I’m actually hoping Fable will be a mess, because I think Playground needs to be taken down a peg. They’ve also been delivering subpar games for a while, but not only the flaws in Forza Horizon are less obvious to people, but also the public of Forza Horizon is less critical of the game.
I think T10 should’ve dropped the building part and just gone for a more traditional GT-style career where you start with slow road cars and finish with the fastest race cars. There’s too many systems in FM which exist to force the player to do things that should come naturally to them, like building cars and creating a bond with their favorites.
Yea, even though it seems archaic the zero to hero shtick when done right always works. I liked the idea that you start in a lower class and gradually work up within a tournament, but the upgrade points ruined it. I also didnt like the fact, for instance i did a tournament with a newer 911, finishing at level 50 and the next tournament i had to start with a stock late 80s early 90s m3. Thats regression not progression.
Turn 10 since forza motorsport 5 has liked to make a “curated” experience. If you watch interviews since 5 they say that for every game. The problem is curated means its their decision on how, when and why we play. Im not against a structured experience, but they aren’t good at making choices.
The fact is, they dont play these types of games, they dont know anything about car culture or motorsport. Picking a Pokémon guy to oversee motorsport 7, then picking a cover shooter guy to oversee motorsport 23 are not good decisions. There was no reason to have experimented with a successful series.
One thing is sure, this game didn’t took 6 years of development at all, two maximum… or one and half.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft decides to put the axe on Turn10 when the quarterly report comes in… or a warning, I think the only thing that its maintaing this game alive right now its the Gamepass.
Barring some absolutely absurd and sustained rise in sales over the next four weeks, I think that Turn 10’s going to go through some things. They aren’t getting axed (yet) because of Forzatech and Fable, but they may very well be done as anything more than a support studio, at least in the medium term.
They probably already got that warning, and before the game launched at that. I bet promises and guarantees were made throughout this game’s development but they were broken and missed, and patience is wearing thin. Turn 10’s going to have to deliver and fast.
I couldn’t tell you if the whole game was scrapped (highly unlikely tbh), but I’ve heard that at least the original career mode was dropped. Apparently it was originally going to be much deeper than what we actually got, with team management aspects iirc. I don’t know why it was dropped though, maybe the new engine caused issues later in developement that they couldn’t resolve? Just a guess though. Given the low multiplayer content, it’s probably a good guess that may also have been planned to be bigger and deeper, but had to be scaled back due to issues too.
Either way, while everything wouldn’t have been scrapped, enough likely was to royally screw up the game and clearly they didn’t have enough time or resourses to get what ever was left into a good state. Really makes me think how good it may have turned out if they could have stuck with the old engine, a shame really.
There’s no question in my mind that this game was tampered with during development so much sio that there was a reset of sorts and there was an extremely tumultuous time of trying to push SOMETHING through that would resemble a game…not a finished game, just a game with the intention of bringing it up to scratch over time.
There is NO WAY, a team like Turn 10 and the resources of MS, that what we see here is what was intended…absolutely no way. No need to go over very little detail but a few things like car models, customization, career progression, audio and graphics are pretty much recycled, reused from games far back as the original!
This is unacceptable in 2023/24. How did they even contemplate that they would get away with serving us a dish colder than ice and then proceed to “lie” us into believing that its actually a very fresh and enticing recipe?
Seriously, the audacity and the nerve to even charge whatever you charge for other editions is a slap in the face to the fans and new user alike. This isn’t 2005. Its almost 2024. 20 years since the original Forza and with one title, you have completely lost the fan-base, the new user base and the respect and admiration from all over the industry. Hyperbole? Not in the slightest.
The worst part of all this?
The absolute radio silence and the sheer cowardice on Turn 10’s part and that of MS. You owe it to the people, the people that have invested in your product, the people that have made YOU what you are. Without the fans, you are nothing as with any other developer. The least you can do is come out and say what needs to be said. The lack of information and insight into what happened is deafening. An apology perhaps…anything, something to alleviate our concerns about the current status of the game and team behind it but also for the future as well.
As for the future, I truly beilive this effort was the nail in the coffin. I remember saying years ago, I think around FH2 maybe, that Turn 10 better start getting themselves into gear because Playground Games and Horizon will soon take over as the premier racing title at MS…the warnings weren’t heeded and hence, we are we are because of disconnect between the developers and the fans…
If this was just bugs and little things like that, I wouldn’t even bother with criticism or feedback. But this game, wow, this game is in need of a re-launch, there’s no saving this as it was cobbled together last minute like…
If Turn 10 indeed is given another chance, holy moly, will you have to come up with something REVOLUTIONARY in order to redeem this embarrassing attempt a ta racing game…
I really wish there was one more option between the default and the next option up. In basically every career race so far I’d be really happy with one more lap. If I’m not super-sweaty-try-hard-man about it, the 2 laps longer tracks are set to on default isn’t quite enough to get a clean lap.
The thing about playing on Gamepass is that there’s no specific financial incentive to stick with a game.
If the game is bad, it’s not cost anything, so drop it and find something more fun.
It’s the people that have bought the game outright who are more likely to stick with it, until they feel they’ve got their money’s worth.
I think this may be the case. Why would they use that same clunky livery design system for the users to make their own cars instead of allowing people to map graphics they supply right to the cars? About the worst and hardest way to make custom car looks imagineable.
Starfield will likely get that second chance. Despite underperforming, it’s still got the audience and the backing from Microsoft to justify and defend doing such a thing.
Forza…doesn’t. Most of it’s audience is over on Horizon, and Microsoft seems to not care what people see Forza as just as long as they see Forza. So, unless Turn 10 can make a case justifying increased funding and attention (need sales to do that, and this game doesn’t appear to have that), they’ll just let it wither and die following the conclusion of the Car Pass.
In 2019 Turn 10 advertised several major roles in FM development. Since then many key senior roles have been re-advertised 2 or three times.
This screams of executives rocking the boat.
One was Senior Environment Artist. That’s advertised again in 2022 and 2023.
Would explain why the pre-release trackside assets are soo much more detailed than what we have.
What’s wrong with Starfield? It becomes boring yeah and somehow feels like played before if u played No Man’s Sky. Played the game without problems
In FM everything was different… It crashed on almost every track loading screen until u played that track. Everything looked wrong or broken. It crashed on upgrading was loosing progress. U can’t play with out of box settings (wheel, elite2 controller). No mirrors or using wrong view they even remove the existing mirrors. It’s boring. Endless list…
