[Mod Edit - thread merged - MM]
I have to argue that the next Forza Motorsport should keep its large car list, because this is the foundation of what made Forza… well, Forza. Even if we have a racing game tailored towards improved realism and an enhanced motorsports racing experience, take note that in the end, no matter how realistic an experience this is geared towards, we should always remember to have fun. Forza was meant to be a more realistic racing game competing against the likes of Gran Turismo, where they also pride themselves in being able to simulate any kind of car in a realistic fashion, no matter how hardcore or strange the cars are. Any car can be raced, for as long as you have the guts to really race it.
After all, besides focusing on the aspect of Motorsport, we should always remember that the spirit of Forza involves the powerful love of the almighty automobile itself, be it the hardcore race cars, hypercars, supercars, track-day cars, sports cars, compact cars, SUV’s, pick-up trucks/off-roaders, rally cars, all the way to the weird, unusual and wacky ones. To say that they don’t belong in Motorsport is rather absurd and irrelevant, because at the end of the day, every car featured in the series can be someone’s favorite car. They definitely belong in Motorsport, not just Horizon.
I’m also open to seeing new types of cars as well, given the rumors of new IMSA race cars, more rally/off-road cars (from the rumors of off-road racing) and so much more in terms of the race car department, even including the road cars (hypercars, supercars, sports cars, luxury cars, SUV’s, off-roaders, compact cars, classics, micro cars, etc.) and unusual ones. I also hope to see the return of Super GT/JGTC, DTM, and SCCA in Forza as well, and also hope to see both Porsche and RUF together so that we can have a sense of the spirit of brand rivalry (providing that as an example).
If this next Forza would be on a “game as a service model”, I hope they do something similar to GT Sport and deliver an abundant amount of content every month/update for free, because that’s how Gran Turismo does it with GT Sport, and will probably save players a lot of money on DLC. Forza should apparently stop with the same DLC formula where in the end, this would end up being too pricey and would eventually split the user base anyhow, and worse even, the DLC will be gone every four years (take the recent “end of life” situation of Horizon 3 as an example). They should go to varying degrees of the volume of their content, like say for example, 10 cars and one track for the first month, then 12 and another track for the next, and 15 the one with new layouts on existing tracks after. That way, no player gets left behind.
And that’s why, even on the Xbox One era, I feel that there are still quite a number of cars missing, and I hope they also bring back a significant portion of Xbox 360-era cars, especially hundreds of cars with many different variants that have been in the series during that time, as well as more iconic models and race cars. In time, they brought some back, but I still feel like they need to keep on delivering on classic content just as much as they plan out new ones.
Another is that we don’t want another Motorsport 5 where despite the increase of graphic quality, the game felt and looked quite rushed as it was extremely light on content, which disappointed a lot of players, and even has the lowest ratings in the Forza series so far. It may also be attributed that Turn Ten had to assist Playground in developing the first Forza Horizon, and that they were so keen on making Motorsport 5 an Xbox One launch title.
That’s why with Turn Ten taking the extra time off to develop this next Forza, and opting to not be a launch title, I really hope they surprise us with their biggest, baddest and best Forza yet (despite the lack of the “8” in the title).
I believe that Turn Ten are really taking all the time they need to polish this game and build an abundant amount of content, as well as polishing the quality of older assets. Based on the cars we’ve seen on the Xbox One era, we are looking at more than 1,000+ possible cars, and plus maybe more with what Turn Ten would want to surprise us with. I don’t think they’ll have to rebuild a lot of the assets from scratch as they were built from the foundation of the Forza-tech engine, but they would need some improvement on the older, or existing assets to accommodate the newly-updated graphics. Having a car list cut down would be absolutely unreasonable and completely horrific, even if all the assets are polished and up-to-date.
Meanwhile, there are remarks from some people such as:
“ThEsE SUV’s/tRuCkS/oFf-RoAdErs/rAlLy cArS/HoT WhEeLs/FaSt & FuRiOuS/oDd-BaLlS, etc. bElOnG iN HoRiZoN, nOt MoToRsPoRt, sO gEt rId oF tHeM, nObOdY nEeDs aUtOmOtIvE dIvErSiTy, wE wAnT oNlY nIcHe cArS, aNd qUaLiTy oVeR qUaNtItY!”
In the end, these people are haters of the next Forza project (and perhaps the whole series) and are wishing for it to become light on content and as low in quality as Motorsport 5, and perhaps as mediocre as the Project CARS series whose car lists are basically low on count and not very diverse.