This video is a month old but I only found out about it now, has it been posted here already? If so my apologies. If not, then this is a must watch IMO.
We all love the franchise but IMO all this critique from the video is very valid. In the beginning of the video he goes in-depth on all the issues of the races themselves (difficulty, AI, terrain, checkpoints, rewind, …) which are all on-point but I have not seen anyone mention them before.
The early part about the racing/terrible AI/pressure on winning above everything else is certainly right on and a big reason why I play these games far less than I used to and many of my friends have stopped playing altogether... Added with the incredibly tedious playlists forcing you into doing those things.
A lot of the same complaints could be pointed at the Motorsport series as well, and the fact that these mistakes are still being made with the Horizon series makes it a bit hard to have optimism that the Motorsport series will suddenly figure it out. Yes, I know they are 2 different studios but I'm assuming they work together and learn from each other.
The bit about the hollow, artificial feeling of things like the Showcases and stuff, and the suffering that is listening to the NPCs hit home too. I haven't done most of the "stories" or whatever they are called in FH5 because I just can't bring myself to sit through the unskippable cutscenes and listen to the dialogue while I just drive from point A to point B or whatever it is this time.
That Whitelight critique is a decent video with some strong points, not all of which I agreed with but were at least expressed in a way that didn't feel reactionary. But I think one thing he merely hinted at that I really want to see expanded on, something that's really been bothering me across the board, is that there really aren't too many racing games out there -- recent or in years past -- that really capture the actual emotion I want from a racing game. Pick nearly any high-profile title at random: it could be a hardcore sim or an arcade title, it could be open-world or track-based, it could be extremely photorealistic or cartoonishly stylized, but in the efforts to establish some sort of particular narrative structure and/or gameplay-driven identity, there's little in the way of actual idiosyncrasy, the uniquely distinct aspects of car culture and history that make for an interesting story whether it's pure motorsports, street racing, or somewhere in between.
Hardcore sims assume an already-immersed familiarity that just dispenses with in-game historical context entirely; Assetto Corsa and Automobilista and RaceRoom all operate under the idea that all you need is Realism and Fidelity, and everything else that comes with car culture... it might be nice to have, but it doesn't really need to exist. If you're playing a title like that, you're probably already supposed to know why a modern GT3 car or a Group C prototype or a '50s open-top sports car is the way it is, and so the devs just back-burner any attempts to instill the sort of historical import of it through narrative or anything more than just a cursory text-box recitation of basic stats if you're lucky ("this race car was based off this road car and features these mechanical components, it won some races, the end"). It's real make-your-own-fun stuff, pretty barebones, a big sandbox without any lore to give meaning to what you're doing besides "drive a car skillfully." You don't have memorable opponents or rivals, you don't get much real historical context you don't already bring to the table yourself, and everything that makes a racing game compelling from a standpoint of career progression is almost entirely absent. That's fine for a lot of people, but it's also pretty clear that decisions like this are why any racing sim a degree or two more "hardcore" than Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport have been hard for me to commit my time to. Yes, it's cool that I can sit down in a rig with a wheel and drive around in a car that would otherwise require a decade-long career in FIA-sanctioned motorsports 40 years ago to even sniff the petrol of, but where's the incentive beyond "wow so I guess this is how it feels to almost be killed by a Can-Am Porsche?" That's a lot, but for me, it's not enough.
Arcade games, meanwhile, are about vibe, which in the case of Horizon as well as most NFS titles and whatever's left of is this mish-mash of aspirational lifestyle goals and stylized exaggeration that (especially recently) seems less interested in the idea that car culture is a broad, varied, eclectic world populated by a wide range of personalities and fiefdoms. What you get instead is the notion that everything has to be this weird blend of Fast and Furious-via-Instagram tropes that feature fewer people over 30 than Logan's Run and consists of 80% late-model super/hypercars and maybe a '69 Charger if you want to be a filthy boomer. Horizon (and mainline Forza Motorsport) has a car-roster balance that's a lot better than the play-it-safe approach of most mainstream arcade titles, but then you've got the additional problem of the game, more often than not, refusing to really ask the question what makes this car special? So now I'm stuck with this suspicion that PG/T10 has accidentally cultivated a fanbase of which 90% would look at an Austin-Healey Sprite or a Volvo 242 Turbo Evolution and think "slow boring old car" because the game hasn't instilled much reason to think otherwise. (One of the biggest sour notes in the entire game for me came just recently with the Horizon Origins story, where you're expected to chuckle along with Scott when he makes fun of Robert fron Drift Club and his "boring car facts".) Occasional references to Carrera Panamericana or the Baja 1000 aside, the everything-for-everyone feel to Horizon 5 feels like it's floating in this sort of low-context void where cars are cool but still kind of meaningless. After all this time playing it, and seeing its flaws brought to the forefront in that video, I've come to the realization that Horizon 5 is an incredibly fun driving-around game, a decent if flawed competitive-racing game, and -- most disappointingly -- a cloying and bland narrative in a pretty but superficial setting.
This post is way too long already so in conclusion: I want a racing game where the racing, the cars, the history, the people, and the sense of career progression aren't just fun diversions but are actually shown to mean something -- it doesn't have to be deep and lore-crammed as a Metal Gear Solid or a Fallout game, but at least give me some kind of spark of life, you know? Forza Horizon 5 doesn't give me that -- but it's pretty alarming how few racing games are out there that seem like they even could.
I don't think any broadly appealing game will be able to get better with car culture and capture the emotion and context of things really. For a fairly niche game category, what we all want from our racing games is very different from person to person and we are all pulling in different directions. It seems as we go further along that is becoming a bigger issue, as we see that rearing its head now with this title and especially with GT7 and the sort of "rebirth" of the Forza Motorsport series all having subsections of the community ranging from mildly disappointed to outright raging about how their preferred direction hasn't been favored enough.
On the multiplayer side of things, it's hard to give specific context to historical things or car culture things or whatever. Sure, you can line up a grid of friends in historical cars at a historical track, but if the fastest guy in the group is driving the Ferrari 312 then suddenly the Lotus 49 doesn't seem like such a dominant car anymore. Likewise car culture leaned things are often broken up by people either knowing nothing about the designated one, or actively trying to push another one (muscle vs imports for example).
On the single player side, I think a big problem is the lack of progression on the AI side of things. It's really falling behind the physics and graphics improvements, and I think it's holding back anything on the career/single player side of things which is really where studios could get more creative and tell more of a story. Unfortunately though, story needs to be backed up by actual fun gameplay, and with AI in its current state it doesn't really feel like studios are capable of that. Add in that it's easier for studios to push multiplayer than it is for them to improve their AI and it's hard to be optimistic about improvement in the future.
Speaking for myself, I'm at a point where racing AI just doesn't do it anymore, they have no character, are too predictable and are basically always either too easy or feel like they are cheating, depending on the game. Because of that, I just can't imagine a career mode in a game that would really interest me much and I've played through so many "get a podium or better to go to the next race!" careers through all the years I've been playing racing games that I just can't bring myself to care about them anymore. You can add all the rival NPCs only shown in silly cutscenes, assistants and mechanics that actually have names and voices, and dead brothers or fathers or whatever you want, it just doesn't motivate me to either cheese-crash my way past cheaty AI in 5 minute long races, or hotlap ahead of boring AI.
The history side of things is an interesting one, but I think it's considered a little too "car nerd" to have the broad appeal many studios are looking for. Sim racing right now is an absolute rut with GT3
everywhere, while arcade games are trying to be Fast and the Furious with trendy and flashy things. The sim studios probably think it's a waste of time to try to replicate historic tracks and cars and stories that people will drive for 15 minutes and crash a dozen times before giving up and going back to the safety of their Huracan GT3 and its ABS/TCS at Spa or Monza for the millionth time, and the arcade studios can just put a '69 Charger their game and be like "look classic car culture! Dukes of Hazzard! NASCAR!"
The only creative way I can imagine showing the history in a racing game would be having a sort of "mini-career" mode where you are dropped into a season that is telling the story of whatever manufacturer rivals were doing that season (think Sauber C9 vs Jaguar XJR-9 in WSC or Audi vs Peugeot at Le Mans), but even those would require some NPCs babbling at you and racing against the AI.
The memorable opponents and rivals you mention can really only be found in multiplayer, through finding a group of regulars to race with. Many argue "multiplayer is just full of crashers" or "I don't have time for that!" or whatever, there are tons of other people out there that don't like being crashed into and have formed organized racing groups where you won't be crashed into (much anyway, or not on purpose at least, depending on the skill level of the group), and most have a weekly race that is usually in the 45mins to an hour range so it's really not all that time consuming as most people put in more than an hour a week.
For example, I have a race tomorrow. My qualifying went poorly and my main championship rival will probably get pole, but the race will feature rain which I know he's not very comfortable in, and it's multiclass which he doesn't have as much experience with so I am counting on a few mistakes to help me out. Another person may outqualify me as well, but they are notoriously bad with strategy calls and will likely lose time with pit stops, so I'm not worried about them for the finish but may have to get by them early. I don't know of any racing game out there where you will get AI with character like that.
It's all different for everyone though. Some love the checklist style where they have 1000 different career races to earn gold trophies on. Some want a career that makes them feel like a beginner starting out in their hatchback and they want to earn every single dollar to work their way up the ladder. Some want to drive million dollar hypercars and feel like they are a big time influencer or whatever. Some want to become the next esports champion that gets a ride in a real car. Some want to pretend they are an F1 driver trying to outduel Hamilton to the number 1 driver role. Some just want to "own noobs" in multiplayer with whatever leaderboard car is available to them. Some don't even want to race, they just want to drive around cars and do Jeremy Clarkson style commentary in their head. Unless the genre starts to grow a lot so there is sufficient demand for a bunch of new titles or studios getting involved with new brands that cater more towards the niches of the niche that is racing games, I don't really see much changing.
Hah! My post is even longer.
(Also note this isn't entirely directed at you/your post, just kinda "riffing" off your post like WanganDream was above.)
