Forza Horizon 5 Review – Conclusion

Big fan of the Forza Horizon series here and I was really looking forward to Part 5 so I bought the ‘Premium Upgrade’ and started running since last Friday.

The game immediately felt familiar to me, and as always, it managed to make an immediate impression by throwing just about the entire visual spectacle to me; it’s still cool to see what Playground Games manages to squeeze out of the ForzaTech engine and Mexico as a setting lends itself too well to a “showcase”.

Still, after the first few hours of Forza Horizon 5, a feeling of “been out there, done that” stays with me. I think that’s the Achilles heel of the game: it doesn’t add anything new. Where Forza Horizon 4 introduced new elements in the form of seasons and weather effects (“Fortune Island”), Forza Horizon 5 mostly sticks to the braces and focus on collecting (as much as possible ) cars.

Moreover, I dare say that while Forza Horizon 5 is visually impressive, there is little to no difference compared to its predecessor. Maybe some new light here and there, but that’s about it. We can even clearly see that assets have been reused, such as stone walls. What about ray tracing? Well, only in ‘Forzavista’ where I spend maybe 1% of the time, if at all. Forza Horizon 4 even looked a little better than Forza Horizon 5 at times, but that could also be because you play a lot of four “in the wet” and the ForzaTech engine does it really well. In Mexico everything is a bit sunnier with a lot of haze and other effects. I would have preferred Playground Games to have RT Reflections (@ low / medium) applied to gaming at 1440p resolution on the X series and with an AMD FSR or DLSS option on PC.

Then there is also the issue that the game is currently plagued by various (visual) bugs. Now, no release of a Forza Horizon title has gone well on PC, but there are some issues on Xbox as well. For example, I am forced to play Horizon Solo due to network issues and the game world is weirdly empty when playing online. Additionally, in some cases there are exposure / brightness and audio issues.

Finally, there is the lack of purpose / progress. As a player you are immediately immersed in the gaming world where there is a lot to do. As a player you do a lot, but at the same time it seems very little. Yeah okay, fill your garage with cars.

Ultimately, Forza Horizon 5 feels like a game that came to me too soon. I would have preferred to wait a year for the game to make its debut on the X series with a new engine under the hood. Now, that looks like a big expansion for Forza Horizon 4. No more, no less.

7.5 / 10

[Reactie gewijzigd door Yonix op 9 november 2021 09:20]