It’s pretty easy to tell from my recent postings here that I’ve gotten fed up with the disasterclass that is Forza Horizon 5, and I’ve moved back to FH3. As FH5 continues to get worse and worse every update, FH3 looks even better by comparison.
The state of FH5 is frankly embarrassing, and every update I question more and more why organizations as big as Playground Games and Turn 10 are willing to put their name on this mess.
I’ll just say it right now: Forza Horizon 5’s endgame content is garbage. Complete trash. There is no form of competitive racing (ranked in FH4 for example) and people are lumped together regardless of driver skill. I don’t mean that as an insult towards anyone, racing is difficult and we all have our bad days. I’m talking about the people who only use meta cars and corner bombing to make up for their lack of speed and driving ability. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been slammed into a wall, rear ended in a braking zone, or just rammed out of a checkpoint entirely, ruining my race with no hope of a decent result. There’s also no real competitive side like with ranked in FH4. There is no goal or motive, other than the occasional feel-good moment of avoiding a corner bomber and letting them land themselves in the wall, or beating a meta car in a lesser one.
I’ve made a separate post about drifting already, but in short, it needs a complete overhaul. Drivetrains are not separated which gives a massive advantage to AWD players. It’s impossible to drift competitively in this game if you use RWD, because AWD is just objectively better in Forza. Nothing against people who use AWD, but it’s infuriating as someone who prefers RWD not being able to drift competitively at all. The time it gives you to set a lap is far too short as well, and there are certain tracks where you can’t even finish two laps. You also can’t choose lobbies based on car class and the aforementioned drivetrains like you can with Open Racing.
The Eliminator is just a stale mess. Nothing, absolutely nothing has been changed since launch to keep the mode fresh (like every other Battle Royale including FH4’s Eliminator). Ideally, car drops should be refreshed and rotated out every 3 or so months. Yet that still doesn’t solve the issue that the map is just not suited for Eliminator. There are very few areas where driver skill actually matters, and it becomes all down to the car. Since the map is almost entirely open desert and farmland, as long as you have a faster car, the win is already in the bag. The only exceptions to this are the jungle and temple airfield. I’ll get into the endless amounts of bugs and glitches later.
Then there’s EventLab. This mode has so much potential and I really want it to work well. I’ve seen people create some amazing things with it. However, there are plenty of issues including bugs. As of the last time I played (and many others are experiencing this too), the props don’t even load on almost all maps. You’re just left with an empty map. There’s also the constant crashing, and the fact that the search function was just not working for a while (along with various other search functions within the game). And most importantly, it’s just darn near impossible to find good content. Unless you frequent Instagram, Twitter, or Reddit, you’re gonna scroll through 50-60 junk maps with the occasional good one in between. The search function doesn’t give you any help in finding good maps, and the “Best of the Month” and “All Time Greats” categories are almost entirely filled with Skill Point farms and instant race wins. There are some gems, like Baku City Circuit by thefilthyhoney, or ChrisRuggier076’s drift maps, but they are few and far between.
And that leaves the Festival Painlist/Chorelist/whatever the hell you want to call it as the final main endgame content for the general playerbase. There’s a lot to unpack here, but I’ll just start it off with this: the Playlist is not fun or challenging. To myself, and to many, many others. Forzathons tend to be the same, mundane tasks (if tasks at all in the case of dailies). Trials can be fun but are often filled with slow guys and corner bombers. EventLab is hit or miss on whether or not PGG chose good maps. The PR stunts aren’t that challenging, and the car class is always the same: Anything Goes, S2 998.
THIS DESERVES IT’S OWN POINT: B 700 MODERN RALLY. That’s all I’m going to say.
@TheWarmWind76 and others have made some amazing points here about this topic, but I wanted to mention it myself as it’s a very key problem. There is basically no solo endgame. FH3 had custom championships and the Bucket List Blueprint, which both kept the game alive. The ability to choose your own races, restrictions, and conditions was something lost in FH4 and 5, and it is absolutely a huge loss. I mean, c’mon, in the end this is a RACING GAME, and we don’t have a Solo Racing endgame. Rather than focusing on this major issue, Playground has continued to double down and create more “Horizon Stories”, easy, mundane tasks littered with the most cringe-worthy dialogue I have heard since the last time Jarod DeAnda spoke at a drift event. It’s getting extremely old.
And then there’s the map. Bland. That’s the word that describes the landscape in Forza. 40% desert, 50% farmland, 9% jungle and 1% actually interesting and cool things. It’s dull, the driving roads suck, and it has almost no redeeming qualities. There are no modern elements that we have become used to from FH1, 2, and 3, and racing on this landscape is just dull. The game also does a crappy job of populating itself with traffic to the point you begin to think you’re the only one at this big festival.
Finally, the bugs. Oh. My. God. I just can’t. This game is littered with bugs, glitches, and problems, many of which were there at launch and remain there to this day. Every new update makes the game more glitchy. Crashes, search functions not working, props not loading, accolades not working, controller disconnects, and various glitches with individual cars that I won’t even get into. Forza has an ENTIRE LIST of “Won’t Fix By Design” bugs. You designed bugs into your own game? Isn’t that great. Many of these are serious problems and broken promises, like with convertibles. Nice job.
Then you have FH3. A beautiful, modern map, some good roads, a huge city, a more diverse and less cluttered car list, Blizzard Mountain, better music, and a real solo endgame. Custom championships keep the game alive and keep me interested. The soundtrack is diverse, with a mix of great modern and classic music from every genre. Songs are in the right stations (if I hear Do It Better on XS one more time in FH5). Blizzard Mountain was a genuine driving challenge, with the deep snow, slippery ice, and dense forests making racing difficult.
My only complaints with FH3 are these: The AI (FH5’s is bad anyway), the physics are better in 5, and there are no Formula DRIFT cars (more of a subjective one for me). Other than that, a perfect game.
TL;DR - As FH5 continues to get worse and more bug-ridden with every update, FH3 looks like a better and better game.
