Other racing franchises have reinvented themselves over the years and tried new things. Some games introduced police or went from supercars to street tuner cars, but Forza just stays Forza. It’s still a good and fun game, but so much can be improved or reworked.
I feel this game needs to evolve. Badly. Introduce something new, go a different direction. From FH1 to FH3 we’ve seen this game go from open-world to complete sandbox where you can drive anywhere you want. But between FH3 and FH5 not much has changed besides the graphics, colour toning and map.
Then there’s the details like sounds for example. You barely hear the turbo’s in this game, only a few cars have clear turbo sounds and they’re only decent.
Idle engine sounds are barely noticeable too. Why not let us hear a rumbling V8 when we’re standing still? Other racing games do this a lot better and continue to do so.
Then there is the much complained about Forza Aero and many other remnants from the early Forza Motorsport games that we still see in the current games (which makes them almost 20 years old!). The new aero on the Viper AE is a good step, but it’s still only available on one car.
The overall visual style is still the same too. I’m not saying we should go the NFS Unbound route and start adding anime style effects, but I would love to see the devs creating something new for a change. Add cops, try out a specific car culture, focus on a specific racing style or cars. For effects add more sparks, different exhaust flames, or add exhaust fumes. Neon underglow? Give us more customisation on par with competing games (NFS Heat/Unbound).
It’s still a fun game, but it remains pretty much the same as it has always been. I think it’s time this game started evolving, for better or worse. I get it all costs a lot of money and time, but if other studios are able to do it, why not Forza? Horizon would be the perfect game to experiment with, especially with the DLCs. Hot Wheels and Lego are the only real breaks we got but the downside of those is that they’re licensed themes, so likely not feasible to last long term (we all know the problems with licensing).
What do you guys think?