Forza Horizon 5 Confirmed Set in Mexico, Launches November 9

Dunno if I can get access to Game Pass in my location but, is it really free? Just subscribe to Game Pass and you permanently keep the game?

Pay the monthly fee, get access to everything in the Game Pass library. If you stop paying the fee, you lose access. If they take it out of the library, you lose access. You can buy a game from the library for a 20% discount, to transfer it to "owned" status. FH4 is in Game Pass.
 
Very excited by the trailer, looks great, the map looks very interesting and super fun, gave me some of those FH3 vibes with the desert, rainforest and coastline. 1 and a half times the size of FH4 is a decent increase as well, especially if they've packed some more road mileage in there as well which looking at the density of roads in the teaser I'd say they've achieved.

Those disappointed with the size, not sure what youbwere hoping for? They've always gone for quality over quantity, yeah things like the Crew 2 are huge, but it's also mostly really boring copy paste stuff. Much rather have a smaller, denser, more detailed map with more bespoke roads.

Furthermore with the disappointment of it not being a certain location everyone wants. Here is my take. PG aren't stupid, they're about the fans, that's why the Horizon games have been so successful and the support for FH4 has been so incredible. They know how much pressure there will be on the Japan location when (and I mean when, because they will do it) they come to do it. My feeling is, because FH5 was always going to be cross gen, they know they wouldn't be able to it justice as a cross gen game. There's a lot that people want and expect from a Japanese location, mountains, touge roads, dense cities, ancient lands, classic countryside etc. They simply wouldn't be able to do what they will want to do with it as a cross gen, they'll need to utilise the faster storage and more headroom of the next gen consoles in a way that a cross gen game simply can't. Mark my words, FH6 will be Japan, and it will be absolutely huge.
 
The map is too small, again. The rake lies where it lay. :banghead:
Yeah it might be a little bit but every little bit more size they added adds up and with the moutains it should make it seem bigger at least vertically. Lets hope some expansions add more map or different cities eventually.
 
How could it come to this? The FM reboot was announced quite a long time ago and we still know very little about it. Then this FH5 reveal comes with an immediate showcase of gameplay, release date, etc.

I also don’t understand why PG didn’t reboot Forza Horizon. The festival concept got stale after FH3, but it looks like yet another game lacking in terms of innovation. Why I never trusted the FH5 rumors.

I have enjoyed how FH4 has kept going month after month despite being rather exhausted by it, and part of me had hoped PG kept FH4 alive because FM took longer than usual to develop. Then they just go ahead and announce FH5… I have honestly lost interest in this franchise, but will keep playing FH4.

The key thing to remember is FM is made by a difference studio, marketed at a totally different audience, and they needed something last year to be a part of the Series S/X hype, regardless of release date.

They may share a franchise name but they're totally separate entities as far as development studio and target market.

Also, PG are developing Fable. I imagine FH5 has been on development since before FH4 launched and they want to get it out so they can throw their full power behind Fable.
 
Those disappointed with the size, not sure what youbwere hoping for? They've always gone for quality over quantity, yeah things like the Crew 2 are huge, but it's also mostly really boring copy paste stuff. Much rather have a smaller, denser, more detailed map with more bespoke roads.

Something the scale of NFS Payback and Heat would be preferable, which is probably the same size as FH3/4 but feels much more spread out and has a lot more interesting roads. But we'll see on that front.
 
There are two sub-studios. They could share some artists or programmers, but in general dont think about Playground games that develop Horizon series as Fable developers.

There will be crossover, no doubts there. They're big, but not that big.
 
I'm looking forward to the legion of Mexican Federales tribute vehicles... blue and white F150s, Dodge Chargers and various cartel-a-like pickups about to spew forward like an avalanche...
 
I dunno....it looks like a prettier version of Australia in FH3. Deserts, rainforests, coastline. Ring a bell? Must admit, I'm not particularly excited, certainly not in the way I was when FH4 was released.
To get the most out of it, you'd need a series X. But, are they going to even be available by then??
 
I hope we can paint interiors and change Fov. That would be crazy

To get the most out of it, you'd need a series X. But, are they going to even be available by then??

I knew I wasn't the only person thinking this. FH is a console seller. I bought a xone to play FH3 and I want series X to play FH5. I didn't feel the urgency until now
 
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They know how much pressure there will be on the Japan location when (and I mean when, because they will do it) they come to do it. My feeling is, because FH5 was always going to be cross gen, they know they wouldn't be able to it justice as a cross gen game.

Interesting take. Thank you for sharing.

While that may be true, I also think incorporating the culture is far more difficult in Japan than most other countries outside of the US, which was never really done properly either. As much as I love FH1, the whole idea of celebrating a nation's car culture wasn't really fully explored until FH3's take on Australia, where the entirety of the Festival had an Aussie vibe to it. The gritty, off-road and countryside focus of FH4 pays tribute to its star as well - the British hills and country towns. I suspect the whole 'finding the work of artists' across the map, and the Baja/rally sanctioned elements will pay good tribute to this year's location, as well. But nothing in FH1 came across as 'Celebrating American car culture' - you can argue that FH2 celebrated Italian supercars, but even that's a stretch.

Going with their 'celebrate the nation and its culture' objective, doing Japan justice will most certainly be challenging, because of how rich their car culture is - more so than any other nation, perhaps. Finding creative ways of incorporating that into gameplay is a massive challenge, and I think if FH2 was set in Japan, we would have lost out on a lot of things, given the evolution of the game design and objective.

I'm all for letting Horizon evolve a bit before tackling a country like Japan, with such rich car culture. Likewise, I'd love to see a return to the United States, to give it the FH3/4/5 treatment and celebrate things like Motor City, LA Hills and Arizona/New Mexico rallies.
 
I'm going to be the brave one here and say that after watching this: I'm a little less hyped about it. It'll probably be the same old stuff and will always miss the mark on simple features that I want them to bring back, such as qualifying as an option or something to not make it a "chase the rabbit" starting grid where you never start at the front. Also to set up a quick race with friends and put in the cars you want for the drivatars, something that they had in FM4! Seriously, they cant add these things in but they can add the snow settling on cars. There is more but I don't want to outright complain. FH4 is a good 'jump on and mess around' game but there's never the perfect car game that has everything for everyone. GT will be the same.
 
Something the scale of NFS Payback and Heat would be preferable, which is probably the same size as FH3/4 but feels much more spread out and has a lot more interesting roads. But we'll see on that front.

If the map for TDU Solar Crown has plenty of dense detail and interesting roads, then PG's complacency will be put under the spotlight.
 
Meh.

Not interested in anything TDUSC. So far, FH5 is already going to have stuff that were present in TDU2 anyways, such as opening roofs in game and character customization. Casino? No thanks, I don't want to gamble for exclusive stuff.

The world in FH5 is going to be very diverse and exploratitive, like Horzion always been. FH4, imo, lacked the diversity in environments from FH3. I feel like this Horizon is going to be the best yet!

I'm loving vibe it has, almost like you're on a summer vacation again! I've missed this in FH4. FH2&3 style!
 
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If the map for TDU Solar Crown has plenty of dense detail and interesting roads, then PG's complacency will be put under the spotlight.

It will also be, without question, a game who's only party trick comes at the cost of being probable Eurojank that only has hype because people want to transplant their desires of competition onto it, and overinflate things.
 
Those disappointed with the size, not sure what youbwere hoping for? They've always gone for quality over quantity, yeah things like the Crew 2 are huge, but it's also mostly really boring copy paste stuff. Much rather have a smaller, denser, more detailed map with more bespoke roads.

Your point is valid for sure, but it doesn't change the fact that the last few FH titles have felt like movie sets or theme parks.

FH1 map worked because it felt like a somewhat honest slice of the US state of Colorado. It was just a ~25 square mile chunk of that environment.

FH3 map was very strange to me because it was trying to represent a significantly larger and more diverse area in a map not much bigger than FH1.

FH4 map was somewhat reasonable because despite the very large area depicted, the bioms were not significantly different - but Edinburgh felt so, so strange and movie set like.

FH5 appears to be representing an even larger area of real world with a map only nominally larger than FH3/4. I would rather they moved away from a contiguous world if they are going to do this - make the Yucatan area and the Sonoran/Baja area separate otherwise it feels unreal in a distracting way - again, the Yucatan is 1,500 miles away from the Sonoran Desert! The city of Guanajuato is about halfway between the Sonoran Desert and the Yucatan, which kind of explains why they have included it, but between Guanajuato and the Yucatan is Mexico City....are they just going to pretend it doesn't exist? It's the second largest city in the western hemisphere.

I'm pretty sure I would generally prefer the approach I think TDU SC will be taking, a faithful 1:1 recreation of a modestly sized real place.

I mean, the map size is definitely not game breaking, but it is weird and it kind of hamstrings the experience for me. I don't feel like I'm in an open world in FH, I feel like I'm in a snowglobe or a Truman show kind of thing.
 
The key thing to remember is FM is made by a difference studio, marketed at a totally different audience, and they needed something last year to be a part of the Series S/X hype, regardless of release date.

They may share a franchise name but they're totally separate entities as far as development studio and target market.

I know PG isn’t Turn 10, but I still find it odd. Few years ago FM and FH were released interchangably, but this time FM takes longer than usual to develop and FH5 still manages to come out first, apparently. It suggest that development of the FM reboot isn’t going as smoothly as they might had planned, so FH5 was slapped together to take its place in the release schedule. Just my take.
 
You might be done with FH. It seems like they've found more or less what does it for them and are just fine tuning the details. It could take a while before the game changes enough that it's not noticeably just FH3 but bigger and shinier.
As long as they keep the current formula, I belive you might be right. There’s nothing wrong with it but it just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
 
I know PG isn’t Turn 10, but I still find it odd. Few years ago FM and FH were released interchangably, but this time FM takes longer than usual to develop and FH5 still manages to come out first, apparently. It suggest that development of the FM reboot isn’t going as smoothly as they might had planned, so FH5 was slapped together to take its place in the release schedule. Just my take.
I'm a little confused as to what's so shocking about it? One is developed with full next gen in mind, one wasn't. Not only that, but FM was deeply in need of it. However, I feel Horizon is getting there as well.

It's less likely that there's problems with development, and more so that they're, for once, taking their time to make their game.
 
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I'm a little confused as to what's so shocking about it? One is developed with full next gen in mind, one wasn't. Not only that, but FM was deeply in need of it. However, I feel Horizon is getting there as well.

It's less likely that there's problems with development, and more so that they're, for once, taking their time to make their game.

Not to mention FH is suppose to be the accessible one - easily marketed to casual players. If Turn 10 is to be believed, FM's new direction will lack some of that 'casual players rejoice' persona in favor of catering the experience more towards the likes of GT and maybe even snatch up some of the pCars crowd. Meanwhile, FH has had it's aim set for quite some time now - it never suffered the same identity crisis that plagued the Motorsport series.

FH5 is an evolution, whereas FM is experiencing a revolution - and a much desired one at that.
 
I'm a little confused as to what's so shocking about it? One is developed with full next gen in mind, one wasn't. Not only that, but FM was deeply in need of it. However, I feel Horizon is getting there as well.

It's less likely that there's problems with development, and more so that they're, for once, taking their time to make their game.

I think FH4 stretched the festival-theme to the limit, so I’m surprised they didn’t reboot FH for the new generation as well. Some argue it’s a winning formula they don’t need to change, but so far it looks like more of the same on a new map. I’m not convinced FH5 will leave a similar impact as FH4 did. The recipe seriously needs a refreshing twist of noticeable proportions.
 
I think FH4 stretched the festival-theme to the limit, so I’m surprised they didn’t reboot FH for the new generation as well. Some argue it’s a winning formula they don’t need to change, but so far it looks like more of the same on a new map. I’m not convinced FH5 will leave a similar impact as FH4 did. The recipe seriously needs a refreshing twist of noticeable proportions.
I don't disagree that FH is getting a bit stale for me too. Although, I was never fully invested in FH4 from the get go so I didn't really even play it much. So this one might be the one to pull me back, who knows. I plan to pick up a Series X for other reasons out side of FH(in fact, FH isn't part of that reason at all), so the performance jump is going to be appreciated I feel, and should reinvigorate it a bit for me.
 
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Would love to see two, or three permanent race tracks, which you can also enter in free roam. I know it's not Motorsport, but I always missed a permanent race track in the Horizon games.

Forza stream live as we speak. At least one race track confirmed by the main festival.

And painted brake calipers
 
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This might be a unpopular opinion but I think this is another franchise that Microsoft have managed to kill off by virtue of releasing too many games in too little time.

Not holding back this title for a big overhaul for next gen is a big mistake imo. It'll be harder to get excited about any future titles when they've milked out four Horizon releases in just seven years.
 
Your point is valid for sure, but it doesn't change the fact that the last few FH titles have felt like movie sets or theme parks.

FH1 map worked because it felt like a somewhat honest slice of the US state of Colorado. It was just a ~25 square mile chunk of that environment.

FH3 map was very strange to me because it was trying to represent a significantly larger and more diverse area in a map not much bigger than FH1.

FH4 map was somewhat reasonable because despite the very large area depicted, the bioms were not significantly different - but Edinburgh felt so, so strange and movie set like.

FH5 appears to be representing an even larger area of real world with a map only nominally larger than FH3/4. I would rather they moved away from a contiguous world if they are going to do this - make the Yucatan area and the Sonoran/Baja area separate otherwise it feels unreal in a distracting way - again, the Yucatan is 1,500 miles away from the Sonoran Desert! The city of Guanajuato is about halfway between the Sonoran Desert and the Yucatan, which kind of explains why they have included it, but between Guanajuato and the Yucatan is Mexico City....are they just going to pretend it doesn't exist? It's the second largest city in the western hemisphere.

I'm pretty sure I would generally prefer the approach I think TDU SC will be taking, a faithful 1:1 recreation of a modestly sized real place.

I mean, the map size is definitely not game breaking, but it is weird and it kind of hamstrings the experience for me. I don't feel like I'm in an open world in FH, I feel like I'm in a snowglobe or a Truman show kind of thing.
You’re asking for quite a bit of realism there. Forza doesn’t give you the exact replication of an area, but a taste of bits and pieces here and there to give you a general idea. Yes, the ocean is far from the Sonoran Desert in real life, but they wanted to include various biomes and stuff to give you a glimpse of what Mexico has to offer. It’s a pretty big country, and each state there has diverse landscapes, from Durango to Michoacán, but they can’t replicate it 100% true to life. If you want that, do what I do and play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 so you can really see how the landscape looks. This game is an escapist fantasy for a lot of people.
 
Did anyone notice the McLaren Spider putting the top up or down during gameplay? Hopefully you’ll be able to remove all the roofs on the cars with removable roofs, targa tops, and t-tops.
 
You’re asking for quite a bit of realism there. Forza doesn’t give you the exact replication of an area, but a taste of bits and pieces here and there to give you a general idea. Yes, the ocean is far from the Sonoran Desert in real life, but they wanted to include various biomes and stuff to give you a glimpse of what Mexico has to offer. It’s a pretty big country, and each state there has diverse landscapes, from Durango to Michoacán, but they can’t replicate it 100% true to life. If you want that, do what I do and play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 so you can really see how the landscape looks. This game is an escapist fantasy for a lot of people.

I clearly didn't ask for a 1:1 recreation of Mexico. I said that the way they do handle it, the "biom mashup" technique, makes the game world feel like a theme park rather than an open world. As I said, it's not game breaking, but I don't love it either. In this case, I would prefer it if the Sonora/Baja side of the map was a ~22 square mile discrete zone and the Yucatan side of the map was a ~22 square mile discrete zone and getting from one to the other involved a travel mechanic. I fully realize this is probably not a popular opinion and that most players are likely totally fine with the contiguous map.
 
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