Horizon 4 has very little of a campaign/single player progression

Forza Horizon Legacy Horizon FH4 Discussion
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Recently i decided to reset my progress in FH4 and do a fresh playthrough. I had never done this before. And it gave me a new perspective that i’ve only had a vague understanding of. And it’s about the single player campaign, which pretty much doesn’t exist.

The bulk of it basically being about unlocking the 4 seasons and reaching “the roster” or in other words Horizon Life which takes about 3 hours to complete. And from there it’s basically: Reach the Goliath and the Gauntlet which takes about 10 levels per discipline i think. And the other 15 levels are about completing the rest of the events and the seasonal championships in order to reach the max level of 25.

Now i really understand why players got quickly fed up with the game in first week or 2. Not only the game lacked a structured single player experience but also there was no Festival playlist at launch. So the whole idea of Horizon Life being about “It’s not just your dream holiday now, it’s your dream life” per Keira’s own words doesn’t really encompass that. There was quite the gap in that premise left unfulfilled.

According to Forza Horizon’s wiki page , the festival playlist was introduced in Update 7, released on March 12, 2019. Which is a good 4 months in between release day and the playlist itself making it’s debut.

Also there was no class based rivals , in the same sense we know it currently and No route creator/super7 or the Eliminator. I understand championships only appeared with the release of the festival playlist too?

Back to nowadays. Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted soon. The festival playlist no longer exists. But at least we have the forzathon challanges, backstage pass, the trial and seasonal championships going on a loop. Okay that’s not too bad. Except all of this requires connection to the servers. As i recently realized this, being unable to join Horizon Life. No AH, no liveries,tunes ect… Therefore no Forzathon, no seasonal championships, essentially no Horizon Life as well as the name suggests.

And as you all probably know, the servers will not stay online for too long. Over time we’ll experience server issues which will only get worse. And a few more years down the line, they’ll completely shut down. Meaning we’re back to where you started. And where i started this topic. The campaign/single player.
Any other Horizon game in that sense, even Horizon 5 has more of a campaign than Horizon 4 ever had. Which i have to acknowledge is a step up, but it obviously wasn’t enough and it still suffers from similar problems compared to 4.

All this leading me to conclude that the game doesn’t have a strong replayability factor. Unless you’re vaguely interested in the game as an open word experience, as a very casual racer. Just go back to check the map, the handling,maybe? I used to be this kind of player when i initially started with Horizon 4. But now i have a different perspective. And it’s infuriating that racing games have to be watered down into some basic open world driving games.

Players should be demanding a solid single player experience. That’s the only thing that makes your games stand the test of time. That’s why old horizon games are getting praised. Figure out the single player first, and then maybe figure out your live service.

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Yeah, what passes for a “campaign” in 4 is pretty awful. The initial season cycle plays more like a prologue to the actual game than any real progression, and then you get to the end of it and earn your wristband and there’s just…nothing. All that’s left is to do random events until you level up the discipline enough to unlock all of the activities and rewards. (But don’t worry, now you’re free to participate in the live-service nonsense!) The basic mechanical structure in 3 wasn’t all that different if you stripped it down to its core, i.e. completing events to unlock new ones, but the framing device for it was SO much better. You’re the Festival boss out there drumming up support for the event, and as you gain fans you get to choose which regions to develop further. The whole thing is much more deliberately paced, with the showcase events acting as capstone rewards along the way for your hard work, not doled out all at once just for completing a few races or stunts. 5’s early-game task unlocks were too brief and inconsequential for me, but at least they felt like a small step back in the right direction.

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Absolutely yes! I suppose that’s also the case with Horizon 1 & 2 ? It’s not like they have the most diverse and varied gameplay. It’s pretty standard for what we see in all horizon games. But the pacing/ the framing of it as you’ve said is what defined it as a satisfying single player experience.

I went back to try Fortune island and i had & have a lot more fun on it compared to the mainland. It was a definite echo of what many players have said about the expansions usually having a much better progression.

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Fact! We really miss an exciting campaign like in Horizon 1, that’s my biggest criticism of the series today, there’s no journey, I got bored of Horizon 4 very quickly, it feels like I’m in an amusement park, with nothing to do, I’m not excited for Horizon 5, I’m thinking about buying Horizon 3.

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FH3 has better story (and by location bias is my fav Horizon lol), but the story still isn’t as good as FH1, so don’t get your hopes too high up

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No Forza game can surpass the first game, in terms of story, I liked the third one too.

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FH4 is already in the legacy section of the forum? Haven’t visited this place in a while. That’s just sad. It’s a good reminder that Horizon 4 is now gone. I was just watching some video on youtube about the crew and it made me think about this topic. So i’d like to add a little more to it.

I’ve only heard blackpanthaa on YT discuss it on his channel. And it’s that Horizon 4 took inspiration from the crew about implementing it’s own live service. And specifically the crew 2 basically being the pioneer for live service in racing games. Taking this into account, everything i said earlier in this post makes so much more sense now.

The progression in this game is lackluster because it was all driven from that standpoint of live service. The game was just simply designed with a different philosophy in mind.

Reminder of Keira’s own words in the opening of the game:

“Here’s what i see. I see a festival that never ends”

“It’s not just your dream holiday now, it’s your dream life”

Meaning Horizon is no longer meant to be just a summer festival or a dream holiday but more like a lifelong experience that’s just not supposed to end. Hence why the transition between offline and online mode is also called “Horizon Life”. The game was specifically made with the intend to be a “forever game” where “you can be whatever you want to be”. Again Keira’s own words. Meaning do whatever you want, be whoever you want. There are no end goals.

The rise of the live service basically meant the end of the single player. As well as:

So PG basically killed the single player. Made a game that caters more towards live service. And now even the live service is going to die. And i genuinely end up wondering, was it worth it? And what is Horizon 4 going to be remembered with? Because once the servers die. All that’s gonna left out of Horizon 4 is going to be the map and the cars. And most of the cars are already in Horizon 5 anyway. Not too sure if this speaks well of either Horizon 4 or 5 in terms of having a lot of unique identifying qualities.

And i’d like to circle back to my last statement about “watering down racing games to the point of them just being an open world driving games”. I just hope Horizon 6 doesn’t become any of that.

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aCkWchUaLy ,a slight correction, even the backstage pass cars will be gone once the servers shut down because you need to be connected to the servers in order to access the backstage pass in the first place.

That’s probably a few years down the line but still keep in mind.. For the 3 people reading this. You might wanna go and collect those cars before it’s too late. Because you never gonna be able to get them otherwise.