I play single player only on pretty much every racing game I own, and I compare Horizon 5’s single player mode to those from older racing games.
Compared to its predecessors of the genre, Horizon 5’s single player mode has a few glaring issues. One, the campaign outside of the Festival Playlist is extremely short. It doesn’t take a whole lot of time to one hundred percent it all. I was still working full-time when Horizon 5 was launched, and yet I still managed to complete all the races, expeditions, and stories within a week.
Two, the Festival Playlist is just a gimmick to keep metrics up. It wags a carrot on a stick (or, in this case, a new car) in front of the player to turn in every week. Players then play the same courses over and over again in championships that probably had more effort put into the names then the cars, courses, and conditions chosen. It gets old very fast, especially since not much has changed since Horizon 4. It isn’t a replacement for a proper single player campaign either. It’s a part-time job disguised as a video game, and the punishment for not wanting to tune in for a week is missing out on content that may take several months to a year to return. Though, of course, you’re mileage may vary on this stance depending on how much value getting every car.
If Horizon 6 were to pace its single player mode a bit better, and perhaps modify its live service to be less repetitive and punishing, then I’d probably have much nicer things to say about the franchise currently and its offline activities.
The AI needs heavy nerfing in cross country championships, they always have alien space ship engines, and the worlds strongest super glue on their tyres, making cross country championships very hard to win in solo mode.
Its a shame that off all the cross country tracks, why do we have to do the 3 hardest tracks this week, where the ai is uncatchable in solo mode ? The AI is always much faster in solo mode championships than in co-op championships, its been well proven, and it needs fixing.
I don’t disagree with what you said, but for the record a lot of it only applies to the console side of things. PC gamers were doing 4- or 8-person online multiplayer back in the mid-90s. (Any oldheads out there ever use Kali or Kahn?) Granted it wasn’t nearly as widespread as now, and the games were still primarily singleplayer-focused, but it existed.
On road races and dirt races, winning is alot easier, but cross country is a whole different story.
Unbeatable in co-op mode is about the same as highly skilled in solo mode cross country championships
Hard disagree on nerfing the AI. I’d like to see them go the other direction and beef up the challenge, especially in cross country where the AI struggle the most and rarely are able to put up a fight.
I think players might struggle with cross country because it’s the race type they do the least so they don’t know the courses very well and might not drive the appropriate vehicles often.
Next seasons Trial is cross country so I guess we’ll see how the community fares.
Think the first race might be El Descenso but I could be wrong.
Ok, well maybe not for you but there is a large base that do find it easy, myself included.
I’ve been playing for a long, long time across several franchises of FH, the AI are not an issue, trust me, your fellow players (not all mind you) are the biggest issue in any game mode.
Poor car choice (i sometimes do this) and untuned or very poorly tuned cars are a large reason why people do not have success as well.
Many factors play into why it is hard for you and easy for others, the difficulty setting is not one of those factors. Highly Skilled Seasonal Championships are a walk in the park these days, whether they be Solo or Co-op.
I actually like getting a new car every week. that’s the main attraction for me. if people aren’t ok with starting the game with hundreds of cars, and adding hundreds more over a few years, then their attention span and expectations are broken.
not sure why they changed this. I used to run unbeatable in FH4. even if it defaults to highly skilled and you’re forced to change it every time, at least give us the option.
a related and somewhat bigger problem imo, is people sharing tunes that are tested vs highly skilled, since that’s the skill level cap in offline events. it creates a “good enough” mentality that halts improvement by the tuners and the people using their tunes. in this way, single player does put people in a bubble where they overestimate their skill. it happened to me when this game launched.
always always do race tuning vs unbeatables. even then, you still might go online and get smoked by somebody you never heard of in a car you never thought of.
It’s only cross country that has these problems, and this week, we were sadly forced to race on the 3 tracks, were the ai is the most op and just takes off into distance, never to be seen again.
The AI is faster on some tracks than on others, it was the same in FH4.
Exactly, 100 % true, especially on certain tracks, like the Festival cross country and the Baja cross country race, these are 2 of the hardest tracks win on in the game
No wonder the series is the way it is, considering the results of the last poll…
Anyway, can’t we at least start doing things the FH3 way again ?
Exhibition races can be done with any car (class limitations should stay, until you progress further into the game) but the championships required to progress have specific limitations.
So out of curiosity, i decided to run the CC Seasonal Championship in Solo.
1st run at it - ExtremeE - 2nd, 1st, 1st. (For some stupid reason the bushes before the first main jump slow the car right down letting the AI pull ahead by several car lengths).
2nd run at it - AM DBX - 1st, 1st, 1st.
3rd run at it - Torana - 1st, 1st, 1st. (I love this car, had one when i was younger).
4th run at it - TZ2 - 1st, 1st, 1st
5th run at it - Eagle Speedster - 1st, 1st, 1st.
The thing is, i can choose practically any car within the spec range, and win.
Not only win, but win comfortably with usually 1 AI rubberbanding me and the rest a long several seconds behind.
Bad Mr Bane! 
