I’m genuinely excited for this game. I want it to be unreal. I want it to blow FH5 out of the water. But if I’m being honest, the lack of real, meaningful information this close to launch is starting to concern me.
With FH5, the Let’s Go episodes started around 21 weeks before release. We were getting proper gameplay breakdowns, map insight, feature explanations, real substance. Right now? We’re roughly two and a half months out from early access, and we still haven’t seen much that actually explains what we’re getting.
Don’t get me wrong, what they’ve shown looks great. The environments look beautiful. The biomes, the mountains, the roads, visually it’s impressive. And yes, a couple of new cars is always welcome.
But that’s kind of where it stops.
We haven’t seen:
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A proper look at the actual city. People want to know if it’s dense, alive, detailed — not just a few small towns.
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Any meaningful deep dive into the “new” customisation.
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How garages and homes are going to work.
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Real racing gameplay.
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Extended, uninterrupted gameplay segments that show how the game actually flows.
Right now, most of what we’ve seen feels like scenic shots of roads and mountains. And I can’t shake the feeling that the map might be designed around Eliminator again as a priority, which may not be what a lot of the community wants.
I genuinely hope this post ages terribly and I’m proven completely wrong. I want to be wrong. I want the next few weeks to be packed with real information and gameplay reveals.
But at this stage, this close to release, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t starting to feel a bit cautious. My hopes are high, I just don’t want them to end in disappointment.
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I get it, but as a counter-point: the Let’s Go streams were kind of a mess showing stuff so early.
They had cars that wouldn’t make it into the game due to licencing. The Lancia Stratos was featured in those streams, and while it did make it to the game eventually, it took years.
I also have a clear memory of an incident where the person playing one of the gameplay breakdowns wanted to drive to the top of the mountain to show off some stuff, and you could hear the panic in the background as the people around them tried to stop it.
I’m also disappointed with the lack of information (especially particular information that I probably don’t need to rehash here), but I do support a change to the way that information is disseminated, especially if that change can be less disruptive to workflow for the devs and what they are trying to accomplish.
I’m just saying all that because it’s reasonable though. I’d be lying if I said I was happy about the situation. That first reveal had some great stuff in it, but not what the franchise needs most, and considering PGG’s recent history of missing the plot and chasing butterflies over substance, it’s hard to be positive over a mostly great trailer without a real, concreate foundation of gameplay to give these features context.
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Remember, we still have two and a half months before the game launches. There’s still plenty of time for the things you want shown to be shown.
Also, I honestly wouldn’t mind if they kept more parts of the map hidden from the promotions. I want to be surprised by this map. I don’t want to feel like I know it before the game has even launched.
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Wait for the game to come out then. They aren’t going to show everything and leave no surprises. Nothing to be worried about.
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Huh? Haven’t you read the FAQ or any of the articles and interviews? There’s lots of information about the game. I’d love to see a new trailer too and more footage of Tokyo but we’re still 2 months until release so plenty of time to market the game.
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If they release information earlier and then for some reason it’s not actually in the game or slightly different you’ll end up in the same situation as with FM and we know how that ended up…
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Be sure to check out IGN starting Thursday for exclusive coverage and gameplay video:
https://x.com/IGN/status/2029210463410561396
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Great information, thank you!
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Dumb question I know but is it also going to be on the official Xbox and Forza YouTube channel’s?
It’s on IGN’s. You can make a notification right now.
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It was just 9 minutes of 1 car driving about. Didn’t really give anything away.
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I can’t reply in the IGN topic so I’ll just do it here.
Wasn’t there supposed to be a customization deep-dive? It was announced on the promo pic but they only showed footage of the map.
I read the IGN article and it also doesn’t mention customization.
Edit:
Never mind, I think they’ll show everything seperately starting with the footage they just released. The customization will probably be shown in a couple of weeks or so.
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Just watched the 9-minute gameplay reveal on IGN, and while the game looks good, I have a major concern regarding the immersion in the open world. The lack of traffic.
We know the game will have Drivatars, but I’m talking about regular NPC traffic cars. In the footage shown, the city streets and freeways looked shockingly empty. For a game set in Japan/Tokyo, the roads shouldn’t feel this dead.
Visually, the game doesn’t look like a massive departure from Forza Horizon 5, which is fine because FH5 was already beautiful but that similarity suggests there should be performance overhead available to handle more logic and AI. If the graphical leap isn’t massive, that processing power should be used to significantly increase traffic density to make the world feel alive.
Suggestion:
Please increase the default traffic density for the final build. If this is a console limitation, please add a “Traffic Density” slider/option for PC players. Those of us with high-end rigs would happily trade a few frames for a city that actually feels like a living, breathing metropolis rather than a ghost town.
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Traffic was turned down for the video capture.
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I wish this was done by the dev team instead of IGN, i’d rather hear insights into why the shrubbery was designed the way it was in a section than this month-long preview thing, where i don’t feel like we’re going to see much of anything of note for the moment.
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Very good to know, and that does make sense.
Minor nitpick: probably wanted to add a watermark or notation to that effect at some point in the video. A lot of people are reacting negatively to the lack of traffic in the video.
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Hi Max
I noticed that there are no XP or Fast Travel boards in ign video. All boards marked with the letter H.
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I’d have preferred not IGN at all
@T10ManteoMax can you confirm what platform was the footage taken on and what displayMode/res/fps?
We were shown a pre-release version of the game. The traffic was also turned down (confirmed by Torben himself).
I don’t mind if they don’t show everything right away, I actually prefer it that way. In the IGN footage we were given some hints of what’s to come like stories, amount of roads, a new race track etc. I like the marketing of this game so far. You can really tell the devs are proud of what they’ve built.
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