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Forza Horizon 5 Tops 30 Million Players

Forza Horizon 5 Tops 30 Million Players - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 13 May 2023 / 9,016 Views

The open-world racing game, Forza Horizon 5, has surpassed 30 million players, according to the Hall of Fame leaderboard in the game itself. This was spotted by Twitter user Idle Sloth.

The open-world racing game had topped 20 million players in June 2022 and 15 million players in January 2021. It had the largest launch day ever for any Xbox Game Studios game and had over 10 million players in its launch week. Its launch day had a peak concurrent three times that of Forza Horizon 4.

Forza Horizon 5 released for the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Xbox Game Pass on November 9, 2021. The Hot Wheels expansion released on July 19, 2022 and the Rally Adventure released on March 29, 2023.


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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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24 Comments
TheLegendaryBigBoss (on 13 May 2023)

Forza is Xbox's biggest franchise now, this Mercedes has replaced masterchief as Xbox's mascot

  • +6

No its not.

  • 0

Name another Xbox first party game that has reached more than 30 mil players in 18 months of release

  • +3

Worth noting that Halo Infinite hit 20m players faster than Forza Horizon 5 did, it took Horizon 5 until June 2022, 8 months after it's November 2021 release, to hit 20m players, while Halo Infinite hit 20m players in January 2022, 1 month after it's December 2021 release. However, Halo Infinite was fully F2P for it's multiplayer while Horizon 5 required a Gamepass sub to play, and they have yet to announce 30m players for Halo Infinite, so it is possible that Horizon 5 hit that milestone faster than Halo Infinite did. Though it's also possible Halo Infinite already hit 30m and 343/Xbox just never hyped up the fact that it did.

Either way, with the growth that Forza Horizon has seen, if the series can continue growing, Horizon 6 will easily surpass Halo to become Xbox's most popular franchise. The growth of the Horizon series has been impressive to watch. Forza Horizon 1 sold a rather modest 2m+ copies. Horizon 2 sold over 3m copies. Horizon 3 sold over 4m copies. After Horizon 3 released in 2016, Gamepass dropped a year later in 2017 and Forza Horizon 3 was one of the first titles on Gamepass, and Xbox switched to player count as their primary metric instead of copy sales in order to take into account Gamepass players; thanks to Gamepass Horizon 3 had hit 10m players shortly before Horizon 4 released in 2018. Horizon 4 hit an official figure of 24m players by November 2020, 2 years after it released, and according to unofficial tracking it hit 30m players 3 years after it released. Horizon 5's player count metrics have been tracking faster than Horizon 4 ever since it released, beating Horizon 4 to each milestone, with Horizon 5 hitting 30m players a year and a half faster than Horizon 4 hit 30m players, and it still has another year and a half to grow before Horizon 6 likely releases, so Horizon 5 has 40m players lifetime potential. If Horizon 6 can keep up the growth for the series, it should hit 40m players faster than Horizon 5 and could reach over 50m players lifetime potentially.

  • +5

Fair point, also you typed horizon way too much lol.

  • +1
scrapking shikamaru317 (on 17 May 2023)

If Game Pass continues to grow, I can't imagine Forza Horizon will fail to continue to grow along with it. It's the perfect Game Pass game, as driving games aren't as popular as they used to be, and yet the buzz around this particular one every year makes people curious about it.

  • +2

Pretty sure Sea of Thieves achieved 30m Players along time ago.

  • +1
shikamaru317 Azzanation (on 14 May 2023)

June 2022, nearly a year ago, though it is worth noting that it took Sea of Thieves 4 years and 3 months to hit 30m, while Horizon 5 did it in a year and a half.

  • +4
Azzanation shikamaru317 (on 15 May 2023)

Cool.. doing it faster doesn't mean it become a mascot for a platform. Horizon 5 also came out as a critically claimed game, SoTs had a poor reception at launch.

  • 0

IP size.
The Elder Scrolls > Forza Horizon.

  • -2

Xbox hasn't released a first party elder scrolls game yet

  • +5
Imaginedvl Manlytears (on 14 May 2023)

I'm pretty sure Xbox did not realize an Elder Scrolls game yet, or do you know something we don't?

  • +1
y2jarmyofficial (on 13 May 2023)

look this is coming from a die hard xbox fan. im tired of these player numbers i want to hear about sales numbers, why wont they shows actual sales or actual sales along with player numbers .

  • +1
VAMatt y2jarmyofficial (on 13 May 2023)

Because those numbers don't mean anything. MS isn't trying to sell games anymore. They are trying to sell subscriptions to Gamepass.

In MS' eyes, smaller sales are better, if the people that would have purchased the game decided to sub to Gamepass in stead.

  • +6
y2jarmyofficial VAMatt (on 15 May 2023)

mmmm i guess. its only good for me because i just want to compare how halo infinite did compared to halo 5 for example, except i could not find a matching answer to the sales .though i dont mind the player count i just got used to that a few years ago. im just used to how ms used to do things back in the og xbox one days and 360 days.

  • 0
VAMatt y2jarmyofficial (on 13 May 2023)

Everyone is going to have to accept that the business, at least at Microsoft, has changed. It makes it harder to compare things with competitors and the past. But, that's just the way it is.

  • +7
Azzanation y2jarmyofficial (on 13 May 2023)

Different buisness model.

  • +5
y2jarmyofficial Azzanation (on 15 May 2023)

im just used to how things where done back in the 360 days and early xbox one days. sales figures and all that. im not bashing on fh5. i love that game only forza i bought ever. i could of just played it on gamepass but i got that game day one i did not need try it on game pass to determined a purchase this game was amazing for old and new comers like me

  • +1
Azzanation y2jarmyofficial (on 15 May 2023)

I get it, but they cant announce physical sales when their companies main focus is digital and renting. Them announcing physical sales will only fuel fanboys since their competitors still focus full on physical media and hardware reliance.

  • +3
y2jarmyofficial Azzanation (on 15 May 2023)

i understand

  • 0
KLAMarine (on 13 May 2023)

That's a lot!

  • +1
dane007 (on 13 May 2023)

Does that mean gamepass is at least 30 million?

  • 0
Ka-pi96 dane007 (on 14 May 2023)

No. It doesn't really give much insight into gamepass numbers. Aside from the fact that the game is also for sale, and has used copies of the physical version too, these figures would also include people that have played the game on multiple accounts and specifically for gamepass would include people that are no longer subscribed too.

It's an impressive figure, but it can't really be used to suggest any other performance metrics without more information.

  • +3
JRPGfan dane007 (on 14 May 2023)

Theres console sales with more than one profile on them, that have likely played the game.
Theres also physical sales of the game. Theres also people that subscribed play it, and then potentially dropped gamepass afterwards. So this is a odd way to meassure gamepass subs.

  • 0