I don’t want Forza Horizon 6…

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 5 FH5 Discussion
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I don’t want Forza Horizon 6…

Before the mob arrives at my door pitchforks and torches in hand hear me out…

It seems the rumour mill is in full flow with suggestions that Forza Horizon 6 will be announced and may even launch this year. Not altogether surprising given the lukewarm reception of Forza Motorsport that they’d want their big showcase open world game to bring some favour back to the Forza brand name, especially if they do heed fan suggestions for locations like Japan/Asia. But… I’m not sure we need a new entry yet, let me explain.

Horizon 5 launched in November 2021, notably after the longest gap between releases for the series (see dates at the bottom of this) but with a general feeling from fans in this very forum that it was rushed, lacking features and rife with bugs. Over the last 2 and a half years the team at PGG have done an incredible job turning those problems around to the point where it is now arguably the most feature complete entry in the series (still with the occasional bug) and plenty of room still to grow. The game is still played by a fairly sizeable fanbase, on Steam concurrent users seem to range between 5,000-20,000 on a daily basis and I’ve no doubt the numbers on Xbox match or even exceed that.

So why don’t I want a new Forza Horizon? Well I actually do, I’d be overjoyed at the announcement/release of 6 and I’d almost certainly be a day one adopter just like I have with every other title, but there seems to be a worrying trend in the series since Horizon 3 of the games starting out fairly limited compared to their predecessor and growing in content/stability over their lifespan to the point where the “finished product” 2-3 years later is vastly different from what the title was at launch. To me it’s absolutely imperative since the disastrous launch of FM that whatever Horizon does next is both something innovative and complete offering replayability for years to come.

And if they didn’t release 6 and stick with enhancing 5 even further what would I like to see? Now I’m really about to lose some friends with this one but… with Microsoft now expanding a small portfolio of their games to be multi-platform why not release 5 on PlayStation? Since the demise of Driveclub I’m almost certain the player uptake on PS would offset any development costs and the benefit to Xbox/PC players? Besides a larger community to share the game with, the influx of money could not only help 5 develop even further with more content for us all but it could have a positive impact on the development of 6 too, buying it more development time with more funding to ensure it’s the game the fanbase needs it to be.

So, am I talking through my exhaust pipe? Agree/disagree/don’t care?

Release Dates:
Forza Horizon: October 2012
Forza Horizon 2: September 2014
Forza Horizon 3: September 2016
Forza Horizon 4: September 2018
Forza Horizon 5: November 2021

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:smiley: tempted to mark this reply as the solution

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Going to have to hard disagree with that statement. They solved a lot (but definitely not all) of bugs, and picked around the edges of some ancillary problems, but the core experience of the game is underfeatured and the open world is still vapid and empty.

No custom championships, game still has less races than 3 in spite of the bigger map, no open world activities worth mentioning, the online open world is a joke, no way to look for groups of willing players to group up in client, the only online PvP (open) is just a no resrictions meta chase with no flexibility whatsoever. Even EventLab, the one thing that has been getting attention, has been getting the wrong kind of attention. Don’t get me wrong, new parts are great, but what’s the point of them when interacting and curating events is a nightmare, and it ends up being a shallow one-and-done mode where the effort of searching for quality content isn’t justified by the amount of time actually racing the quality courses?

There are fundamental issues that PGG has stuck their head in the sand and ignored throughout 2 iterations of this game. And I’m only talking about the tangible elements. There has also been a loss in ineffable qualities as well. The festival spirit is just gone.

They haven’t gotten everything wrong. Driving itself has trended very strongly in the right direction, and that is the most important element (at least to me), but the campaign, single-player endgame, multiplayer endgame, expansions, freeroam engagement, race quantity, and atmosphere have all gotten significantly worse. The only things they’ve done to solve any of that was add stories (which are NOT endgame activities and are debatable on if they’re positive additions), the midnight battles (which can ONLY be used for 1v1 events) and 4 road races (the only actually useful additions to endgame).

But, after I said all that, I’d rather wait for Forza Horizon 6 if it means that these core issues are dealt with. Only problem is, I have no faith that more time will result in these problems being tackled. Many of these problems have existed since the launch of FH4, and they’ve done so little to solve them it might as well be nothing. It’s all the more frustrating because they do put a lot of good work into the franchise, it’s just always for some throwaway story or other such nonsense.

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First 4 games came out biannually with more stuff each time. Once they added PC with FH3 the problems increased. Perhaps they should just concentrate on consoles first, like PlayStation do.

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Disagree with the first part there, FH4 was pretty empty at launch and if I remember rightly you couldn’t actually even race solo online before it was added at a later time, replacing the Anything Goes Team Adventure.

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By stuff I mean changes from the previous iteration, like seasons in the case of FH4. I was being vague so as to not waffle on too much. Sorry for that.
I didn’t start on FH4 til lockdown because life changes meant little time plus other interests I guess. Missed the start of FM7 too so early problems were presumably solved.

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That’s a valid opinion mate, hard to argue with any of your points. Out of interest do you play on PC or console?

I think the thing that gets to me the most is this concept of the game +2 years in being what I’d consider the game at launch SHOULD have been. I’ve played FH5 every week since launch but I’d love to play it fresh in the state it’s in now, sadly the weekly series content isn’t available at will so it’s not really worth binning off my save. But yeah i think it’s a flip of a coin as to whether 6 would benefit from a longer development period or not, personally I feel it would.

The other thing on my mind is the potential of a new console generation in the next 5 years where I’d really like to see a new title like 6 get the most out of the hardware

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Yeah there was certainly a correlation between 3, 4 & 5 releasing simultaneously across 2 platforms and there being more common bugs at launch.

That being said I would think focusing on releasing the game on console first and then a port 2-3 years post launch to make it multi-platform would be a great opportunity to revive the title

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I think I completed 4 in the space of a week and didn’t return to it for about 18 months (the accrued spins took me about an hour to clear). I did feel like 4 was a let down at launch and 5 replicated some of that feeling too

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Given the quality of the writing, and the voice acting that could make a PBS Kids show blush, I’m leaning towards not positive additions. I’d much rather have Bucket List Challenges make a comeback. The amount of money the developers could save on not having to pay bad writers and create convoluted missions to fit said bad writing would be major and could be allocated to more worthwhile ventures. I’d be shocked if someone actually came to the Stories’s defense, particularly Horizon 5’s Stories.

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Yeah the stories have been cringe since 4… I really miss those cruise events 2 had where you took a classic Ferrari and cruised down the coast

Another waste of budget, just my opinion, was them commissioning a team over a year to get photorealistic images of the sky… in a racing game :joy:

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I play on PC.

FH6 definitely could benefit from a longer development cycle, but I’m not sure it will. I mean, look at the new Forza Motorsport.

I’m going to make a bold prediction and say that this is the last console generation. Don’t get me wrong, there will be another Xbox at some point, but it will be less a true console and more a budget gaming PC with Xbox branding. There has been a clear trend in that direction already. It’ll be less “this is where to play all our games” and more “we promise all of our games will scale well on this particular box”.

I also wouldn’t expect the next gen for a long time. The PS4/XboxOne era was already the longest in history, and I’d expect the PS5/Xboxseries to be longer still. Not only were both generations affected by COVID, but PS5/Xboxseries are in a strange place where they are still, after 3 1/2 years, price-to-performance kings. PS4/XboxOne were almost immediately dethroned from that position when they launched. It’s not even worth considering a new generation until that stops being true.

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To summarize, you don’t want FH6 anytime soon and are you proposing to export the Forza license to PlayStation?
We are on a beautiful demonstration of “unpopular opinion”

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Oh, and I haven’t given my opinion :smirk:
Naturally, I’m against exporting Forza to PS. I don’t want to fuel the MS/Sony war either, but it seems to me that, as an Xbox gamer, I can see the privileges collapsing with these transfers. Either everything is open, one way or the other, or everyone keeps their exclusives; but these one-way transfers are harmful to the Xbox community. (and v$ry g$$d for MS’s finances).

Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to FH6: I’m starting to go round in circles about 5 despite the follow-up, the car packs and the event lab. That’s it, I’ve seen enough on this map, I’m looking forward to the sequel (and I can still see it a long way off).

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I don’t think that FH6 is going to be announced this year, maybe 2025 and launch at 2026?

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I do want FH6 but I want it to be innovative, to take a new(er) direction than the last 3 games. Preferably I would love to see it be PEGI12 and with features we haven’t seen yet in Forza. Motorbikes? Police? Ability to get out of car and walk around the map? Perhaps be able to get into another car? I want the game to evolve! Now it’s just doing the same old thing. It’s fun, but if you see other racing games Forza is really stuck in the past.

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I mean, they don’t need to come back because they’re already seen in FH5.

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Ahh yeah PC players have never been treated kindly by Horizon games, I’m a console player so I’m not really as affected by the same variety of bugs

I do think that there will still be distinct console generations for decades to come, especially when there are significant performance advantages with the introduction of PCIe gen 5 and even the forthcoming gen 6. The uptake in AI has brought about NPU’s which seem like a logical inclusion in the next generation of consoles also.

Sarah Bond already confirmed this year that the next Xbox is looking to be the largest technical leap (although she would say that) but pretty much confirming they’re aiming for a generational change as opposed to a performance hike (Xbox One → Xbox One X)

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Making friends everywhere I go :sweat_smile: