[360] Forza Horizon

[Swarley]

The next game in the Forza franchise won't be called Forza Motorsport 5. In fact, it won't even be developed by Turn 10. It's a spinoff arriving this fall by the name of Forza Horizon, and it's the product of UK startup Playground Games. Now, if you're a Forza purist who's already prepared to write this game off, you might want to take a step back and rethink things. We don't know much about it yet, but what we do know has us very, very intrigued.

The first thing you need to know about Forza Horizon is that the developer, Playground Games, has quite the racing pedigree. Originally started by a small handful of Codemasters veterans, the studio has since found fortune in the wake of a few unfortunate studio closures. According to Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt, Playground Games has built itself up with salvaged talent from both Bizarre Creations and Black Rock Studio--a pair of recently shuttered studios known for creating terrific racing games over the years.

So the pedigree is there. This is a shop that knows racing games, which certainly counts for a lot. But that begs the question: what sort of racing game is Forza Horizon, exactly? Well, that's where things get a little hazy. It sounds like Microsoft won't be revealing too much about Horizon until E3, but there's room for speculation.

Take a look at that trailer up there. Now, ignore for a moment the dance rave scenes, which are almost certainly the product of some over-zealous marketing team somewhere up in Redmond. What piques our interest are the wide stretches of open road in the desert. It doesn't seem too far outside the realm of possibility that this could be a road trip game that has you chasing the horizon (see what we did there?) in a cross-country journey of some kind.

Tearing across open stretches of highway in a high-powered sports car is one of those deep-rooted fantasies that all car lovers share. It's the reason Need for Speed: The Run had so many of us interested before it wound up being just sort of OK. There have been precious few truly great road trip games. If Forza Horizon does end up being that sort of game, you have to believe Playground Games' pedigree gives it a good shot at succeeding.

That's a bit of speculation on our part, but there's not much to go on right now. Hopefully we'll find out more about Forza Horizon in the near future. Stay tuned.

 

[Maynard]

that was a really lame trailer. no offense to forza or its developers, but its pretty clear they are milking everything out of this title. they all do that now. just slap a new name on the box with a few pointless features and boom....60 bucks

 

[Garrett67]

Forza meets NFS?

 

[Tengo Juego]

Not by Turn 10, but teaser has turn 10 logo. Also, the quality of that teaser is shockingly low, for a game like this.
Edit: this trailer had both playground, and turn 10. The other I saw last night had just turn 10. Odd.

 

[Maynard]

yeah the turn 10 threw me off too. since its not by turn 10

 

[jms493]

to me it looks like total BS

 

[Swarley]

The problem I see is splitting up the Forza community an entire year before Forza 5 will come out. I like the idea of this game, but make it a $30-40 DLC or something so you still have the entire community playing the same game.

 

[Youk]

http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/en-us/forza_horizon_announce/

Announced on Forza.

Plus a Porsche Car Pack, coming in May.

 

[Swarley]

http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/en-us/forza_horizon_announce/

Announced on Forza.

Plus a Porsche Car Pack, coming in May.

Yeah I threw up the details to the Porsche pack in the Forza 4 thread. Definitely going to get that DLC. Love me some Porsche.

 

[Swarley]

Still no release date, or even what this game is exactly lol.

 

[jms493]

That has to be fake box art........cause that is terrible.

 

[Swarley]

That has to be fake box art........cause that is terrible.

I don't think it's fake. But it does look like someone opened up InDesign and spent about 3 minutes on that box logo.

 

[Swarley]

Xbox just posted this on Facebook...

Coming this fall for Xbox 360, Forza Horizon combines the automotive thrills that Forza fans expect with a gorgeous open-road world that begs to be explored.

 

[Handleit_44]

First real details (translated):

http://www.forzalife.de/2012/06/forza-horizon-fakten-vor-der-e3-2012/

• Forza Motorsport 4 physics optimized for off-road
• 65 grounds like mud, gravel, grass, tarmac etc.
• open world with dynamic day/night
• colorado environment/panorama with detailed foresight
• festivel with a huge drivable area and car service stations, paintshops, car dealers etc. on it
• events like mustang vs. mustang or racecar vs. jet

 

[Swarley]

First real details (translated):

http://www.forzalife.de/2012/06/forza-horizon-fakten-vor-der-e3-2012/

• Forza Motorsport 4 physics optimized for off-road
• 65 grounds like mud, gravel, grass, tarmac etc.
• open world with dynamic day/night
• colorado environment/panorama with detailed foresight
• festivel with a huge drivable area and car service stations, paintshops, car dealers etc. on it
• events like mustang vs. mustang or racecar vs. jet

I'm really not sure what to say at this point lol. I'm definitely glad they are using Forza 4 physics. Just ready to see some gameplay in a couple days.

 

[jms493]

I wanna play

 

[Garrett67]

Sounds like Colin McRae racing, which isn't a bad thing

 

[Handleit_44]

 

[Swarley]

From what it looks like so far, it seems that (if it's good) I'll be putting a shit ton of time into this game. I've got a ridiculous amount into Forza 4 already, and this game just seems so fucking huge. Cannot wait to get some information and gameplay footage tomorrow.

 

[Swarley]

Actual gameplay on SPIKE and GTTV right now.

Arcade style with sim physics. Holy fuck, this could be perfection.