Forza Horizon 5 Has Over 2,000 Sky Presets and Regional Weather - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 29 June 2021 / 1,606 Views
Playground Games spent a lot of time to make the skies in Forza Horizon 5 to be as accurate and realistic as possible and the second episode of the Forza Horizon 5: Let’s ¡Go! series dives into how much work has been done to make the skies and weather realistic.
Developers from the studio spent time in Mexico taking over 400 hours of sky photos that had to be shipped back to the studio in the UK as it took over 75 TB of hard drive space.
"In terms of how this compares to [Forza] Horizon 4, the best way to explain it is with the weather presets that we have," said lead lighting artist Lukas Koelz.
"When the user creates a custom race they can choose to race at midday [when it’s] rainy, for example, or during a clear sunset. In [Forza] Horizon 4 the system would then pick one preset from our skies to give them their selection, and we had about 300 of them. This time we have over 2000, so there’s quite a lot more variety, and in free roam of course you’ll experience that too."
Art director Don Arceta discussed the weather, which will vary depending on what region you are in the game.
"Weather is regional in Forza Horizon 5," said Arceta. "So if you’re in the living desert you could get just a sprinkling of rain and then if you go down to the jungle, it could be a torrential downpour. So we have all these different weather behaviors in the different biomes which really reflects and enhances the experiences you have.
"Along with that is we have two new weather effects, which are seasonal, which are our towering dust storms and our tropical storms. The one thing that’s new about this, as well, is that it doesn’t just happen around you, you can actually see it from a distance and approach it, which is something that we’ve never done in a Horizon game."
"In our winter season, which in Mexico is our dry season, if you want to get a snow experience you could drive up to the volcano and drive around the snow," Arceta added. "If you don’t want that snowy winter experience you could drive to the coast and have a very vacation-y type experience.
"In our winter season, which in Mexico is our dry season, if you want to get a snow experience you could drive up to the volcano and drive around the snow. If you don’t want that snowy winter experience you could drive to the coast and have a very vacation-y type experience.
"So it is very different per region as well as seasonal, so we also change those weather patterns and weather behaviors based on the different seasons."
Forza Horizon 5 will launch for the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC on November 9.
Thanks, VideoGamesChronicle.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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