There has been a rumor going around for awhile now, where various sources say that the development team has indeed been working on Forza Motorsport 2023 for 6 years, but somewhere around the 4 year development mark, the entire game was scrapped and they had to start from scratch again. In doing so, they had to speed up everything and basically had to make an updated FM7 rather than a brand new Forza Motorsport which they had envisioned. Which would explain the bugs, poor graphics, glitches, and outdated car models. But are these rumors actually true? Does anybody know where these rumors come from? Are there any credible and verifiable sources to confirm or deny these rumors? What is the true story here?
I think it’s mostly due to the state the game launched in. Lack of evefything, same menus, bugs and glitches from previous forza motorsport games. It’s hard to belive this game took even 4 years to make. platform seems the same and you can update physics within the game. Kunos did this with ACC remodeling tire physics and susspension. Some say that most time took them to restucture the whole pipeline so the game could be modified and updated “on the fly”…we haven’t seen that yet.
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I don’t think this will ever be confirmed or denied tbh. You’d have to ask the question why they would do that? Think of the cost of putting in the bin something which would have cost tens of millions of not hundreds at that point. It would be commercial suicide. Unless of course it was absolutely rubbish, in which case you’d imagine there would have been wholesale changes. People are probably trying to come up with a fathomable reason as to how this could be so bad
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Yeah I’m convinced what we have ended up with was not their original vision. Something went awry somewhere along the way and they changed course. I guess the early play testers are bound by NDA’s so they can’t confirm or deny if what we have now is what they tested. Wasn’t there a leaked screenshot a few years back showing 3 cars lined up in a garage with tool cabinets and hoists etc. which is far removed from anything we have now?
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I believe that rumor to be just another opinion as to why the game is the way it is. I think many people especially long time fans of the series are in disbelief how badly this game turned out in multiple ways.
Turn 10 had always delivered a solid product, even fm5 which was low on content at least delivered a working, visually impressive “next gen” launch title on the xbox one running at a solid 1080p@60fps when it seemed as though that machine was incapable of it.
I believe there are numerous things that happened during development that led us here, but i dont think we’ll ever know for sure. I think there was a good possibility the series was going to be cancelled after motorsport 7s poor sales and engagement numbers. This is why they chose to try and save it instead of starting work on a new tilte.
I believe when they got the green light to make the game the budget was likely lower than in the past. I believe it was originally intended to be a cross gen title and at some point changed to be next gen only. I believe at some point it was decided to be a gaas type of game.
I believe they wasted too much time with ray tracing as it was the buzz word feature. I think they probably tried to get something working on the series s but it couldnt do it. The X has it but in an extremely minimal way and even on pc its not particularly impressive.
I believe there was a lot of mismanagement of time and resources. I believe there were many missed internal deadlines. I believe turn 10 really messed up. The game isnt finished and they tried to pass it off as though its a base platform, a reimagining, like they meant for it to be this way.
I believe blame is solely on turn 10, who within turn 10, couldnt tell you but it doesnt really matter. They were able to pull out positive reviews from mainstream media sites and also won an award, so this bought them some time. But the players arent fooled, and that hollow award win isnt going to save them.
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Don’t forget that whey were develiping forzatech engine to be used in Fable as well. I imagine it took quite some time to adjust it to open world rpg type of game.
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FM’s development took off in March 2019, when T10 transferred resources from FM7 to the next game. So the game had 4 “effective” years of development. What happened in these 4 years is anyone’s guess, but I wouldn’t rule out pure incompetence on T10’s (and Microsoft’s) part.
I’ve had some birds sing to me info sung to them by other birds that Esaki and co. wanted to put in much more stuff and dwelve deeper into the simulation aspect of the game, but it probably didn’t work the way they wanted, so they made a simpler game with some bits of that deeper simulation (tires for example).
However, I’m not so sure the progression system would’ve been much different if T10 had done things right. I’m pretty sure there was this talk of “built, not bought” way back in 2019. So the career mode would always have been focused on building and bonding with the car. Unfortunately, the mechanic they eventually settled on (individual car levels) is just trash.
Another thing that hurt development was Playground’s decision to use the ForzaTech engine (rebranded FTech) in the development of Fable (an amusing one indeed since FTech is a car physics engine). Since T10 is the studio that develops and maintains the engine, T10 had to channel resources into getting the engine ready for Playground. So Playground later steals T10’s lunch, as usual.
The whole situation with FM is yet another hint at how badly managed Xbox’s studios are. And yes, this is Phil Spencer’s fault. Too busy wasting money on gobbling ailing publishers instead of restructuring XGS in order to streamline development of games and deliver better products. The decision to focus on Crackdown 3 instead of Scalebound was his, the decision to show that pathetic Halo Infinite demo was his, and the decision to give Redfall the important final slot in the 2021 showcase was his, too.
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I agree with pretty much all of this! I’ve always liked Phil and I do believe he has the best interests of gamers by and large, but this was a huge year for him, a year that has seen redfall, forza and starfield underwhelm then there’s the billions spent on ABK and their own disaster of MW3. All the while Sony and Nintendo release a conveyor belt of hits and outsell the Xbox 3-1 despite the billions. All in all not a great year
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We’re never going to get someone to come right out and just say, “This is how everything went horribly wrong” due to NDAs, professional courtesy and wanting to continue to work in the industry even if they aren’t at T10, anymore.
The best we can hope for is an expose by a gaming outlet in a few years once multiple anonymous, but verified, sources come forward and collaborate on, and paint a picture of what happened.
BTW, as a side note, you would not believe some of the horror stories that have happened during development of AAA games.
One that sticks out to me, over the years, is the original Watchdogs (Ubisoft) had to redo the Chicago El (Subway) tracks because developers put right angle, 90 degree “turns” in the tracks because they weren’t familiar with how trains/train tracks work. This has been verified (among other reasons why the finished game never lived up to the infamous showcase), and it was because of Ubisoft contracting outside the main studios in less developed and educated countries just to save money.
Getting back to FM…
The other reason it appears FM didn’t use the full 6 year dev cycle is also because some of the fans… On this very forum… Also work in the industry, and/or have friends who work on AAA games, so they/we know how the development process works at this level. The state FM released in has tell-tale signs of a rushed game that took nowhere near 6 years, let alone four, possibly? Lack of content, downgraded visuals (even moreso than usual), etc.
Even the rumors about the priorities shifting form making a racing game to overhauling the ForzaTech engine is still hearsay. It seems logical, but once again, until there is documented proof this is what cut into FM’s development, take it with a grain of salt even if it sounds appropriate given XBS’s priorities and up-coming slate of games.
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Obviously something happened. They were on a 2-year dev cycle from FM1 to FM7 and they at the very least released complete, polished games for that entire period. FM5, the first XB One title, might have been lacking in content but it was at least a feature complete game with beautiful graphics for the time.
What we have right now feels like an early access/alpha, full of game breaking bugs and half-thought-out core mechanics. My best guess is they were making something closer in form to FM7, but their bosses at Xbox came along and said “We need you to add X Y and Z, and make it live service” at some point very far into development.
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I mean FM7 had some bugs at the start but if I remember it correctly they pretty much dealt with that within a month or so. What I did actually like about FM7 is that at some point you could unlock longer events for past championships…can’t remember how that worked but more lapsz etc.
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It wasn’t an unlock - just a setting. If you wanted to (and frankly, with the AI in that game you needed to), you could set the races to be as short as a few laps or as long as one hour - usually, the amount of laps that could be expected to be run per track in an hour.
Thx for clarifying 
It’s been a few years so wasn’t sure about that one other than it existed.
you said that so well it’s like drinking a cup of coffee that was very well made even I would’ve struggled with alot of idioms & connecting words to words
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Theres a 3.5GB folder entirely filled with FM7 UI assets in this games file directory.
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My theory on why FM 2023 is the way it is…is because it had gone through 2 delays pushing it back almost 2 years and still really wasn’t ready to go-live. But instead of delaying it again leaving even more egg on their faces…they decided to release it in its broken state.
I work in Software Development and I can’t confirm or deny that up against corporate deadlines we released a feature that wasn’t quite ready to please the higher ups.
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Yea i know, theres probably many more things i was just rambling some stuff off. I actually dont think the engines actually finished either which is why certain things arent working at all or properly on pc when it pertains to ray tracing and rtgi.
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100% on the career being what they wanted as well as multiplayer for the most part. If you want to use race cars you pretty much have to go online. As far as going down a more sim route, i dont think so. I think the things they added was the extent of what was going to happen, i personally just wished theyd be a little more fleshed out.
Speaking on another rumor, i heard the car list was going to be much smaller, maybe just using newer scans and race cars. But they didnt think it would fly with the overall state of the game as well as lack of tracks.
Theres many rumors, any could be true or untrue. It doesnt really matter now though, theres nothing they could say that can excuse what was released.
P.S. Fables gonna be a mess
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I’m not a native speaker, but I’ve had contact with English from a very young age… through video games.
I rarely, if ever, play games in my native language. Partly due to preferring English, and partly due to the translations being not always good. Sony and Ubisoft are the best when it comes to localization, whereas Xbox is among the worst, IMO.
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Built from the ground up bits
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