After playing the demo a couple times, I’ve noticed there’s barely any street lighting, even in the small towns. According to Turn 10 however, there will be much lighting and will also be revamped.
This is a pretty big issue if it’s the same as in the full game… especially for Forzatographers.
Yeah country lanes in the UK don’t have street lighting.
Villages are a mixed bag. The village I grew up in has some street lighting but not all of it has and the village my brother lived in doesn’t have any at all
To make the point clear, I found a video on youtube of someone recording their drive homes through the bad storms we had last year. This person starts their trip in Reading, which is a fairly standard example of a UK city. However, after driving for just 10 minutes you get outside the city limits and have a look at how the street lighting just vanishes:
If FH4 was being totally accurate, you’d find it impossible to race at night because all you’d have is the cateyes and your headlights to see where the road was. This guy didn’t see any streetlights for a solid 5 mins and then, as with most UK cities, you begin to see them again as you approach the city limits:
An 18 minute drive and around 1/4 of that time is spent in complete darkness.
That’s the way it is here in the UK. There have often been times I’ve been driving through the countryside and there are NO lights whatsoever APART from your own headlights.
I typed up some feedback about the street lighting in FH4 on reddit (original post can be found here) which I was hoping would be seen by someone from Playground/T10. I will copy it below, but there is some good further information in the comments of that reddit post.
This may sound a bit weird, but I was wondering if the team would consider switching up the street lights across the map. Watching gameplay videos, it is surreal how familiar a lot of roads and motorways feel (I am from the UK). Thre is one thing that is holding back from making it perfect IMO, and that is the street lamps.
Motorways and roads across the UK used to be lit by SOX lamps, which emit a characteristic orangey-yellow glow. Here is are some examples:
In real life, a lot of these lamps are now dying, and have been replaced by LEDs which emit a cool white light. Some areas with these SOX lamps do still exist though, as do areas lit by SON lamps (these emit a less yellow coloured light than SOX, but are still ‘warm white’:
Personally, I am not a fan of the harsh white light from LEDs, and also think they detract from the atmosphere in certain instances. If some stretches of motorway and roads on the map in game could be lit by SOX and SON, I think it would enhance the overall experience since this would create unique atmospheres in these areas at night. Seeing the SOX lamps warm up from pinkish-red to yellow over time in game would be awesome, and capture a part of a UK driving experience that is dying off that could be lived out through this game.
Maybe it’s a load of bollocks that many won’t care about, but I thought it would be worth putting out there! If you are from the UK and do a lot of driving, I would be interested to know your views on this.
I’m not sure if you realize this but there isn’t many dual-carriage ways in the FH4 map. Yes, highways and cities are well lit but the game is mainly filled with country roads where lights are not commonplace at all.