I’d like to preface about thanking Playground for all the hard work they put into this. It certainly would be taxing going over the map four times and swapping out everything. (although this could be accomplished with plugins quite easily, not sure if they did that.)
But, come on, let’s be honest. No one cares about this mechanic. At most, you have people going “Uh, sure. It’s a neat feature.” and at absolute worst you have people going “Winter? Yeah, I’m coming back in a week.” Be honest with yourself. If Forza Horizon 5 was announced with it’s classic “Summer of your life!” and complete lack of seasons, about how many people would say it’s an absolute dealbreaker and hate that it’s gone? Very, very little. Maybe even not at all! We’re here for the perfect racing physics and a fantastic music festival, not one of real life’s most annoying aspects. Even the reviews I’ve watched have tacked the seasons on like an afterthought, and even one reviewer saying it’s “a cool little thing to stick on the back of the box.” I hate to say this, but I feel Playground was grasping at straws adding this feature in. While yes, improving and adding new things to a video game series is extremely important, I’d rather have a good series that changes little with the occasional awesome new feature than one that consistently gets worse with bigger, unnecessary additions. If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. The season’s addition positively struggles to make an impact, but when it does, it’s not good at all. Let’s start with something simple. You’re locked into them a week straight. It was 2018 when this game came out, and I already feel it jumped back a few years with this. Oh, how dare I want dry, sunny roads and a pleasing, warm aesthetic as much as I want. No, I’m forced to slide around and have the entire map look depressing and gray for the next whole week. The second I picked up the 2KGT, I left the game have am now patiently waiting for Spring to come back. Not sure if it’s true, but I heard that 2/3rds of the playerbase disappear during winter. If it is, I’m not surprised one bit. Winter is the bane of my enjoyment with this game. 80% of the roads aren’t even salted, and you slide around everywhere. Last month’s winter had a speed trap that took me like 30 mins to get right, not because of any tough turns or setups, but because the slight turn it was situated around would slide off even the grippiest of cars in the snow. The 599XXE, the car that can corner at like 200+mph, couldn’t do it, even with an AWD swap. Yeah, real fun gameplay, where my driving abilities are heavily hindered for a week. 80% of the roads are snowy, 15% are wet, and the remaining 5% are actual, decent, salted roads. I hate winter in real life, and I hate it in Forza Horizon 4. You can set the clock forward to skip seasons, and PG is handing out bans for it. I don’t blame these people one bit unless they’re doing it to obtain seasonal exclusives that aren’t available yet. Speaking of Playground they’re REALLY proud of this dumb mechanic. They won’t let you forget it, like the seasons is a major selling point. Everything
from their merch
to their promotional gifts
are bragging about seasons. Speaking of, who’s the genius that decided to print earth’s basic environmental changes one shirt and label it Forza Horizon merchandise? Still waiting for a fake festival souvenir shirt mockup that replicates other real-life festivals, but that looks like it isn’t important enough compared to making sure people know different times of year have different temperatures. The devs brag about how seasons change everything. None of them do, besides winter, which only changes my desire to play the game to zero percent. I’m not focusing on what colors the trees are or if the puddle right in front of me was there last week, I’m focusing on how to most effectively take a corner at 120mph. What do cars and seasons share so much anyway? Maybe offroading in the winter? That’s about all I can think of. I mean, most people who own nice cars literally garage them in the cold months, so if anything, it hurts cars. Seasons change nothing but appearance, and the age-old lesson everybody knows says that appearance isn’t everything.
I’m going to finish with the future of the Horizon franchise. Playground isn’t going to remove this pointless mechanic since they seem to care about wowing critics who will play the game for a maximum of two hours than their hardcore fans. The future locations of the game worry me as well. Thankfully Japan is still on the list as it has a diverse climate, but I was really hoping to see California, Brazil, or Dubai appear in a future title. But guess not. The Horizon Festival has gone from a humble music festival to feeling like a theme park. The whole point of music festivals are how limited they are. I’m pretty sure they don’t have the guts to cut this feature out, despite the fact it would improve the series greatly. I care. Your playerbase cares. This forum cares. The average critic and casual do not. They play the game a few hours and drop it forever when the next big release hits. Horizon 4 is an amazing game, and this is the biggest thing holding it back. You may not be able to get every car the community wants in the game, you may accidentally leave out a few features or miss a bug or two. But please, listen to this. We want real innovation. Custom Bucketlists were innovative. The weekly Festival Playlist is innovation. Seasons aren’t.