Personally, I view anything coming from Microsoft these days with cynicism. Unable to create and evolve good studios to make games for them, they decided to buy publishers to direct the making of these games for them instead. Once again, they’re throwing money at problems instead of coming up with ingenious solutions, more concerned with hurting the competition than with being great themselves.
IMO the biggest issue with T10 is definitely how oblivious they are with regards to community requests. It’s almost as if, like Microsoft, they’re more concerned with upstaging other racing games (especially Gran Turismo) than with satisfying the more invested fans. Ironically, there’s very visible aspects of the game in which T10 is actually worst in class, thanks to their insistence on asset reuse.
The reception to the trailer was positive overall, but it was not positive among the people who are likely to invest more time into the game. Sim racing outlets were critical of T10’s secrecy when it comes to info and even Jalopnik (whom I don’t take seriously, but hey, it’s got reach) wrote a piece on it. Since Forza Motorsport is a franchise more likely to attract hardcore racing fans than casual players, as opposed to Horizon, this could spell trouble for T10 later on. With the recent layoffs at 343 Industries, Microsoft has shown it won’t hesitate to cull studios which underperform in the long term.
Seems to me T10 is largely satisfied with Microsoft’s strategy of drawing in as many players at launch as possible, to push for more Game Pass subscriptions. This strategy has led to games which are pretty on the surface, but shallow and broken on the inside. It’s always a big boom at launch, then the game begins to decay 2 months later at most. The casuals love it and it’s up to the fans to put up with the games’ issues, which is unfair to the fans TBH. Just look at Halo: good metascore, 20 million at launch, but it was badly supported and it’s dying. Even FH5 didn’t do too well after the first few months.
IMO the Forza wing is the poster child of T10’s disregard for the community’s wishes. But then, when they think of “community”, they think of the people who sub to Game Pass and barely make it to 10 hours in the game, so it’s to be expected.
It’s become a meme at this point. When you reach that point in the trailer where they mention “from the ground up” for the 100th time and show the Forza Aero, it’s like they are taunting the OG fanbase. It’s an insult.
I feel like people who dont know much about development and licencing given this era of live service would go just like you. And rightfully. I mean when you hear about 500cars and 20 enviroments and compare that to the previous game…well. Apparently something’s going on here.
Add to that 2 reveals so far for the new motorsport game with little to no new information added that actually matters to fans. But if you were to go back into the past you’ll see that this is pretty much a pattern that repeats itself in the case of motorsport when it comes to content at launch. I could say the same about gran tourismo.
I cant go into specifics. But so ive heard there was something similar going on when the consoles switched from the 360s to xbox one era. Less tracks, less cars and just overall seemingly less content.
Every few years this is just bound to happen. Motorsport 7 knew they were still making the game for older gen so it was a no brainer for them not to include all that content at launch. As a lot of it would just transfer over. But now we’re moving into next gen only. Also we’re moving into a new/updated forzatech engine. So naturally the content will be less at launch.
Seems to me like an opprotunity for the devs to get the best out of it. But are they? Will they? Idk but i understand the skepticism. YET theyre still rolling these old car modes?!! And the same forza aero. Literally doing a 360 on everything i wrote above. To me which means that just because its next gen game dont mean anything.
At this point players are just flipping a coin at forza Motorsport & Horizon in hope that these games are going to be solid. Is motorsport going to have X? Flip a coin. Is motorsport going to have Y? Flip a coin.
You’d think following logic and linearity makes sense and leads to something positive when in reality it seems thats not often the case. And at least when youre being skeptical or negative there is a higher chance of hitting the lottery in this game of coin flipping.
The developer friends of mine who I wrote about earlier worked on the Madden NFL series by EA.
They told me, the reason annualized games like this don’t get huge graphic updates as often as other titles is because once the generation of console hardware is locked, so is the code base. So, the only time the graphics and UI are updated is when moving from one generation of hardware to the next.
Sure, they can do small updates and add features like Ray Tracing, or adjust little things. But the overall look and feel of the games will remain pretty much the same from the launch of the new hardware until the next generation, or a mid-generation refresh like with the One X, and PS4 Pro. This is why many people like to criticize annual games for looking dated, or below current standards. Well, they are, but not because devs are “lazy”, or “incompetent”.
This is probably what’s happened with FM because not only are they moving to a new console hardware, but they are adding graphic features that are pretty taxing on the already outdated RDNA2 architecture (AMD was never that fast at RT as Nvidia). Trying to hit a native(?) 4K @ 60fps benchmark with RT is not easy even on more powerful PC hardware. So, imagine trying to do this with a very limited CPU, RAM and GPU budget.
I know most of you are against RT, and to be honest, I don’t care about RT in racing games, either… But this is the mandate MS has given Xbox to sell Xbox consoles. So, the devs have no choice but to try and achieve this goal (along with improving physics and AI, too!) while also delivering a high amount of cars at launch. Hence, corners are going to have to be cut in certain areas, right or wrong.
A billion dollar physics engine with all the cars and all they can think of is how to cheapen it. Sorry there will be no money upfront this time. We want realistic open world environments. Not tickets on the Titanic.
Turn 10 are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to car counts in particular. As a general rule, the more cars that are in a game the worse quality they’ll be. That said it’s a bit disappointing there’s not a higher proportion of new cars to the series and/or touched up models in the 6 years since the last game. I assume the improvements to lighting and materials will smooth things over to a certain degree, but I wonder how noticeable the differences between the new and old cars will be?
The environment count is what I find more of a problem because I find a lack of tracks makes a game feel stale quicker. I know licensing is always an issue, but I would have thought more tracks would return from FM5, 6 and 7, they were done pretty well imo. But I suppose T10 were afraid they might look out of place compared to the new ones.
The biggest issue with the new reveal is that they just talked about graphics, the amount of cars and tracks and a lot of marketing speak. It really needed more coverage on how the game will play and what will make it different to previous titles. Because without that you end up with people asking did it really need 6 years just for that.
Uh… If Turn 10 overhauled FM7 only to implement the physics from FM8, that would be a win in my book. FM7 would be compelling to play again. Graphics, weather, and sound are just cake toppings. I’m here for the physics and game play. Period.
[Edit. I broke the quote link due to omitting all the superfluous stuff.]
[Also edit. Shortened and removed redundant wording. I attempted to add cohesion, but I failed, miserably.]
Im perfectly alright waiting years if the end product is a polished game where everything works as intended, the game feels finished, theres new and improved content, and its not just a shinier version of the previous iteration of the same “stuff” theyve been squeezing out for the past decade… But i would bet almost any amount that that shall not be the case
Since FM 2 the series has gone down hill, I blame this on allowing Developers to implement their bad ideas and all this woke bridism , Look at FH 5 making it so all you have to do is just hold down one button and the game does the rest, that’s not a driving game , if you can break and steer you have no business playing a racing game. What made FM 3 suck was putting limits on how much a person can auction their car for and implementing the storefronts, In FM 5 it got even worse as restrictions were no went by Car class but division this further ruined the game not only that but in FM5 and 6 it wasn’t clear what the restrictions were for the cars in the races. I am guessing FM 8 is going to be even worse as Turn 10 is pandering to the developers, not real gamers such as myself . Would be nice If I could get FM 2 on PC as that was and still is the best racing sim ever made , the only game that ever came close to it was GT3. When FM3 came out, the lost more then half their serious gamers . Being a live streamer, I give all games an honest review and can’t be bought, which is why T10 is not happy with me now . T10 if you’re reading this if you want a good review then make a game that lives up to our expectation and stop pandering to the bad ideas of your developers and listen to us . Console signature games have gone down hill that’s why I switched to PC gaming , I am not happy with Sony either Nintendo is the only console maker that has stayed true to their core gamers but I am into serious games so a Nintendo is not for me
Personally I would be happy with only 50 cars as its the game play which is most important, seem you all have neglected to mention that . Best game they ever had was FM 2 as it was focused on the game play now its all about pandering to the desires of the developer’s bad ideas like putting limits on what we can auction our cars for and races not restricted by Class but division that was the worst idea they game up with. What the game needs is better cars not more and to revert to races being restricted by class not division and get rid of storefronts and just have the car action without any restrictions what a person can set the maximum price for.
RIght on you said exactly what I have been saying but in a much better way good that someone understands in the end its about the game play not the amount of cars or tracks but making the next game as good as what FM 2 was . What T10 needs to do is go back to their roots as they have lost sight of what made the game great , A lot of people if FM 2 were available on PC would download that game and it would be the only game they would play until T10 makes a game that is better .
You know, size isn’t everything. I don’t mind a small game if it can last a long time. Or a small game can be exciting of the developer is creative and wants to try new things. Or maybe the game curves in a different direction than what you’re used to and is able to hit spots in your gaming experience that aren’t normally hit
I think it’ll be fine with a smaller car list, but a smaller track list (and no DLC tracks or tracks through free updates) will be what does this game in.
When visiting Motorsport 2 for the first time (I had only played Motorsport 4 and 7 previously), I loved almost everything about it. The presentation, the soundtrack, the career structure, the car list, I could go on. However, there were two thinks that bugged me. One was no in-race music (made some of the longer events pretty dull), and the other (and biggest offender) was the tiny amount of tracks. There was so much repetition as a result, even in the early stages of the career, and I think Motorsport 2 holds the distinction of being the only Motorsport game in the 360 era without any exclusive tracks. Not sure if this factoid is a good thing, or a bad thing, but I’m leaning towards bad in this context.
Looking forward to junes info dump. Very disconcerning about last years news dump. Praying this iteration is race specific no trucks ,suvs etc. As far as tracks? Imho im hoping real worl circuits are a priority.
Literally doing a 360 on everything i wrote above. To me which means that just because its next gen game dont mean anything.