I’ll be honest, I hate total exclusivity, it makes zero sense. Much more prefer timed exclusivity, 1-2 years after which titles are assessed based on merit/practicality of their applicability for a port to another platform. At least in that time the core platform fanbase have had ample opportunity to get the value out of it.
I would expect a well established series like Forza Horizon being released on rival platforms would be a major cash cow for the developers. In my original post I mentioned 5000-20000 concurrent players each day on steam alone. Even if a port cost £10m (I think it’s estimated the games cost around £40m to produce) they would only need to shift 167k units to break even.
Yeah there’s certainly nothing concrete to this rumour other than the musings of some streamers and commenters on Reddit/social media.
It would be a pretty safe bet on their part though given the typical release timelines of 2-3 years between games with the previous game being released in November 2021.
I suppose we’ll find out (or not) in the Xbox summer showcase
Yeah I hear you. I don’t personally want to walk around as that’s more GTA but the idea of other driven automobiles like bikes and quads would reinvigorate the franchise massively.
On the other hand, if they wanted to play it a little safer simply leaning harder into the various car cultures (especially regionalised to the country it’s hosted in) would be awesome too
I don’t mind. The devs should take their time with FH6. I would rather wait a bitt longer for a finished quality game than a half finished rushed game that they then try to patch. It isn’t doing anyone any good doing the last thing. Bad release, mad community, new players aren’t interested in trying it out. FH6 better come out late 2025 or 2026 imo.
Correct but that’s basing an assumption that development on 6 only started once 5 released. In reality there is often some crossover in initiating projects before others are out of the door (just not commencing full development).
Also Matt Bootys comments were more to do with Avowed and the forthcoming Fable. Games that unlike Forza don’t reuse assets which massively helps to cut down dev time.
They did and I can’t wait to finally have a beautifully accurate S15!!
Not exclusively for FH6 though unless I’m mistaken, they closed the suggestions article on it in the hub so implies they’re coming to 5? And I would assume Forza Motorsport?
They can’t just swap car models without breaking the game. Changing car models could cause: breaking tunes (especially those that use body kits) and liveries + physics change (aerodynamics).
I’ll be honest I’m out of my depth on this one, at a technical level it seems like just kind of a skin rather than a geometry change but I know it was a huge upset to the FM community that the game launched with reused models, so given I doubt they plan to release a new title in that series I expect they have a plan to just update them in situ?
Could be massively off though so don’t quote me, just speculating!
Yeah, they added a lot to FH5 since launch. It’s not the same game anymore as it was at launch. I think FH5 is now more like FH5.5 with all the content added. They could atill do a lot more in terms of customization, engine swaps, perhaps update the map or introduce new race types.
Yeah I agree, I feel like there’s a lot of life left in the game. And after committing so much time to the weekly trickle feed of content since launch I’d be kind of sad on the day they announce no more support/content updates in favour of a new title.
Compounded by the fact I’m rather emotionally attached since the game released 2 weeks before my boy was born and we’ve played it together every week of his life haha
Forza Horizon has a shockingly deep physics system. Most of the accessibility, like rough surfaces not making much impact, or the fact that it’s difficult to spin out a car, are things that have been programmed in, not left out of the code.
Forza is especially noted for its air simulation. It has to be faked somehow (true fluid dynamics simulations would likely tank even modern hardware) but it’s hard to tell how they did it. All I know is that you don’t need to add aero to get downforce, “dirty” and “clean” air exist in the game, and different cars will produce different amounts of these things based on the chassis. They are not just skins.
Non-adjustable aero does not mean non-existent in this game. In fact, some cars have dynamic aero that is actually functional. It gets deleted when you upgrade to adjustable aero though.
Sorry I should probably clarify my previous comment, by “skin” I was more referring to my expectation that their efforts to rescan a selection of cars like the S15 Silvia to bring their models up to date which they’ve been reusing for years now that I expected it to be more of a updated skin overlayed on on the existing mesh, rather than a complete rebuild of the vehicle. But yes fully aware that many of the vehicles are distinct from each other and have their own handling/aero characteristics, I feel like I’d rather enjoy a dull video lecture explaining how they did that
I totally disagree with this opinion for Forza Horizon 6 it has to be released in China new maps to get to know different parts of the world.
Forza Horizon has always been a game focused on both automotive and cultural exploration
Ah so you’re eager to get a new title in a new location as soon as possible then it seems?
I think China would be a really interesting location! Admittedly from a Westerners point of view a lot of Asian Automobile Culture feels like it’s mostly focused on Japan but as of late China seems to be really coming on leaps and bounds with its EV push and I know the country has some stunning vistas to explore so I certainly wouldn’t be against it
I’m not totally sure where I stand on a potential FH6. I really want to see another open world racing game, but given the track record of the last several Horizon games I’m thinking it might be time for a fresh start from a different developer and publisher.
The biggest issue for me is the lack of meaningful single player content, the games as a service with all the time limited cars and lack of choice for online races and the awful random matchmaking. Unless FH6 is going to pivot back to be more like FH1/FH2 then I’m not interested either.
What I do want to see is effectively something like Test Drive Unlimited with Forza’s physics engine and car selection and Need For Speed customization and some kind of story progression (bonus points for replayable story mode with something like randomized vehicles available for a given playthrough). Give me a huge open world to explore with good driving physics and totally optional online with no persistent online economy or time limited content so I can enjoy the game on my schedule.
Yeah I think quite simply the lack of competition really affects both the quality and innovation of games like this. The Crew never really met expectations IMO (although it has a bit of a cult following), DriveClub was culled by Sony before it could really become a thing, Need for Speed continues to trip over itself by doing literally anything BUT another Underground game so it really falls to TDU: Solar Crown and whether that can offer fans the thing Forza Horizon is missing to give the devs the kick up the butt they need to really pull out all the stops on the next iteration.
I’m likely grossly oversimplifying something far more technical than I understand it to be but a nice show of goodwill would be to unlock every single weekly series that has ran in FH5 to be completed at players own leisure including those going forward (yes some of the events may need tweaking slightly). Imagine that quantity of content suddenly available to all players, especially those that gave up on the grind?! That would see a swell in numbers.
Then go relicense FH1-4, bundle them up (+all DLC), and where 4 is concerned make the weekly series stuff all available too and re-release. Hundreds of hours of Forza!!!
… And then let PlayStation players have all that legacy content on their platform at an almost reasonable price to show them what they’re missing out on and boom announce FH6, timed 2-year exclusive to Xbox consoles and say hello to a wave of new Xbox fans all the while us Forza fans are reaping the benefits of other players on other platforms splurging cash that gets pumped right back into our series making our game even better for us!
(Copy and paste process with Halo, Gears of War, etc), Microsoft, if you’re reading this, you’re welcome.
