…There’s a few glaring issues that my OCD brain can’t ignore.
I can easily forgive exaggerated cornering grip and brake distances, given the nature of Horizon’s roads, nerfing those for the sake of realism would easily prove more of a detriment to gameplay than a plus. What I can’t see any gameplay reason for however is the unrealistic shifting times. A very, very large portion of cars in Horizon have instantaneous shift times, when they absolutely should not. Older supercars from the early 2000’s through to the early 2010’s should not be capable of such feats, and them being able to do that greatly detracts from their driving experience. The Lexus LFA, for example, is easily the worst offender. It only takes a quick Google search and a video to find out that the car’s shifting time should be 150-200ms, which is egregiously sluggish by today’s standards, but it only makes the car sound better. The same goes for cars like the Aventador and its descendants, which are famous for their use of a more traditional single clutch AMT. Whilst such fixes would affect the gameplay to a small degree, I can only see people using the manual w/ clutch shifting option more to compensate.
Another troubling issue is that some cars sound like they’re revving too low. I was driving an R32 Skyline earlier and couldn’t help but notice that despite it revving to 9k, it sounded like I was cruising at around 6k RPMs. This wouldn’t be such a problem if it was allowed to tweak the game files to remedy that myself, but I’m pretty sure I’ll get banned if I do.
One other thing to bring up is more of a suggestion for the next title than anything else, since it’s quite a fundamental change. One of the things I think I was most disappointed about when moving to FH5 was how car flames look and sound EXACTLY the way they did in FH4. I don’t know if this is just an oversight, but it’s safe to say they weren’t that great in FH4 and they don’t hold up four years later either. If I dump a massive single turbo in a Supra and crank it up to 1,600 hp, I expect massive fireballs and loud bangs that other players can hear. If I’m driving a rally car, I expect insane anti-lag and sharp, blue flames. I also want them to be affected by engine temperature, so it makes sense when my stock Mx5 starts crackling and popping on every downshift.
As a final note, please swap the 350z and E46 M3’s exhaust sounds. They’ve been broken since launch.
These sorts of things aren’t much, and I don’t expect my prayers to be answered, but always remember that the tiny details help turn an enjoyable experience into an unforgettable one, like when I first noticed that older cars like to creak when turning. Thanks for reading.