I noticed in Forza Horizon 1 that while progression felt better, it also felt short and that I had nothing left to do after I’d finished it. With Forza Horizon 5, there is no sense of progression. I finished the main route in about 2-3 days, and during that whole time I just had everything thrown at me. I never earned anything. I was called a superstar from the first few minutes. So, what do I think could be done to improve this?
First, remove wheelspins. Controversial, I know. But the game activities would pay better to make up for the credits previously earned in wheelspins. They’re too random and can give you cars at the beginning that really should be saved for endgame.
Let’s take the core system of FH5 as it is and improve upon it. You build up a Festival location and unlock things to do based on their theme. This is good. Unfortunately, everything can be unlocked far too quickly and it never feels earned. It can even be annoying, as the game will rip you out of activities to tell you to unlock something new. So first off, remove that annoyance of course. Instead, just have a character call you and say “Hey Player, there’s some new activities at the Wilds Outpost.” And why that one specifically? Because you’d just finished up some dirt racing. Progress in each category is based on your activities in them, similar to FH4. As you finish more, the Outpost will improve, similar to FH3.
So, what will you do at these locations? Championships (or specific PR stunt challenges for the PR stunt Outpost). Ideally, it would take from FM3 in how they’re presented. You get 3 suggested to you, or you can pick one from an event list. The only thing I would change is that while I believe FM3 opens them all up from the beginning, later championships would be locked behind an Outpost level here. You could progress from simple championships like open D Class racing, FWD D Class, etc. up to higher classes and more specific challenges. Ford vs. Ferrari, or factory spec racing, whatever ideas the devs have. While they will be suggested based on a few things such as your current car, or cars you haven’t yet used but would be eligible, like in FM3, they would also be placed in a larger Event List where you can play any that you’ve unlocked and use those to progress that Outpost.
So what about the PR stunt Outpost? I think they already have a good base in the challenges that currently exist in the Playlists. More of that, suggested and listed similarly to the racing championships.
Each championship you complete for the first time would offer a large prize of credits. The hardest could even offer car prizes that are locked behind completion of them, to make the cars truly special. This could be the primary source of Forza Edition cars.
Levels. They’re useless without wheelspins, aren’t they? Well, no. You’ll still be rewarded. At the rate you level up in FH5, I’d say maybe every 5-10 levels you are presented with a choice between a few cars. You can pick one and it’ll be added to your garage. Of course, once you hit a certain level this stops mattering. I would suggest up to the first prestige level, where you get your final reward car. A really nice expensive one. After that, perhaps a small but permanent CR reward boost based on prestige level, and a money prize for each 5-10 levels. The amounts are something that would take too much consideration for this post. But it would ensure that levels continue to be important for as long as you play, and the longer you play, the more rewarded you are. This reduces the overall grind while ensuring that you don’t gain too much too fast at the beginning.
None of this would lock the races away behind progression… mostly. You can play online from the beginning, you can do exhibition races as much as you wish. But there’s still stuff to work toward whenever you want it. The only exception I would add is the finale races. The Colossus and the rest would be locked behind finishing the Outpost improvements, with the Goliath being the final reward for finishing all of them.
And finally, stop locking cars behind the Playlist. Time-gated rewards aren’t very fun, they prey on FOMO to keep people playing. Instead, give the game plenty to do and people will play because they truly want to. The ideas here are designed to solve that too. There can absolutely still be a Playlist with good rewards. But no more exclusives. There’s a reason people call the Playlist a chore.
Think there was some blabla britain now youre in mexico blabla at start and between.