I am a massive Forza fan. I have owned every Forza game and from Forza 3 onwards I could see Forza take the reigns from my beloved Gran Turismo franchise. Why? For me it was sound design. Engine sound in Forza sounded REAL. Visceral and accurate, the bass and thrum was right there. I used to run a garage and have been lucky enough to own many Japanese sports cars. I was blown away by how accurately the game simulated the sound of these cars. The straight six howl of a Skyline GTR, the bark of a Honda VTEC and the big bellowed sound of a 350z; all spot on. Forza 4 was incredible. Then the transition was to Xbox one. The graphics were great, the physics fabulous, superb AI but for both F5 & even more so for F6 the sound has become artificial and I’m afraid to say rather Gran Turismo like. For me Gran Turismo 5 was the biggest disappointment in gaming because the cars sounded like food blenders. I didn’t even buy GT6. Please don’t go the same way Turn 10. PLEASE look into getting the sound design just right again, I am not a sound expert. I don’t know exactly what has gone wrong but the cars just don’t sound right any more. Please fix this for Forza 7 or patch Forza 6 and return the realism!
I’ve read about the sound complaints for months before I actually bought an Xbone and F6 after owning every Forza since the first except for 5. And I disagree. Most cars sound better in FM6 than in FM4. Why? I felt 4 had way too much distortion added to the recorded sounds to make it sound more dramatic. Loudness does not reflect realism. I feel 6 has MUCH cleaner and more accurate sounds, more depth without the distortion. I have worked in the automotive business for over 15 years and have driven many cars including some supercars and I feel FM6 captures it well, tho not perfect. The howl the Aventador has over 7800rpm til redline is exactly like in real life for example, while the BMW straight 6 samples have regressed from FM4’s, no idea why.
I think the Aventador is one of the best examples of best sounding cars in this game. Sometimes i just sit and rev it and listen to the realism. If only they nailed the quick upshift sounds a little better. The Aventador shifts lightning quick, love it.
It’s got nothing to do with loudness, the sound has lost it’s ‘feel’ for want of a better word. Yes the cars sound clear, but in a robotic way. I’ve never driven an Aventador but I do know the Lexus LFA sounded glorious in FM4 and now sounds strained in FM6.
I completely understand where you’re coming from. I myself grew up with ‘car guys’, owned a couple of boosted Japanese sports cars myself and many of my friends still own those along with the occasional muscle car or two. Nearly all of them have played Forza and we unanimously agree that F4 had the most eerily real car sounds to date. Were they distorted? No. Loud? Yes. Visceral? Yes. Just like cars are IRL, especially when you boost them.
F4 and even 5 had the car sound nailed very well, though in 5 some of the off-throttle sounds came off as weak. F6 corrected this however, if we look across the board, you are right when you say there is a robotic, digitized and artificial feel to the sound. The soul and character they have was best captured in F4.
However, don’t get me wrong - some cars sound downright stunning in F6. There are more layers of detail and the sound is very clean and crisp. Unfortunately, this does not translate across the board. Signature cars like the F40, for instance, seems scaled back to a more basic level. This is the case with many cars, though some cars do sound really good, I will say again.
I’ve voiced my own opinions on the subject. I’ve created a thread or two to humbly bring this to T10’s attention and many folks chimed in with similar thoughts. Check out the thread “F5 vs F6 sounds”. I believe it all comes down to the developers deciding how to best allocate resources and it would be a welcome change to see them dedicating more towards sound design and development. I sorely miss the FM2 days when upgrading even between street, sport and race cams/exhausts made a clear difference in audio tone and character. I understand there are many cars in F6, but F4 had a higher count and nearly every car doing justice to it’s real-life version.
I love what Forza 6 is today; I’m a car nut at heart and I will be sticking to the Forza franchise. But there is cause for concern - one of the key sound guys is now a part of PD and if GTP blows away Forza in terms of sound, I might pick up the PS4 just for that. That may or may not involve selling my X1 away. Time will tell. But I would not want to miss out on that.
As it is, Forza has no competition on consoles. It is the only game where you have such an unbelievably diverse car collection, a track count to boot, and just stuff to do that you never get bored of. This is what made me jump ship shortly after GT5 came out.
The bottom line is, we love cars, so does T10. I hope somebody at “headquarters” is reading this and soaking it all in from a constructive standpoint. Forza must make leaps and bounds in terms of sound. It has been good, but there is room for tremendous improvement. It has to get out of that comfort zone and hit the next level of innovation.
Oh I agree. The pops and crackles are the best part. I cannot get enough of those!! Wish an update would bring back that beautiful wind noise effect. Gran Turismo even had the wind noise partially cutting out as you get behind a car to catch its draft.
In F4, if you recall, the wind noise would get loud enough to partially drown out the engine sound. Brilliant! It is like that IRL.
That is the thing. There has to be uniformity across the board. Especially upgraded cars - the sound should reflect it.
This is one of the reasons why I gave up on Gran Turismo after 5. The sounds in that game were awful.
Having come from that, Forza 6 might be the best sounding car game I’ve ever played. Of course I’d love better, but if I go back to Gran Turismo I can say that I won’t be giving up on Forza due to the sound quality.
I think it isn’t fair to compare Forza to GT - the latter did not even try to replicate actual car sounds. There is no competition at all. GT’s not even in the picture.
The only benchmark I will use to compare Forza 6 sound is F4 and 5. On a whole, the cars just sounded real, though F6 brings a number of improvements to the table, I must admit.
