Since a thread hasn’t been made yet, I’m getting ahead of this.
Can someone please explain to me why three quarters of this game that they are asking us to pay for needs to be locked off at all times? They can still do season specific playlists to keep the game fresh, just let us play the whole game all the time if we choose.
Now we have a forced and compromised winter once again, whereas if we could play in whatever season we wanted, they could have made as harsh of a winter as they desired. It’s the worst of both worlds. A forced winter for those who don’t want it, and a compromised winter for those who do.
Unfortunately, Forza Horizon suffers from an extreme lack of competition. I really want to play an open world simulation racing game, and while there are other games that have potential, they are still far behind or won’t be released for some time.
I think the most frustrating thing is that a lot of great work and talent goes into Forza Horizon. Just look at the seasons. Fantastic idea, and they look great. But then they go ahead and lock us in, serving nothing but this online engagement need which not only could still be served by the playlist and new car additions, but accomplishes nothing but taking away choice from the consumer on how the product is used for no gain to the end consumer.
Why?!
And what choice do I have to affect change?
I really don’t enjoy coming here and criticising the devs, but it’s beyond frustrating to see the massive potential of the game and the fantastic work that goes into it squandered on these unnecessarily stifling design decisions that accomplish nothing but stripping away player agency.
My concern with winter is a lack of nuance. Winter in FH4 was partly annoying because the whole map was blanketed in snow, but that’s not a British winter. In Cambridge we’d only get snow if the weather came in from the east, and often the villages got it and we’d see none.
Where I am in China is essentially a continental climate, south of Japan. In winters here, you usually see a flurry of snow at some stage, which amounts to very little. Occasionally, we have much heavier falls.
I’d guess that southern Japan may see some snow on occasions, but mostly doesn’t in winter, which is how I hope FH6 will depict that season. Snow in the north of the map where you’d expect it, but perhaps patches in the south. We’ll see.
The other thing which they could’ve done in FH4 and they could do in FH6 (but won’t) is focus on dirt and off-road racing in winter, which seems to be the season for such events. Or perhaps the customisation options will now include winter tyres.
Whatever else, I hope the seasons in FH6 will be more distinctive without being annoying.
I think the detail and thought process the developers have put into the seasonal changes is good. They did explain some of the lessons they learnt from previous titles, so hopefully once we actually get our hands on the game we’ll be able to see those improvements for ourselves.
Personally, I would have liked to see some brief gameplay shown alongside those explanations, just so we could actually see how those seasonal systems play out in real gameplay rather than just hearing about them.
My main concern at the moment though is that the focus seems to have been heavily on the environment rather than the actual car culture and customisation side of the game. Hopefully I’m proven wrong when the customisation deep dive releases later this week, but from what we’ve seen so far it feels like Playground Games may have built a beautiful looking world without making major improvements to car detail, racing depth, or customisation.
At the end of the day it’s still a racing game, so I’m hoping they’ve put just as much effort into the cars and racing systems as they have into the environment.
Personally, I’d happily take a slightly less environment-focused game if it meant we got better car visuals, deeper customisation, and more engaging racing events.
I’m in the opposite situation, I liked and sorely miss having snow covered streets from FH4. They were great fun to rip around in with muscle cars!
But the way they describe winter for FH6 in IGN’s latest video is that the paved roads are going to remain clear of snow. They went as far as to say that in Japan they’re very good at keeping the roads plowed, so the pavement/tarmac roads are still going to be clear. The dirt and gravel roads are the ones which are going to be snow covered for those of us who want to enjoy sliding about.
I’m elated to see that seasons will be returning and that they will distinctly change the map! FH5’s seasons were intensely boring for me.
I’m happy if there’s a test track option with the weather is at default so I can try out/adjust my tunes in baseline conditions. It’s more being locked into some inescapable night mode and having to wait yonks for that to end which bothers me.
I agree with the OP. Not having a season select option in FH4 is the main reason I don’t go back to replay it as much as I do the other titles in the series.
For me the biggest issue with the FH4 seasons was the lighting, which felt gloomy and shadowy for Autumn, Winter and Spring. Only Summer gave me the bright holiday feel that I’ve always associated with Horizon games, and I was so happy that that returned for FH5.
My biggest fear, in fact my only fear for FH6, is that that low sun, shadowy twilight returns for multiple seasons each game year. And as previous games didn’t give us the option to change seasons for offline freeroam, I don’t expect them to offer us that option this time either.
I already tried that for FH4 and 5. Didn’t work out well.
Besides, it’s already too late. Even if they added the ability to choose what season you are in before launch, winter would still be an overly accommodating season to try and balance the fact that we were going to be forced into it. And maybe the whole excuse of Japanese roads being very well maintained is true and immersive, but I ask you: what is the point of a winter season if it’s only going to be a cosmetic change?
I really don’t understand the pushback on this though. If my idea for being able to choose your own season in solo (and hopefully private servers) were implemented, what downside would there be? And if they had already implemented it, don’t you think they would mention it in the video, or at least enter the thread to smack down my negativity (nothing would make me happier)?
I’m trying to be accommodating and getting my suggestions and criticisms in at as convenient of a time as possible when it comes to the development pipeline. And that means as early as possible.
If we had the ability to play in any season at any time I do think the majority of players would choose summer or autumn, with only a small minority picking winter, though this is something that I think would only work in solo whereas the season would be the same for all players in a Horizon Life lobby.
I don’t mind what we have now, it keeps the world a bit different every week, though from what I’m hearing they will take the extra steps to keep the asphalt nice and dry unlike in FH4. This helps maintain traction for high-power supercars and race cars in road races while the snow seems like it will simply be relegated to Dirt and Cross Country races which I am okay with.
Would it be so horrible to let them? Personally I’d be mixing it up, I just hate having the season forced on me. I already got that in real life.
That’s exactly what I’m asking for. I agree that the open matchmade open world probably needs to be on a seasonal schedule, as I mention in the suggestion I posted a link to.
And take nearly as much time to set up as you get to spend driving, especially since there are no custom championships (that we know of) to help extend that race time vs the menu time. Besides, there are reasons to want to be in the open world in a different season. Maybe you just want to cruise around in a convertible, or powerslide on some ice and snow. Plus, it really bothers me to have aspects of the game I paid for locked away for no good reason.
I’m perfectly fine having parts of the map where it doesn’t snow. What I’m not ok with is having winter change nothing but the visuals. Besides, if my idea were implemented, you wouldn’t have to suffer because you could just drive in a different season.
And even if it’s true that the Japanese are exceptional at keeping the roads clear, what about the next game? Are we now sticking to countries that have exceptional snow clearing service?
The weather has to be consistent for all as it’s a live multiplayer game. Can’t have one person driving around in snow while another is midsummer on the same map.
Listen to yourself, what you are asking for is impossible that and you are wrong, seasons do alter the map.
We already know there are huge changes in winter, frozen lake you can drive on, that wall of snow youve seen well you can drive on the snow instead of the road etcetera.
Again you are asking the impossible, you cant have all seasonal changes to the map going on at the same time.
