Ultimate means the best, and it ends when it is released. So Ultimate has a date, and today it would be Ultimate 1/3/21.
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Perhaps the HW Unleashed announcement means this is the end of the little tryst Forza has had with HW, as it’s hard to imagine Mattel continuing licensing out HW when they are about to launch a competing product (to some degree), but I could be wrong. It does strike me as a bit of backhand to PG; after seeing what they did with the H3 Islandtopia coupled with the logical next step of player track customization, they just decide to go do it for themselves and usurp PG. If I were PG, I’d sever away from HW entirely asap for that alone. Pretty audacious.
That said, and reflecting on the ungodly toxic wall-fest my experience with the H3 HW expansion along with what near-unregulated racing online looks like here, my guess is that the sheer potential for a HW game by Mattel (who has, as far as I’m aware, little experience with sim/arcade/simcade/arkim/whateva-kind of racing games) to be the holy hell of racing games. Sure, HW exp was gorgeous, but multiplayer was a hot ugly mess and no track customization left one feeling unsatisfied. Perhaps all the rammer trash here will migrate to there, solving our silly face toy car problem while taking out some of our trash along home with them as HW walks out the door? 
Seeems to me this HW game would also be the second time in as many years another publisher developed a full game out of elements and/or some spirit within horizon. BugBear was first to eat PG’s lunch with Wreckfest and its beat up, backyard jalopys (as well as the occasional riding lawnmower or racing couch) dressed up in primitive, unsightly liveries all slogging it out in 80’s-90’s dirt to me is pulling from the spirit of PG’s playground games with the deliberate focus on contact and more ‘sport’ than racing despite not having games itself. A Wreckfest type game seems like the next step of the continuing evolution/devolving we’ve been seeing. I’m sure that’s counter-intuitive to what some here would prefer, but I would argue that might have improved quality of play and design on the more asphalt side of things with a dedicated focus in contact racing being else where. Also, I would add that while clean racing should be the standard as opposed to being the goal, ‘contact’ racing and games can be a lot of fun when wrecking/damage is the point. So, Wreckfest was first to have run off with a bit of Horizon spirit.
And now HW is preparing to take a few bites out of Horizons lunch itself with Unleashed, which is basically H3: HW Islandtopia minus the H3, but plus customization. The concept rip is painfully obvious, almost insultingly so, but track customization should have been delivered with H3 HW to begin with. Then PG punts, delivering a ‘rough draft’ of custom routes (just the bare bones, no meat) to H3’s successor only after we’re already halfway through the game’s guesstimated life. Four years later, we’re still waiting for proper, fully developed, ‘meat on the bones’ track/route customizations. However, it’s not Mattel’s fault PG dropped it’s own ball playing it’s own game, played on it’s own court located at it’s own backyard; they hesitated so of course someone else was going to pick up that ball and try to run with it. (and wth have they been doing all this time?)
Perhaps this is will be the wake up call the PG desperately needs, because Mattel isn’t about to just steal some of PG’s lunch, they’re walking right up to PG, opening up it’s mouth, and reaching in to pull out the lunch just swallowed. It’s that bad ― what a coup this will be for Mattel!
And what can I say? Credit is due where credit is due; I’d be remiss if I didn’t roll it back to King Cobra for his earlier suspicions of Mattel motives, and also to Nightdriver for his pointed though somewhat excessive nit-picky criticism of PG half-baking all it’s planned late deliveries. 
[Mod Edit - attacks against others, profanity, and vulgar sexual suggestions are not acceptable for this forum - MM]
Anyway, I hope that T10/Playground reconsider, as I enjoy the games.
Wah-wah.
I’m not buying the DLC, don’t want ugly cars that aren’t winners.
I have had multiple UE’s.
Didn’t buy FM7 because beta testing isn’t a joy for me.
Doubtful I’ll buy FH5 as there’s many things more than a few here are unhappy with.
Thanks for the presumptions and baiting amongst your whingeing.
Ultimate is NOT for perpetuity. Or even a week. It’s a level of purchase, includes the other levels plus more. Not every pack, not every exclusive, just what is stated.
You’ll be sadly disappointed when you buy a home, new car with full warranty, and it doesn’t include new wallpaper, tires, brakes, faucets.
People that are too thick to get that about a game, a nothing, stun me with entitlement.
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I have an ultimate edition but still can’t get the car pack without buying it.
[Mod Edit - that’s correct, see the first post - MM]
The Nash Metropolitan, the Studebaker, and the International-Harvester are all pretty good A-class rally cars - but none of them as good as Bone Shaker, or the Atomic Punk. In fact, it’s kind of like they separated the speed of Bone Shaker into the Nash and the handling of Bone Shaker into the Studebaker.
Three good cars, but not OP cars. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing depends on your perspective.
As for the rest, I think the Dually is pretty decent at S1 racing, but again, not OP. I think maybe the Chevy Luv was intended for drifting? I dunno. And as for the 2Jetz, well… At least its orange windshields are cool looking, lol.
The car pass and Welcome Pack contain the following cars which are meta at A, S1 and S2:
- Hula Girl (meta A road and dirt)
- Atomic Punk (meta A road and dirt)
- Mustang DD (meta S1 dirt and winter)
- Shelby King Cobra (meta S1 and S2 road)
- Toyota Baja WP (meta S1 dirt and cross country)
- Ferrari F50 WP (meta S2 rain)
Having access to those 6 cars basically gives you meta options to cover the vast majority of ranked races and (in the case of the King Cobra an utterly overpowered RWD car for Rivals).
By contrast, there’s probably only two cars in the vast array of “exclusives” which I’d class as meta - the CCGT (S2 road) and the Hoonigan RS200 (S2 winter). Maybe the Pulsar might just sneak in for B dirt.
Essentially, if you want to be competitive then you pay to win and get the car pass cars (or get them free with the UE) - otherwise you are competing at a disadvantage at ranked. If you want to get an exclusive car, then that’s your choice but you are probably not going to need it to succeed in the game.
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I’ve bought FH4 two times now… once for Windows, and now once for Steam (during the huge Christmas sale, at like 70% off I think)…
I forgot this was all that was originally in the Ultimate edition… tbh…
Yet, IF you bought the Ultimate Edition at the start, all subsequent additions to it are automatically added to your game - being the UE is universal… it “is…” what it is… so anyone who bought the UE, regardless of when… gets everything included in it…
Not to mention if you bought the original game (UE) before the two DLC were added, it includes those… so when they release, all you have to do is download them and play…
I’m older, thus have the financial ability to, but now, anytime a game has different tiers, I do my research, of course, to make sure what is included, but I always end up getting the Ultimate, or “whatever” the biggest version is… I’ve yet to find it not “worth” it…
Especially for the Forza Horizons (4 and 5, at least) games…
So, just break down and get the biggest version… you’re going to anyways… eventually…
But… what drew me to this thread, was the statement that ALL addons AREN’T included in the Ultimate Edition… I’m not completely sure… but, I DON’T think so…
Actually, this wasn’t this post, but a different one on Steam, here. Which, at the time of writing this, I haven’t read yet…
I know I ended up buying every Car Pack on my Windows version, over time… due to it not being all that expensive, especially buying them over time… you know, a $10 pack one week or two… maybe even a month… then a $6 pack… then… whatever… buying gradually over time wasn’t that big of a deal… just to be “complete” about it… and so I wouldn’t keep seeing that there “appears” to be some part of the game I don’t yet have… whether I actually already did… or not…
But, I really love FH4… at this point, more than 5 - even though FH4 has some weird issues… graphically, and especially the online connectivity… which, honestly, is why I ended up buying it on Steam, as my version on Windows always had issues with that… AFTER the Steam version was released… yet, back in the day, I remember I had issues connecting the first time of the day… but once it did, it was good for the rest of the time I played…
Proof of my time spent on each game (on Steam, this doesn’t include my time on the Windows version I own):
Yet, with that said, FH4 is an excellent game, a whole lot of solo content… especially considering every week is more “new” things to do and get… but for me, it comes down to the online races… the actual races themselves, have more “character…” in that they have more unique-type tracks that have tricky turns, curves and/or sections… to me, it just seemed as if FH5 were more “generic” tracks… but don’t get me wrong, FH5 is awesome… and runs so much better than FH4… if only 4 ran as good as 5… part of it probably has to do with the Geforce driver issue… if you know, you know…
Anyways, I did what I often do, and write so much more than I intended… sorry about that… and so, I guess I’ll stop here…
Same here.