You can tell money was invested in fm6. They had 2 big expansion packs, good marketing, released forza apex and then they tried to get into esports. Unfortunately the game was ill equipped for esports.
3 Likes
20 years of supporting this studio and franchise comes to a sad end. The only MS game I have supported longer is Age of Empires. Absolutely gutted.
Like I said before, release whatever unreleased content is left. None of us have the will to still wait for the weekly grind-fest that is exactly the same every week. I’ll play this game until it gets delisted.
I was one of the first on the Horizon bandwagon but after this news, I am not sure I will stick around for whatever FH6 is.
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A few examples:
- Humanoid Origin, from the guy that brought you Mass Effect: folded, never released anything.
- Ridgeline Game, from a guy that made Halo: folded, never released anything.
- Cliffhanger Games, from the guy who brought you Shadow of Mordor to make Marvel Black Panther: folder, game cancelled.
- Netflix Blue, from the producer of Overwatch with folks from Halo and Gears of War: folded, no games.
- The Initiative, folks from Crystal Dynamics, to work on Perfect Dark reboot: folded, game cancelled.
- Lightforge Games, devs from Blizzard, Riot and others: folded, no game.
- Typhoon Studios, devs from Ubisoft and EA: made one middling game, closed.
The actual point:
I honestly can’t remember all the new studios from ex-whatever devs that popped up in the last 5 or 10 years that promised AAA revolution. A lot of them never had the budget to do anything before shutting down. And for every studio that manages to get funding, actually complete a game, and it’s not inane slop but actually good, well, there’s a dozen that don’t get that chance.
It’s a ruthless industry. You don’t make a game with just one guy and good intentions.
2 Likes
here’s what I think.
I bought the day one game for 100 euros and ended up with an unfinished, graphically degraded and unoptimized game, stripped of some of its car and track content.
An absolutely infamous car level progression system
A game with a mandatory online connection
The videos presenting the actual game were misleading about the quality of the product.
The list of this game problems is long.
And yet the game was nominated for the games awards as the best… Further proof of corruption.
We had to wait almost 6 months to be able to play it serenely on PC with additions, patches on patches and finally we arrive at the anniversary patch and we have what we’ve been asking for months, namely a complete game, at last!
"We’ve listened to the community
They didn’t have a choice, the game was already in the process of becoming a monumental flop. So now, for what’s left of the developers at Turn 10, you’re going to allow us to use the game in offline mode and to use all the content we’ve obtained in-game and once again offline.
You’re going to give us a progress report on the future of the game, and patch it quickly out of respect for your consumers, who are also in a state of total incomprehension.
I’d like to spare a thought for the developers and people in charge of the game who were fired and forced to release it in such a catastrophic state for the shareholders’ wallets, and for Microsoft’s top executives, who are solely responsible for what happened, not the low-paid people who designed the game and tried to repair the mistakes made by their studio heads.
15 Likes
I actually had a FM6 edition Xbox one. For me it was the best game of the series, purely for me beacons it was the first time I’d been able to play online, yes I was late to the party and man it was a game changer.
I spent night after night playing leagues and after starting at the bottoms, ended up as a very competitive player in pinnacle league.
4 Likes
I sometimes play the 4 and the 7 which for me is very good, the 6 I did not know with this xbox console, I may be tempted to make the collection of old forza.
1 Like
I’ll be honest. I think it’s a terrible situation for those laid off, I wish as many of them quickly find new jobs (hopefully in the industry) as possible. Being unemployed is obviously a horrible situation, and no one deserves it, especially those who probably poured the most energy into this project.
However, as for the game, and honestly to a degree for the franchise, my heart is not broken.
I’ve been a Forza Motorsport player and huge fan of the series ever since the first game in 2005. On the OG Xbox, I could already play online with friends, and had tremendous fun, even though the game arrived very late in the console’s life cycle. Just a few months later, most of us switched to Xbox 360, and we wouldn’t have a new Forza Motorsport until 2007. Still, the online connections remained and when FM2 hit, most of us continued where we left off. FM2’s switch to 60 fps was a revelation, and the new game was incredibly smooth and polished, something that would quickly become the staple of Turn 10 Studios.
Those were the peak years, and I couldn’t wait for the next one to hit, with new cars, new tracks and even more advanced graphics. Forza Motorsport 3 was almost unbelievable that it ran on the same console as 2 did, I remember people online thinking it was fake, because there was no way to have such graphics, interior views for all cars, etc. Yet, it was real. It was magic.
Forza Motorsport 4 fleshed it out even more, with insane amount of content, out of this world graphics, even better physics. It has remained the best FM forever, in my opinion. It was the pillar of Xbox, the killer app, the very essence of why we loved to be Xbox players. So to claim I was a fan would be an understatement.
With Forza Motorsport 5 the momentum clearly broke, as upper management forced Turn 10 to make it a launch title for the Xbox One, for which content clearly suffered. But I still liked it, and FM5 was — for all its design shortcomings — the tour de force it’s ever been. I was looking forward to Turn 10 show magic again with FM6, just like they did going from 2 to 3.
FM6 was great, and I think it’s ultimately the best Forza Motorsport in the post-Xbox 360 era. It was going in the right direction, it was beautiful and elegant, and the two racing-focused expansions (Porsche and NASCAR) were amazing.
FM7 is where I think things went south. Either Turn 10, or Microsoft’s upper management grew envious of the louder success of the Forza Horizon series, so they tried to combine the two: Horizon’s eccentric, silly style with Motorsport’s track focus. I didn’t like it, the UI was a mess, the dancing avatars were stupid, the loot boxes were terrible, and the rock soundtrack awful. That’s where FM lost its way in my opinion, and no wonder the series disappeared for so long afterwards.
And now, the last Motorsport, I never liked. It’s clearly a mismanaged project with no direction, rehashed old content, awful “Career” mode, terrible progression, ugly decade-old car models, more bugs than the rest of the whole franchise combined. My heart isn’t breaking that it’s killed. I would’ve pulled the plug right after release, and would’ve forced Turn 10 to start over and develop a truly new Forza Motorsport “from the ground up”, and not lie about it this time. But of course, Microsoft’s upper management has no need for quality products anymore. They just want money, growth, and a single AI doing all the work so they don’t have to pay salary to anyone.
I absolutely loved Forza Motorsport, it was my passion within my hobby, from 2005 to about 2017. Now in 2025 I’m not sad seeing it go, because under today’s management it’s clear that it could never be the franchise I loved so much. And it’s probably better to see it disappear than to convert into something we would not even recognize.
10 Likes
The fact that Microsoft didnt even let T10 finish the summer or the year off for this game is just weird. Just automatic cuts and shuttered the game right where it stands, no kind of announcement way ahead of time or giving the devs a little more time, say after the holidays…just done and nothing else? Wow
4 Likes
Personally, I’m waiting for official confirmation of the future of the game. The laying off of staff could have been planned…after all, once the game released, they no longer needed a full roster of staff as they were not going to be developing a new game…keep the full roster for 18 months as that would be the most work, fixing bugs, getting the bigger updates sorted etc and then a smaller team for the longer term. They could have just rolled the cuts into the bigger cuts as that was happening anyway.
As to the game actually shuttering: Unless I’ve missed something somewhere, the only person saying that is an ex-developer who, if I recall, left in 2016…they might have inside info or maybe speculating. Until I here it officially, the rest of it is just white noise
7 Likes
We should have known something was wrong when it took 6 years instead of 2 to produce this game.
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We did know. It was obvious on launch day that something(s) went very wrong.
11 Likes
I think they knew something since January, they then made that message to the community and went radio silent to finish fujimi and make whatever changes to the career. I think you can see by how fujimi turned out, they really put their all into it.
The timing seems to be the trend lately. My wifes company just did the same last week. They felt it was nicer to do it now then around the holidays. But no time is a good time.
7 Likes
I am gutted about I’ve got to be honest, but my overriding feeling is anger.
The hubris on display at the games launch, from one person in particular was off the chart. I solely blame that person as until he was involved the game was in a good state.
Not only did that person destroy a game, a community with said hubris he also cost 100’s of people their jobs.
I bet this person has not lost their job though.
4 Likes
I’m guessing the Forza Insiders haven’t been told anything either?
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Correct
1 Like
I wouldn’t say blame should be placed on a single person as when you look back, starting from fm7 things were starting to crop up.
Fm6 had a lot of money invested as i said above. They started an esports series, which failed, they also made a pc offshoot in apex. Fm7 was being developed in that time, which required the team to create a full pc release and a 4k@60 cersion for the xbox one x.
Fm7 was not as polished as past entries. The creative director at the time tried to make the gameplay loop like a Pokémon game like the one he worked on in the past. They got shredded for the loot boxes, they invested in bringing a rally expansion of some sort but something fell through and only the cars remained.
They had to change the homologation rules no one wanted and wipe the leaderboards. They then announced they would work on 7 instead of starting a new title as usual. I think this decision was the real beginning of the end as they likely werent given the green light to make another game.
Then this pseudo reboot was announced, with everything fans wanted to hear, more focused, more sophisticated physics, more time to really knock it out of the park. I was in the early testing at this point around the beginning of covid, but things seemed promising.
Fast foward to the “built from the ground up” deep dive and the focus was the opposite of what i personally expected. “RAY TRACING”, “BEST LOOKING”, “BEST SOUNDING”, “MOST ADVANCED RACING GAME EVER MADE”. Nothing about gameplay, new ai, new physics, we’d have to wait for that.
Fast foward again to the summer before release. A trailer with forza aero, not great, cars with missing glass, not great. A clip about the physics update, good, a clip of a single ai lapping faster than before, ok, but no real gameplay.
They seemed to struggle to promote the game as most questions were left unanswered. Less cars, less tracks, no Nordschleife at launch, no drift, no drag, stay tuned. A demo was then released to streamers only, not everyone like every other forza in the past. Things not looking great and Dan Greenawalt had to pop up to steady the ship before launch.
Game launches, its a wreck, no explanations, no apologies. 4 months later promises to change the economy, ai and penalties. The economy changed quickly, but the other 2 struggle till this day.
In the end i think the term, “A day late and a dollar short” rings true with this title. They never quite seemed to have a handle on things and everything spiraled. Game direction changed, it was also decided to be next gen only, horrible marketing and lack of clarity for months before the release. A lack of budget after release which led to slow updates for the main issues both bugs and content. It truly was a disastrous launch, which ultimately clipped its wings and never allowed it to get off the ground.
10 Likes
All Turn 10 had to do was remaster FM4. That would have printed money.
Instead we got bare bones FM5, the fun Homologated out of FM7, and then FM8. Ever since the release of Xbox One turn 10 has been dropping dueces.
Horizon got stale once they abandoned the whole festival atmosphere.
I loved FH1 with the wristbands, rival drivers.
Basically drivatars was the worst idea ever.
1 Like
I absolutely agree with you.
And people wonder why MS was shutting them down. But it’s no wonder because MS was the sponsor of T10 and who was giving them money to develop FM since the first FM on the first XBox.
Sorry for the devs of T10 who put everything into FM. But please ask for yourself: why does GT still work and why does FM 2023 fail so hard?
1 Like
All the comments are very similar. It seems like an irony of fate. I certainly knew it would be closed. To make an honorable farewell to 20 years of Forza Motorsport, a commemorative DLC should put all the cut cars, which are more than 400, and race tracks in the game that first came out. But that’s crazy… lol What we’ll get in the next few days will be the non-renewal of the licenses and the game being removed from the store. It remains to be seen whether they’ll make an update to play offline.
2 Likes
You have a good understanding of the games development and can always be assured to give a reasoned and balanced view.
IMO 90% of the games short comings were all down to the overall creative direction of the game. The focus on physics perhaps being the only good step forwards
Look at the trailers we were shown three years ago, the game looked like a true next gen title.this isn’t what we got when we got. We were promised ‘the most advanced racing game ever produced’ there’s no need to to drag out the other quotes as they’ve now entered the immortality of memedome.
The other 10% of the games problems were quality control, some may argue that should be way higher and they’d certainly have a point but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt with this due to Covid and by this point I’m sure MS were all over them to release, given it was already massively behind expected launch.
Either way there’s was only one person who promised us and didn’t deliver, there was only person who seemed to take pleasure in dissing past entries while bigging up this shambles . Hubris!
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