Brown explains that players who just want to explore, photographers, tuners, and painters will all be able to work through Horizon Life in Forza Horizon 4 in their own way. Even streamers, via Mixer, will be able to earn progress based on how often they stream and the viewers they amass.
“In Horizon Life you’ll be able to earn progress in the game… and level up and get rewards through any of those activities,” says Brown. “If all you want to do is paint, the game will recognise that; it will give you objectives and challenges and rewards, and you can level up and see all the game’s content just through being a painter. It’s the ultimate evolution of Forza’s play-how-you-want philosophy.”
“If all you want to do is paint, the game will recognise that… It’s the ultimate evolution of Forza’s play-how-you-want philosophy.
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This is another feature that I find to be a gimmick and have absolutely zero interest in.
For all the great things about Horizon 4 that I have read, this is a major downer.
I really do not want a SIMS meets Horizon game, but it looks like this is what we are getting. Shame, really. There are multiple reasons I do not play any of the SIMS (characters) series
As much as I have been looking forward to this new edition of Horizon, this feature may just be the main reason to NOT purchase (along with the whole character customization feature).
Why though? It looks like you can play the old fashioned way, or play this way if it’s what appeals to you. Adding more ways to progress is fine for me as long as it comes with player choice to choose how you want to play the game.
I can’t believe for one second that you wouldn’t buy a game you were looking forward to just because they have added some confirmed optional features that you do not like. Hardly game-breaking to be honest.
Just saw your reply. Let me rephrase for clarification.
I HAD been looking forward to this new version of Horizon for quite a long time, because the Horizon games (up until this point) have been far and away my most favorite of all the Forza franchise and indeed very nearly the only video games I play.
Now that I am finding out more about the new version, I am seeing many things that are not my style of entertainment. I don’t like any part of The Sims and am not at all thrilled about Horizon 4 becoming more about the end user doing his/her own thing, where being part of a community is at least as important as if not more important than driving my cars, looking for barns and bonus boards, competing in races and maybe most importantly, achieving set goals, such as skill scores, jumping distances, beating certain times, etc. You know, car things.
So it really isn’t some added optional things that I am concerned with, but rather the whole shift in emphasis of the game. That is why I have not yet preordered this game (something I have done with every Forza product starting with Horizon1 - nb, I joined in the Forza fun shortly after the release of Forza 4). I am still not totally convinced that this is the game for me. I am very thankful that these details have been released this early rather than after I had purchased the game.
Yes, there appears to be quite a bit in this game I will enjoy. In particular I am very excited about the fact that each car will have tasks associated with it, not unlike the 1000 Club in Horizon 1, which is, btw, my most favorite feature of any of the Horizon games (well, in addition to the weekly scavenger hunts that were instituted in the early Spring for Horizon 1). But the whole dolly dress up, having to be referred to by name that I must choose and most importantly this whole Horizon meets The Sims stuff have given me more than pause for thought.
(And yes, I am consistent. I very much hate the whole avatar thing as well, but that is not just a Forza thing.)
If it is truly optional, then that’s OK. Based on past games, I am fully expecting to be constantly bombarded with “Hey… there is a job opening at …” from Keira, Anna, or who ever. I just hope there is an option to turn this stuff off if I am not interested in it.
In particular, there was no way to bypass the whole character thing in Horizon 3. You had to choose one as well as a name. Complete and utter fluff that adds nothing to the game for me and uses resources (and required programming) that could have been used for other things. Now it looks like we will have outfit choices as well. Really, I don’t like any part of this whole personalization stuff.
Further, I am fully expecting there will be achievements for these things as well…
Other than this, I am very much looking forward to the game.
Were you one of the kids that colored outside the lines? lol No offense meant, but I must fall under the “old fashioned gamer” category as I too am not liking the customization of your driver. I like to just start up the game, already in my car and either free roaming or racing with achieving some side objectives. This “let’s dress up Barbie” aspect is not my thing. There are other games for that. I am still going to buy FH4.
Superb. “Normal people” are those who play game, that main themes are cars and progressing in races, BUT they don’t “give a damn about actual racing”? Fantastic. Then I got scenario for such normal people for Forza Horizon 5. You are an ice cream van seller (car theme) and drive through some cities and sell ice cream (don’t giving a damn about racing, just driving through the city). Your boss pays you nothing so you have to do a side jobs to have money. So sometimes you drive somewhere to repair leaking sink or clogged toilet. Your boss don’t care about the car you use in job, so you have to fix pierced inner tube in your wheels, etc. You will have your 1:1 realistic, miserable life available in game. I bet it will be “blockbuster in gaming”.
Well, wouldn’t it be better to be a businessperson in real life and make a real money on it (car shows, etc.)? If you like being a business person in game, try some Business simulation games - “Crazy Taxi Tycoon” or whatever.
We have so much to do in our real life. We have living pets, parents, children, couples. Why the hell someone wants “to be in the game” instead of lead his own real life (be in it for real) and just play the game, doing real things in reality? FH3 offered the right balance between business / leading festival and racing. I am afraid FH4 changes that balance in wrong way.
You’re a more old-fashioned gamer. You have a game, and you have a purpose in that game, nothing more, nothing less. I get that. But newer gamers want to BE in the game. Not just complete it. They want to be able to be themselves and even express their ideas through a virtual world. Of course, this seems a bit off for a racing game. But Horizon has always been about You, the player. Why not give people more ability to be themselves? I find the idea amazing. Of course, there is nothing wrong with not liking that though. Some people just want the story dictated to them, and given challenges to surpass, which I think you may be in that group. You just want a linear path, no weird detours or crazy adventures. And that is okay. My Father is like that, he hates the new Zelda game because it is free and open, allowing you to do and be what you want, basically. He likes the linear story. But games are changing. Gamers are changing. And in the future, I am sure I will be like my dad, angry or upset about this new thing in my once beloved series. Sorry. Got all existential. Anyways, coding that character thing doesn’t even take that long (compared to everything else), just so you know (I am a software programmer myself). I hope you will still be able to enjoy this game the way you want. If not, I will enjoy it in your stead.
I lost all interest in gaming for a latter half of a decade and this E3 got me emotional with FH4, Fallout 76 and Rage 2 going completely “play it you way and develop your own story”. I spent years waiting for games without forcing you to play how the devs want you to and locking all content in the process. FH4 will be the first game I could truly enjoy for months to come.
They say, you can do in the game what you want at anytime.
Thats cool.
But chances are good, that they will try to force you to do something, like in FH3, wich is really, really annoying to me.
I play FH3 once a week for the X-Box Challenges.
Sometimes after I did the Challenges I just want to cruise around, do some speedtraps, looking for billboards, do Head-to-Head-races here and there.
But you get 3 audio notifications per hour from Anna muting the radio, asking everytime the same.
When you free roam for a few hours you get crazy because it repeats over and over again, if you want or not.
Thats not freedom for me.
I heard that question at least 500 times now.
All I want is a simple option in the options to disable any sort of notification for something in the game.
Give me the freedom to do what I want in the game without trying to do what you want.
I totally understand that the new smartphone generation of kids with a attention span of around 30 seconds need some direction.
All I ask for is a simple option.
Same goes for Forza Motorsport 7 and this notification guy explain to me every week that there are new cars in the specialty dealer.
(actually not for me for months, because my garage is close to completion (not really a complain though))
Its not as bad as in FH2 and FH3, but still…
At least they made this “Wanna change the difficulty? Your too good mate.”-thing a one time pop up instead like in FH3 where it pops up every 5 races for me, wich is also pretty annoying.
So…my rant is finished.
But I had to say that, because (I know it doesn’t sound like that) these 2 game series are close to perfection for me.
All these new options / activities added to the game sounds great. Complements are welcome.
But…hope these new actions could be selected / done on screen with a steering wheel too.
Some of us like to play Horizon with a wheel. I would not like to find out that a controller is a must!
It does sound like they’re ditching the idea of progressing via actually placing in races again ><. H3 made it so you never had to win anything, so all motivation was gone and there was zero replay value. The expansions brought back actually succeeding in a big way, which was great, even in the gimmicky Hot Wheels setting. It was kind of strange that you could unlock all of the races just by doing skill zones, but at least it was still succeeding. The main problem there was that they duplicated most of the races just to up the numbers, and they -really- needed to give us a race creator in that setting then.
It sounds like now the events will just unlock over time regardless of what you do, kind of like how they’ve treated barn finds in the past, but a million miles away from the feeling of actual progress of H1. If what you describe as just -being- in the game is the way forward for games then maybe games need to be on the way out. At least I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to beat the likes of Destiny raids just by taking selfies any time soon.
GASP you mean people play a game simply because they like it?! What kind insanity is that?
Not everything in a video game needs to have a progression attached to it. Different people have different ways of enjoying themselves, and it’s cool that Playground Games is making an effort to let them experience as much of the game as everyone else.
This is similar to the way society is trending for the future - people are saying we will not have to work … but what will people do? People are heavily motivated by effort for reward, that is why most of us work. Some of us are lucky enough to enjoy that work a lot as well, but that is the basic foundation. Taking out the need to perform in order to advance in life will lead to mass depression and such because there is no motivation. Taking out the need to perform to advance in FH3 took out all motivation to play it. We ground out for the achievements; hell I even ground out all the non-HE cars, which was mad, but then that was it. I went back to FH2 for the most part because the road trip system made it feel like I was ALWAYS progressing. FH4 sounds like it will be even more free-form and that is very bad news. In so many other free-form games, people complain about the lack of “content”, mainly because of that progression concept. This could be just the same, and it is a real shame that games are tending away from actually improving your lot in general.
If it is all about options, there should be hardcore ones for those of us that want progression, and to feel rewarded for doing well, not just for passing the time. FH1 knew where it was at, as did FM6. Even the FH3 expansions had some idea! I really hope that they put in star systems like those had, as a nod to progression.
