Forza Horizon Takes to the Open Road - Preview
by Nick Pantazis , posted on 12 June 2012 / 3,562 Views
You, like me, may have been confused about the announcement of Forza: Horizon. Why would a simulation franchise known for track racing switch to an open world driving game similar to Need for Speed or Burnout Paradise? While this confused me at first, eventually I thought “why not?” While I enjoy those sorts of open world driving games, one thing they certainly lack is anything resembling real car physics and performance. Forza Horizon combines these features, making for a great driving experience.
The E3 demo was unfortunately short, and involved only a single race to the start of the “Horizon Festival.” The race took place on the roads of the open world in a closed, one-way course. No alternate routes were possible, but other racers drove into the track as you raced. The game’s setting, open Colorado country roads, made for a great ambient experience. Twists and turns were mixed with wide-open roads, creating great race variety. The map in the corner gave a taste of the potential size of the map, with a large number of branching roads, but the E3 demo didn’t let us explore the open world.
With the assists on, Forza Horizon drives in an arcady style, but players are given the option to turn all the assists off, and drive in pure Forza-style simulation. There is traffic on the streets, similar to the open road courses in Forza, and just like Forza 4 you’ll get points for drifts, drafts, and near misses. New to the series is off-road racing, allowing for some rally style courses.
There is also an in-world hub for modifying your cars and connecting with your friends (though they wouldn’t talk much about what the online features are). You can also buy new cars here, but Turn 10 wouldn’t tell us how many are available in the game in total other than “a lot.” They did specify that the types of cars that we would see in Horizon will lean toward road cars and not the wide variety of a mainline Forza game.
As a big fan of Forza 4 I’m excited to see the gorgeous visuals and outstanding driving carried over into a new type of racing game. With off-road racing and arcade style gameplay, this is not the Forza you know. While Forza Horizon may seem like an awkward mix between arcade and simulation racing, in practice it’s a lot of fun. Horizon is successfully taking Forza into new audiences, and hopefully creating even more car fans. Forza Horizon will release on October 23rd this year.
