I’ve been a dedicated Forza player since Motorsport 3 and have driven with ABS OFF since Motorsport 5 (impulse triggers are amazing). However, something feels distinctly different in Horizon 5’s brake behavior, and I’m curious if others have noticed this too.
When FH5 first launched, I immediately noticed FWD vehicles behaving unusually - the rear inside tire would lock up in ways that felt unnatural compared to Horizon 4. Initially, this seemed limited to FWD cars, but now it feels like most vehicles are disproportionately challenging to control with ABS OFF.
You can actually spot other ABS OFF drivers in the wild, especially in the tunnel below under the small city. The telltale signs are tire smoke and that distinctive loss of control in tight braking zones.
The inconsistency between similar cars is particularly frustrating. Take the Season 25 releases of the BMW M2 and BMW M3 comp. for example. The M3 is a joy to drive - rarely locks the inside rear tire and feels predictable. The M2, however, becomes absolute chaos in any non-straight braking zone. These are similar cars that shouldn’t feel worlds apart.
I’ve also noticed what seems like an increasing number of ABS ON drivers in the top leaderboard positions (top few hundred). While I don’t have hard data to back this up (and freely admit this could be my own bias), it may indicate a shift in the meta.
Has anyone else experienced similar issues? Is this making you reconsider your ABS settings, or have you found ways to adapt? And to those who use ABS ON have you tried ABS OFF and found it too challenging?
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Honestly it feels like a recent change. I didn’t really struggle with ABS off until a few months ago. I even managed FWD hot hatches well (by accepting that loss of grip on the inside rear was inevitable).
Now suddenly I struggling. I still succeed on most corners, but loss of grip feels nebulous and random, and I’ve even had some situations where I’m hammering the brakes but the car just refuses to slow down even while grip is maintained.
I thought maybe it was my new tuning methodology but maybe something about the game has changed. I’ll keep an eye on it.
Can’t really compare to previous titles though. I switched off ABS near the end of FH4’s life cycle.
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I agree it feels like a more recent change.
To answer your last question I’ve never tried turning ABS off because I play on a keyboard, so I’d have to approximate real-life brake-pumping in order to brake effectively, and I don’t think I’d enjoy that. It’s the same reason that I keep TC on most of the time, even though I know that’s costing me time.
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This is not a recent change.
The devs have advertised pre-release that they reworked the brake model, because it was unrealistic before and they wanted to make it more responsive. Comparing previous FH games to FH5, previous titles felt less precise and more spongy.
In FH5 they made it so that the trail braking is more nuanced, so that you have to press the brake harder if you’re going straight and lower the input when the corner tightens up.
With FWD vehicles specifically they’ve done a great job when it comes to lock-up, as you now need to be more careful and sometimes use some throttle while braking to reduce understeer. This is something the previous Horizons have lacked when it comes to realism.
Of course you can argue, “do the Horizon Games even need that kind of realism?”, but in my opinion, if you don’t like it you can just use ABS and it should be fine. I really enjoy the way the brakes behave now, I always felt like the brakes were a bit flat and boring in FH4.
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Yeah I felt that was all true before but I was able to feel the car’s (and tire’s and brake’s) limits better. Recently it feels like as I lift off the brakes the brake pressure doesn’t respond properly, and I lose grip as I tighten the turn.
I’ve even had situations where I get off the brakes entirely as I feel the car start to unsettle and it still breaks traction. It’s like ABS is off but auto-braking is on. Actually I should check to make sure I haven’t been hit by the secret assist bug, where sometimes after an update an assist will turn on, but will still appear as “off” in the menu. I’ll go check that now.
PS the workaround to solve the bug is to turn on every assist, drive around (even just a second is enough time), and then turn all the assists off.
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Your experience mirrors mine exactly. Prior to roughly a year ago, the brake feel and car control was much more intuitive - you could really sense the vehicle’s limits and modulate accordingly. Now, even with the most delicate brake inputs, the inside rear tire tends to lock unpredictably, making proper trail braking nearly impossible in certain vehicles.
I’ve had to resort to some extreme tuning solutions - installing race brakes and setting an almost comical 98% front brake bias (2% rear in the tuning menu). Even allowing just 3-5% rear brake bias often results in complete loss of control outside of straight-line braking. This feels particularly jarring when compared to the new Forza Motorsport, where inducing rear lockup requires deliberately aggressive brake input.
Your mention of the assist bug is particularly interesting - I’ve been experiencing mysterious automatic downshifts despite running full manual. I’ll definitely try your suggestion of cycling all assists on and off. Thanks for sharing that workaround!
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Well I’ve been playing for a while now and I think I was hit with the bug. Since doing the workaround my braking has been much more predictable with abs off still.
I think it was actually SC that was messing me up, but no way to know for sure.
Hopefully this workaround works for others as well. I thought the bug had gone away but I guess I got hit with it a few months back and haven’t been playing enough to really figure out what was wrong.
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