I finish my thread trilogy with perhaps the most controversial Forza Motorsport game ever made. We could understand FM5’s lack of content and features, but the change in tone starting with FM7 was a bit puzzling to say the least.
By FM7’s release, T10 was clearly burnt out. The game released without the Auction House and it gave the impression there wasn’t much testing whatsoever. When it comes to the 3D models, I saw some bizarre bugs which I wouldn’t expect to be in a game made by T10. But these things are logical: the game was rushed and couldn’t be polished prior to release. It should never have happened, but we get why it did.
What was difficult to understand, though, was T10 trying to make this game a bit more… lively? FM6 was pure class with its menus and presentation, but FM7 abandoned all that in favor of “fun”. Rock music, weird driver suits, Forzathons, exclusive cars… All features which were the registered trademarks of Ralph Fulton’s Forza Horizon 3.
Microsoft knew Forza Horizon 3 had a hit. They also knew the Xbox One X would launch with only Forza Motorsport 7 as an exclusive game. And they knew FM7 needed to sell a lot. So they figured, why not make it more like Horizon? You bring the Horizon players over and make FM7 the best-selling Forza Motorsport yet.
Oh boy, how wrong they were!
Let’s start with the loot crates. Yes, I know they never cost real money. But why put lootboxes in a game if you don’t intend to monetize them down the road?
It’s possible that, throughout the game’s development, the crates were intended to cost money and house the locked cars, but, with EA’s catastrophic launch of Star Wars Battlefront II, Microsoft and Turn 10 were forced to neuter the feature and restrict the prizes to Forzathons. Still, the damage was done: common word was that Forza Motorsport 7 had lootboxes and, according to Ars Technica, you could “make it rain” with Mod Cards (lol). A complete PR disaster.
Even Alan Hartman officially claimed T10 was gonna bring Tokens back into the game, but had to back down from it due to the backlash. He also had to come out to the public in order to change the VIP prizes back to what they traditionally were in Forza (double prize money), instead of the neutered, useless thing we had at launch (a Legendary Mod Card with a measly 5 uses!).
Another problem in Microsoft’s strategy was that the FH3 players simply didn’t move onto FM7 as they expected. These players wanted to stay in Horizon and would probably have been happy with Playground continuing to support the game beyond September 2017, maybe even into the generation’s end. It wouldn’t have been so bad for FM7 if not for the realization that, my friend Phil Spencer, no, Forza is not Call of Duty: Motorsport and Horizon players don’t necessarily mix. So FM7 ended up as a game with a troubled identity: it didn’t know if it wanted to be Forza Motorsport, or Horizon. It pleased neither fanbase.
One of the reasons was that T10 had been stealthily trying to move away from the class system throughout the generation and only in FM7 did they bring homologation out into the open in order to make competitive Forza Motorsport play division-based, not class-based. The divisions worked wonders when there’s only race cars available, but fans of street cars were suddenly stripped of their ability to max their plastic econobox out and take on supercars with it. Remember that, in Horizon, horsepower is cheap and plentiful, but in FM7 you had to add restrictors to certain cars in order to make them fit into their divisions.
An unwanted side effect of the above was returning players from FM4 unable to grasp what the homologation was about, as they didn’t follow Forza Motorsport’s progress on the Xbox One. Honestly, I don’t think they’re entitled to complain much, having stayed away from the franchise for ages, but they’re uncomfortably loud, always…
Even the sounds were made worse, with some questionable artistic choices. The pitch of some cars’ sounds was way too high (458 Speciale and Aventador SV being classic examples). Classic sounds like the GT3 RS, Skyline GT-R and Mazda RX-7 were different: the Mazda sounded like a piston engine. The Carrera GT was controversial. The Honda Civics were difficult to put up with after 10 minutes. Overall, compared to FM6, the sounds lack “punch” or simply weren’t picked correctly in Forza’s sound banks.
In a nutshell, this was FM7 until March 2018. Enter Chris Esaki.
This man is the mastermind behind Gears of War’s highly influential cover system. He was at Namco when he created it for a game that was sort of a successor to Time Crisis, an arcade classic. He knows how to make good stuff. And he took T10’s Creative Director position shortly after FM7’s release, with an ambitious claim: to make Motorsport more “Motorsport”.
And make it he did: class-based lobbies and Rivals returned, 99% of all free Spotlight cars were race cars, Car Pass was extended, race regulations announced, drift suspension added, better wheel support, experimental drag mode, sound patch, and obviously, The Great Unlocking of July 2018, which kickstarted the full removal of the lootboxes from the game. The Great Unlocking was crucial in Chris’ plan, because, you know, in simulators (and, my dear Assetto Corsa fanboys, Forza Motorsport IS a driving simulator), usually all the cars are always at hand, the only difference being that Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo add the RPG element as a form of progression. Having money (and regular game completion) as the only obstacle to acquire a car fits into this ethos; exclusive cars (the Horizon way) do not.
In the end, FM7 became sort of an FM7.5, still unfinished, because it was really that buggy at launch, but comfortably ahead of the other Xbox One games when it comes to overall quality by the end of its support. But, in its early FM7 period, did it get something right?
Personally, I think that, despite having an excess of offroading vehicles available, some of which DLC, the car list was an overall improvement over FM6. We unfortunately lost the LMP900 prototypes, but this was compensated by the addition of several silhouette racers and Group C/IMSA GTP prototypes, some of which very rare to see in a game, like the Merkur XR4Ti and the Aston Martin AMR1. There was also the introduction of classic 1950s F1 and 1930s Grand Prix cars as separate divisions with their own ruleset: they may not be your cup of tea, but it doesn’t get more Motorsport than that. Usually, the criticism towards FM7’s car list is with regards to stuff Forza has never had in the first place, such as the newer IMSA cars (DPi and GTD), which, I agree, it desperately needs.
The homologation was a step in the right direction. It shouldn’t replace class-based racing, because that’s classic Forza. But I’m fond of having period-correct grids and I don’t enjoy racing V8 Supercars against hypercars. Homologation had a few problems, though: the restrictions were sometimes too stringent and there were cars which were completely misplaced for the sake of “adding variety”. Also, the biggest factor in modern homologation, minimum weight limit, was left out for some reason.
The driver suits were a poorly implemented idea that could’ve been a lot better. I’m surprised we weren’t allowed to paint a custom suit. Instead, we were treated to clowns, robots and Fleek (is that even a word?). I’ll admit it, some of the crazier ones were pretty cool (astronauts for example), but that’s more of an Horizon thing.
Which brings us to the title of the thread once again.
Dan Greenawalt said in an interview last year that he wanted to bring Motorsport and Horizon closer together. I think the biggest legacy FM7 leaves to the new FM game is that T10 should never, ever consider doing this again. Or rather, bring over from Horizon features that help Motorsport, not those that change it. Things like Blueprint customizability, parts basket, Storefront, day/night cycle, these are all things which you can call “game-agnostic” and help Motorsport become more “Motorsport”. In contrast, Forzathons, wheelspins/lootboxes, the “happy” tone, clown suits and exclusive cars would only make Motorsport more “Horizon”.
And making Motorsport more “Horizon” is not what was proposed to us during FM7’s support. This route would mean throwing into the trash all of the effort made to fix FM7’s issues and to regain the good faith of Forza Motorsport fans.