I started playing this series with FH1. At the time, I thought it was really fresh and different than other racing games, with the way it based its structure around a racing festival, with:
-A great progression system where you earned wristbands that granted access to new and better race events.
-Highly decorated main hub and festival outposts dotted across the map, conveying the feeling that a major event had moved into the area
-Immersive hub area where the autoshow, garage, festival office, and more were all physical locations you could drive to in order to access their features, unlike the present system which is all text or buttons on a menu screen…
-Story characters who fleshed out the world and made you feel a part of a big event, including several rival racers and a ‘top dog’ rival you had to beat at the end of the game. The new system of coming into a FH game and already being the best is… not so fun.
-A map with more ‘scenic vistas’ and landmarks which made exploring the map actually fun (this is subjective opinion I suppose)
-late night street races which really felt like street races because of all the traffic you had to dodge. I feel like there’s little or no traffic in the street scene races now
With the latest FH games and FH5 especially, I feel like the ‘festival’ atmosphere is getting drier and drier. There are colorful hubs with subdued fireworks overnight, but there’s not much life or personality to them. Especially compared to the feeling of coming back to the FH2 hub after a day of driving.
So I was thinking, how could this game, and this series, revive some of that festival atmosphere which made the game unique to begin with?
-More going on at the hubs. More decorations. More people. Pump up the music. Bring back stages with crowds.
-How about actually making GOOD use of the stupid dress-up system? Make it a bit more immersive? Have special limited shirts and hats and whatnot that are specific to various seasons or events you’ve participated in? Sort of like how you might collect band shirts for concerts you’ve been to. I know there are some super generic items related to things you’ve done in the game, and related to different car/race types, but they aren’t exciting. But if you had nicely designed apparel items tied to participation in different themed seasonal events or other specific challenges, it could make participating in events AND the clothing system more interesting.
-Make driving around the map… more interesting? Aside from making the map itself more full of distinct points of interest, how about a set of rare events and/or animals/cars/decorations that might actually surprise you as you drive around. Something sort of like random encounters in GTA or red dead, except obviously tailored to fit a game where you drive around instead of interact with people. What if there were pop up stores that sold cool unique clothes, but you had to drive around the map enough to randomly encounter the pop up store? What if there were special livery drivatars that could randomly be seen on the map, and you get some kind of fun bonus for snapping a photo of them? Maybe add some more life to the map by having more than one type of train, or have more air traffic overhead? Maybe this is asking for a lot, but it would really make driving around the map and having fun with your cars more interesting. As it is, I just fast travel everywhere now because I don’t have a lot of incentive to drive from place to place when I’m not actively in a race.
-This is kinda tied into the last one… why not have, in real time, limited time attractions in various parts of the map which change from series to series, which actually encourage players to explore or meet up at different parts of the map? Some MMOs have in-game concerts, what could be more perfect for FH? Have a festival stage set up somewhere, lasting for a set number of days or weeks, and have everyone able to go hang out in the festival zone and listen to music that’s specific to the festival event. And let’s say that hanging out there for a certain amount of time gives you a cool free clothing item or car livery or something else for participating in the live meetup.
I dunno, maybe some of these ideas wouldn’t be popular, or would be too much work. I’m just trying to think of ways to make the game feel more fun again, for people who’ve played since FH1 and are finding the formula stale now. For me, it’s just becoming so much of ‘do your tasks and keep your car collection complete’ checklist now.