With opinions of FH5 being less than negative, it’s clear that the new game needs to be almost flawless in order to win back the faith in the franchise. There’s signs that suggest this new game could be great: for instance, the lack of any news suggests that the developers are fully focusing on the development process and really trying to refine the game to make it as good as they possibly can. However, the lack of news is also an extreme worry, considering there’s been almost no major news for nearly half a year now. Normally by this stage, we’d have a full track list, a car list and everything… but we have none of that. There’s very little news about this game other than what is already known, which leads me to suggest that things may not be all good…
So, my message to Turn 10 is a simple one: Enough messing around. Forza Motorsport is your chance to redeem yourself. You’ve had 3 years of development time, which is more than usual, so there should be no excuse for the game to be poor. If you can deliver on your promises, and give the fans what they have been asking for, there’s a chance you may be looking at redemption. But you have to put the racing experience and the CORE fanbase first. I’m not saying you shouldn’t look to attract new fans, but prioritise those who have been there for years.
Let’s hope that those 3 years of development are worth it in the end.
My hopes aren’t overly high for fm anymore. They keep going on about the graphics and how everything is “built from the ground up” and yet continue to use assets that are over 10 years old. This series has been going downhill for years but in recent few years its become exponentially faster in that downward trend. I was going to make a pun about polishing a poo, but the simple fact is that this is far from being polished so guess what that leaves us with.
“By this stage” the game typically wouldn’t have been announced at all.
Forza Motorsport has been a known entity for about 3 years now (whether that’s Microsoft forcing Turn 10 to reveal early or not is up for debate).
All previous Forza Motorsport pre-release campaigns have been around 3 months.
Realistically, there’s no need to go into much detail about the game until pre-orders open up, which typically happen a few months before launch.
Once Microsoft have a way for people to spend money on Forza Motorsport, they’ll drop far more “useful” information than the can-kicking they’ve been doing since 2020.
tldr: Wait until June.
Minor correction, they’ve been working on this game since 2018 (so, about 5 years).
Forza Motorsport 7’s live service was a bit of a mess (because the game itself was also a bit of a mess) and staff started shifting to Forza Motorsport pre-production as soon as the major Forza Motorsport 7 issues were resolved.
I enjoyed every one so far. Forza is a great series for what it is. Everyone would do something different and I would make some changes if I was the boss but not many.
It would be quite disappointing if this game features the same standard Forza aero yet again. It’s featured in the trailer and it’s fine, but after almost 20 years I think we can see something new by now. Seriously, other racing games keep reinventing themselves and explore different themes but Forza keeps playing safe.
I’m saying this while the game is not out yet and we have only seen a handful of screenshots and a trailer. So perhaps the new FM exceeds our expectations. Let’s hope so!
The new Motorsport will be more of a marketing tool (“look, raytracing!”) for casual audiences, rathen than a serious racing game. Ever since FM5 they’ve been desperately trying to widen the user base and turn the franchise to spectacle instead of humble, grounded racing. The new FM will probably not be different, just a collection of marketing buzzwords (from the ground up, ray tracing on track, dynamic time of day). Kind of a truly “show off” poster child, with which they can sell more Game Pass subscriptions, rather than a serious experience with substance.
That’s not to say there isn’t some serious work going into the project, I’m sure that technically it will be top-notch. But if you look at it, it’s the old FM all over again, oversaturated, unrealistic, arcade-y lighting, wide angle cameras, overdone motion blur, and the Forza Horizon UI design language. This is the identity of this franchise now. It will never be Gran Turismo, iRacing or Assetto Corsa because that’s not what the developers are aiming for. What they need is a marketable “hero” title.
In a sense, they won’t “blow it” – the game will be perfect for the mass market and to slap onto Game Pass ads. But what the core Forza Motorsport community really wants, it will provide only in traces.
Let’s just say that Microsoft, or the Xbox team, or Xbox Game Studios, whatever corporate form we talk about, they basically don’t aim to cater for the core audience anymore. What they want is to sell Game Pass subscriptions to laypersons, and they need marketing vessels for that. Forza Motorsport is nothing more than a collection of marketing lines. Now with the newly announced blind assist feature, while it’s a great initiative, it just shows that the focus is on widening the audience, and not to satisfy the core fans. The game looks underwhelming in the new gameplay clips by the way, basically just FM7 re-released.
And you just know that these assists, as nobel-intentioned as they may be, are going to have downstream effects on the physics model. You’re saying FM7, but this is really looking like FM5 reheated to me.
I’ve seen little to fully excite me so far, graphics, physics and accessibility have never been a problem in any FM, those are not where the improvements from FM5, 6 and 7 are important.
Like I have said many times in the FH section content is what matters, that is what makes a game timeless and memorable, while games who’s strongest points are on the technical side will almost always eventually be bettered + outdone.
I have no doubt this will be better than every previous game technically, but will it immerse me in the experience like FM3 + 4? Or will it be just another very pretty, well controlling but ultimately cold and hollow one like FM7?
I would argue that physics in Forza Motorsport has been a problem since FM5. When they introduced the new “Calspan physics”, claiming it would be much more realistic, the cars started behaving as if we were driving on ice. Barely any grip, and RWD race cars that were not prototypes were almost undriveable without the infamous “Forza aero”. It’s been completely off ever since. FM6 made some progress in the right direction, but there were other issues in that one, remember the “puddles” that the developers hyped so proudly? It was yet another new feature that was way overdone. In FM7, the ice-driving feel returned, I’ll never forget how absolutely nobody could drive the Porsche 911 GT2 in Dubai, it was like watching pinball. And while it was claimed that the game would feature “dramatic dynamic weather”, it turned out nothing more than a set piece. Not even tyre change was necessary because it didn’t matter if you drove on dry or wet track. That’s not good physics to me.
And we could continue the list. The lack of general grip, the constant need of “Forza aero” to get something at least resembling proper driving, the unrealistic performance or braking of many cars, the outlandish engine swaps. I played even FM7 a lot but I felt really silly doing so. It just felt more like bumper cars than real ones by that release.
As for content: only 20 tracks is really few. Even though some “environments” may contain more than one layout, it doesn’t really help variety. So I’m actually concerned about the diversity of the career mode, for example. I hope they don’t come up with something like a new “Test Track” with 50 minor deviations and try to sell it to us as so many tracks.
Oh I agree but I was referring to the physics on a general scale in that there are many other things the XB1 era games did worse than them with the career mode being my personal top priority, it was embarrassing in FM6 particularly.
The amount of tracks are a bit of a worry to me as well, Project CARS 2 made by a smaller studio with less resources managed to put FM5-7 to shame with it and I’d even argue SMS’s fictional tracks in PC2 were better than Prague/Rio/Dubai, and now this time it looks as if we’re going even further back in terms of available tracks.
I’m hoping this doesn’t follow the trend of it’s Horizon sibling, still a good game but wastes vast amounts of potential through poor design choices and shallow content.
Also we don’t know what it will be like on release day, it’s more surprising when a big title doesn’t come out in a poor state nowadays.
There’s something wrong with rear engined RWD cars in FM 6 and 7. FM7 definitely felt grippy compared to 5 and 6 when driving FR and MR. For RR it felt like the front axle was coming off the ground from the cockpit perspective. Very unpleasant; the front axle would lift and slam back down upsetting the balance of the car on throttle. I hope they fix this in the upcoming Motorsport.
FM5 is drivable, it was just new coming from FM4. They nerfed the physics (and graphics) as they added more features and cars in 6 and 7. 6 was the sweet spot for me, if they can make this better than 6 then that’s a win.
TheGilleMuller: “Like I have said many times in the FH section content is what matters, that is what makes a game timeless and memorable, while games who’s strongest points are on the technical side will almost always eventually be bettered + outdone.”
Totally. But here’s the thing: those are the things you can easily showcase in little teasers – as they’ve been doing. Cheap views at the outset = less long-term success.
y’all are depressing. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just wanna play it already