Forza Horizon 5 - First impressions seem pretty disappointing

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 5 FH5 Discussion
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I have been a Forza fan since I was kid (back when FM2 was released) and my first impressions of FH5 so far have been quite disappointing for a number of reasons.

  1. There seems to be no focus on progression or a fleshed out story mode. What makes FH1 campaign by far the best even to this day out of the horizon games is its engagement with the player. Right off the bat you have to start out with a slow car and work your way up to faster cars. On top of that you had these bosses you need to need to progress to the next round. All I wanted to do was to beat Flynt to become Horizon champion. Because of that I felt like I was racing to achieve something, and I felt rewarded for the hours I put in with faster cars. In later Horizon games it feels more like racing for the sake of racing, and being gifted Ferrari’s, Lambo’s and Koenigsegg’ off the bat removes the Grind to earn them. FH5 feels more of the same.

  2. A massive problem with FH4 was the multiplayer. Horizon life sessions weren’t engaging, and it took 7 months for online adventure to become playable. Battle Royale was a nice touch, but I miss the days of FH1 where you had public custom lobbies where you could select your car for every individual race, find different search related lobbies or even create your own adjusting the event, settings etc. It’s been 9 years almost and the multiplayer system in FH1 is still far superior to anything the following Horizon games have come with. Adventure modes restrict freedom and make it feel so much more repetitive. I think custom lobbies need to make a return in some aspect if the multiplayer is to stand out. With FH5 it feels like it’s continuing the direction FH4 took. Not much emphasis on competitive road racing and more on mini games etc. I’m getting the vibe adventure modes will make a return (they need to go). I’m not saying you can’t have off roading or exploring, but don’t push aside competitive racing for new features.

I really hope they also make the car classes more diverse and fix the engine sounds (Bring back the R1/R2 etc system from FH1 instead of the claustrophobic S2/S1 in 3 and 4 where so many cars are squished into one class). I also hope a 1 mile drag strip returns and they can add back the festival feel that Horizon 1 captured so perfectly.

It’s still too early to say but if it feels like another 4 I won’t be buying it. I honestly think the Horizon series has been declining over time and if FH5 is to become a solid entry it needs to shift its focus back on progressive gameplay and more choices in competitive multiplayer. I appreciate the innovation of some of their ideas but for me personally I love working my way up through games and competitive racing, it’s what I put most of my hours into and with FH4 I didn’t get much of that. I hope 5 can rectify this.

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All of you need to CHILL with this nonsense Horizon is dead vibe. They showed 9 minutes of footage to highlight the map, party modes, and new graphics and now the forums and twitter are blowing up with these dramatic posts because people didn’t see exactly what they wanted on the first day of a game that will be supported for years. It’s quite obvious that game is filled with features and changes requested by the community if you’d pay attention.

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Hence why I said “it’s still too early to tell.” All the points I’ve raised are valid. All I’m saying is the first impressions have seemed pretty disappointing. If they reveal more of the game and it looks promising I’ll change my outlook, until then based on what has been shown it looks more of the same. Also Horizon 4 now is what the game should have been like at launch. It’s been 3 years and they never added D,C or X class in Custom Adventure nor did they add anythng that had any replay value apart from battle Royale. They didn’t even add public online to Fortune Island despite it being requested. I have been paying attention, the problem is the devs don’t listen to their fan base as much as they should.

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No offence but you have as little knowledge about the game as the rest of us do, you can’t proclaim it’s doing this and that just as much as you believe nobody has the right to assume it’s going to repeat the same problems as 4.

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No offense but you it’s obvious you haven’t paid attention to any of the details that have been released. PLENTY of things that commuunity requested have already been shown; I’m not going to waste time writing a laundry list for you.

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I should have known beforehand I was wasting my time, reasonable disagreement never occurs with your type on here.

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I looked very nice to me, but the actual narrative, and direction seemed to be missing.

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Is it reasonable to think that FM will become the more “sensible” side of Forza and this is more for entertainment?

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That’s the thing. Some competitive racers such as myself still prefer the open world. I love Motorsport but sometimes it’s nice to be able to smash a story mode and have a good competitive racing online experience where you have an open world track. This is why Forza Horizon 1 was the most entertaining Forza game. The public street racing lobbies were the best. You can have social lobbies and what not but also don’t push aside competitive racing. Why not maximise both in terms of quality? Also for me starting out with a low car and working your way up is more entertaining for me than to be gifted Ferrari’s and Pagani’s off the bat. No sense of achievement.

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Mybe I`m thinking too high about Playground but I still have some hope

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I’m with the OP on this one. The fact that they chose to focus on Playground game modes and new “social” features for the game’s announcement trailer worries me. There’s no festival, no car culture, and the 10 seconds of “campaign” left much to be desired. It just looks boring. I get the sense that FH5 will be the same live serviced based chore fest that was FH4, and you already know there’s going to be a bunch of locked cars behind the multiplayer modes. This is the first time in my entire life that I haven’t been excited for a new Forza game.

Edit: Oh yeah and I forgot to mention the terrible rubberbanding drivatars that make singleplayer racing mind numbingly awful. Looks like they will be back as well!

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seems to me like they are fully separating Horizon and Motorsport. Ya they share things but both look to be very different

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He’s right about the single player. I don’t think Playground Games has a lot of interest in catering to people who a) want to get a great racing experience and b) don’t mind doing that by themselves, offline. This whole thing is definitely skewing towards a “social, relaxed, do whatever” atmosphere.

Again, this is why I liked FH3 so much. Having all those championships all over the map to complete and the fact I could choose which tracks comprised them gave me a ton of entertainment as I crafted my own emergent storyline that took the four different festival regions and had them competing against each other across multiple championships where the best drivers were slowly getting narrowed down before the big two-lap Horizon Finale race around the Goliath Circuit. I couldn’t get anything close to that level of immersive engagement with FH4 thanks to its overabundance of focus on character customization and weekly seasonal challenges over robust single-player action.

I slag because I love.

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Looks like Playground Games are once again focusing on “style over substance” I mean they seem to be obsessed with showing off amazing graphics but as far as I can tell it is essentially the same game as FH4 albeit in Mexico. I honestly feel like it’s a ploy by Microsoft to sucker people into buying Xbox Series Xs for “dem graphics” but there isn’t actually anything revolutionary new in this game.

For starters, the multiplayer Linc system or whatever it is just looks exactly the same as FH4s “Anna” system maybe just tweaked a little bit.

Then there’s the event creator thing which is basically that Super 7 map editor thing again just ported over. Talking of other ports, the majority of the car list is recycled cars that have been in the series for years and the season system is being ported over but what is actually new to this game in the same way that seasons were new in FH4?

The new Piñata thing is hardly amazing new content- that’s something that could be released in a month for FH4. The expedition thing also looks like the Trailblazer thing from Fortune Island just ported over too.

This game just seems to be focusing on making the map bigger, making the car list bigger, adding more rims etc but making a game big doesn’t always make it great. This game literally looks like FH4, FH3, FH2 etc just updated with nicer graphics. The core game is the same and they just add stuff to make people think the game is new but actually the game will feel as boring, empty and unfulfilling as ever.

My suggestion? Look at classic driving games like TDU 1/2, PGR etc and take some inspiration from the ways those game immersed you with the cars and setting. Sure those games didn’t have the car lists of a Forza game or the graphics or the driving physics BUT you felt much more immersed in the game. For starters, you could have garages, shops, public places you could drive to and walk round, car dealerships to interact with, proper car meets where you could park up and walk around the cars with other players, proper player houses that you could stock up with your fave cars etc. Imagine if FH5 could let you head out to the middle of nowhere in Mexico and actually let you get out of your car to admire it on foot? Also, add some form of a storyline to FH5. Previous Horizons have been awful in that respect you just turn up at a festival and get rewarded with car after car and credits without any real sense of progression or prior challenge.

Also, where are little immersive things like pedestrians, turn signals and toggleable fuel simulation? Driving around aimlessly round a pretty map is just boring but adding immersive features just makes the escapism into a game so much better.

So what’s new about FH5? Better graphics? A few more cars? Larger map? These things don’t really do anything to help with player immersion at all.

I know its early days but come on Playground Games surely you can make a better car game than this? A pretty face is all well and good, but if the personality is bad then theres nothing long term in this game. No substance. Sure 8 year olds will be impressed by the big map and car list, but proper gamers will be left wanting more reasons to come back to the game.

I make this post in the hope that Playground Games might listen to the suggestions of a guy that has played tons of driving games especially some of the real classics. If anyone can tell me about features that they are adding to FH5 which are quite new and interesting then let me know but from what I’ve seen, it’s just FH4 and FH3 all over again- trailers with fancy graphics but it is essentially the same game as before.

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PREACH! This is why I think the quality of the Horizon series has been declining with each game. 3 and 4 (and even to a lesser extent 2) you are gifted so many Hypercars off the get go and removes the challenge to get them. As a said in the original post it feels like racing for the sake of racing. It’s why I think even objectively Horizon 1 is still leagues ahead of any horizon game that has followed it because the whole point of the campaign is to beat all these arrogant bosses to become Horizon Champion. You start out with a slow VW Corrado and build yourself up from there earning every fast car you win or buy. You couldn’t even really use hypercars or Supercars until the last few wristband colours. I really wish Playground games would build on what made Horizon 1 a great game and even implement stuff from previous racing games you mentioned like TDU2 or PGR, but they won’t. Instead they just copy and paste the same formula and give you everything, no sense of achievement or competitive racing. FH4 was horrid because of this and for the fact that it felt like a game made for 5 year old children. FH5 feels the same.

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Yeah its clearly just another cash grab to try and lure in 8 year olds with the fancy graphics over substance who will then pester their parent’s for a Series X… all part of Microsoft’s plan which unfortunately these days means profit over making a truly great game resulting in rehashes, bugs, broken mechanics and a general lack of interest in listening to people who have genuinely good ideas for a driving game. I mean I am still struggling to see what is revolutionary and new in this new Horizon game… it literally just seems to be the same game that it has been for years just with slightly nicer graphics- Forza Horizon is becoming the Fifa of car games i.e the same game for years which plays on peoples consumerism and materialism for having the latest game even if that product is practically the same as the last one and the one before that.

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I think you are going to be surprised. You look at the things announced as being the same and you somehow ignore or make the asumption that thing currently in FH4 will be pushed in FH5.

The very same mistake I did when I saw just team racing when FH4 was announced … naaaa they can’t do that … and guess what… he did.

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HAHA I remember one of the devs saying “we are introducing a game mode we know people are going to love, Team Adventure” and it was the biggest joke of a multiplayer system I have ever seen. They need to bring back something like public custom lobbies from Forza Horizon 1. I remember going back and playing FH1 multiplayer and had more fun in half an hour than I did in the entire span of my hours in FH4.

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Traffic signals? I mean they have working traffic lights at least.

FH3 introduced fuel and lasted no more than a couple of months with all the negative feedback.

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Forza Horizon 3 didn’t have fuel I pre ordered it played it a ton and got all the achievements for it so if it had fuel at any time I would have remembered that.

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