle areas filled with trees to plough through.

Forza Horizon 4 put all its eggs in the same gasket, with its big defining feature being that the map would periodically switch seasons, altering the terrain and how cars were handled, such as the winter season making the ground more slippery. It was a unique mechanic that spiced things up a bit, but the long-term commitment needed to see each season through dulled its shine a little. Horizon 5 is mixing things up a bit by having each region react differently to the seasons, so if you’re on a mountain you can see each area reacting differently at once. It’s a neat way of keeping the season system without keeping Mexico in a perpetual state of snowy weather.

As with every other Horizon game, the Mexico map is stuffed with sidequests. You can race, complete photo quests, or explore the map to mark locations – these all go towards increasing your Horizon rank and unlocking the next big set Showcase Event. Even in my small slice of time, Forza Horizon 5’s constant loop of feedback kept me racing around Mexico with endless enthusiasm. Drift a corner? Here’s some XP for you. Drive down a road? Go on, here’s some more XP. Now you’ve got enough for a wheel spin, and you’ve just won a brand new car to race around in and do it all over again. It’s pure gaming serotonin and somehow manages to never feel overwhelming, despite the wealth of things to do.

While I don’t know much about cars – aside from the GT Supra – I do know about racing games, and Forza Horizon’s balance is up there with the best of them. Cars feel weighty but not too arcadey, giving them enough speed and manoeuvrability to piss about with. You won’t be driving dune buggies off mountain tops in Gran Turismo 7, that’s for sure.

After completing a few standard races and a photo mode quest that had me driving into a sand storm to look for an artefact, I was told that I could earn enough accolade points to start the next big set-piece moment. I didn’t bother and instead took to changing my GT Supra in for a cheap buggy vehicle and high-tailing it around Mexico to take in as much as I could possibly see.

As it turns out, Mexico is pretty bloody big, so I only ended up seeing about half of what the world had to offer, but I came away very impressed. See, for as much as Forza Horizon tries to tell you that the big bombastic moments and sexy cars are the highlights, the open-world is what it’s all about for me, and it’s just as enticing here as it’s ever been.

While drifting across Mexico, it felt like the Horizon formula had been pretty much perfected here. Forza Horizon 5 isn’t trying to reinvent the steering wheel, and I don’t think it really needs to. Instead, what you have here is the same ultra-rewarding driving game you’ve had in Horizon games prior, but tuned up as tightly as possible and wrapped in another beautiful environment for you to slam the brakes on and stare off into the horizon every chance you get.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/forza-horizon-5-preview/