What's New in this Game?

Ever since FH2, each Forza Horizon game has added something new to it. I’m only talking about important, unavoidable features. Except, it seems, for FH5. Here’s a list of them:

FH2: The ability to go offroad

FH3: Managing the Festival

FH4: Seasons

FH5: Lots of bugs? It doesn’t seem like there’s much here that wasn’t in FH4.

Note: These are determined from my limited experience, having only played FH3 and FH5. Please correct me if I’m wrong and add onto the list if you want.

What does FH5 has that the other games don’t? What sets it apart from the others?

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Didn’t FH2 Storm Island have trailblazers or something very similar?

Also, FH3 (Blizzard Mountain - still my favourite FH expansion) brought snow in the series.

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the only thing i can think of is gift drops, unless you want to count trailblazers if you didnt play the dlc in FH4

They probably spent a lot of time and effort on Forzalink, which is a shame, as it is completely useless. Just a dolled up version of the quick chat messages, which were also useless.

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Don’t get me started on Forza Link or Quickchat.
THE worst thing they ever introduced.
FH4 was billed as the most interactive game yet but quickchat killed that for sure.
Nobody actually gets on the headset actually chatting, just random messages to who knows who.
Forza Link is just another version that offers nothing in proper player interaction.

Never used quickchat / Forza Link and never will.

Even FH1, 2 & 3 still have people actually getting together after all these years.

No you’re right with your assumption, a few things here and there are changed or dressed up but this game is probably the first in the series to have no USP (Unique Selling Point),also like the lack of custom championships in FH4 something as big as ranked adventure has been thrown out in the process.

I know Covid has been present for around half of it’s development cycle but regardless it still had an extra year that FH2-4 didn’t, once you blitz through the initial content you start to wonder what that extra time went into.

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Apparently they devoted all that time to a 10 minute intro

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Their focus was on Mexico, new car sounds, the sky and car handling. All of which were meant to be improvements but have received mixed reviews across the board.

The map to me seems poorly thought out of incomplete.

Car sounds, meh. Car could go brooom brooom for all i care.

The sky??? It’s cool and all but honestly who cares especially when you can’t look up.

Car handling? I haven’t noticed any difference but I know many people have and that the vast majority don’t like the changes.

FH5 isn’t a step forward. It’s a step to the side at best.

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Nothing. That’s the point.

Every apparent new feature is merely an extension of previous design that has tried to “appeal to all” and to some extent succeeded, but resulted in large chunks of the original racing audience simply vanishing. The game has been dumbed down to suit everyone, as I’m sure you can tell from the instantaneous superstar status granted to you, credits out of thin air, childlike UI etc.

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The only significant things that have been in any of the sequels: new roads to drive, new boxes to check, and a handful of new cars to drive.

I’m pretty sure that FH1 had an Rally expansion, but I guess DLCs don’t count because… reasons.

It’s also funny that Managing the Festival. The most memorable thing you came up is that? I would say the LB Ferrari 458, but I guess managing is more important… Wait, what did you manage?

FH4 brought Clothes, Emotes, Houses, Chat, Horns, Battle Royale, Route editor, Challenge Cards, GAAS, just to name a few.

FH5 brought The Event Lab where you can literally build your personal Track and on top of that you can make unique rules. That feature alone is worth millions time more than your festival managing, whatever that is. XD

Do you actually think they did a good job when they made FH5?

Of course I do. They did a huge job. A bigger map, better physics than FH4, better sounds than FH3, better AI than FH4 and the Event Lab. That is enough for me to put it as the best Horizon so far.
I put 300 hours in FH2. A masterpiece, but still lacking content. After 300h I refused to do another road trip to Castelletto to do yet another championship. Same in FH3 after 400h. After completing the championship on each location I was burned out. And it’s kind of funny that I put 1200h in FH4 that I played until FH5 came out. I now have 450h in FH5 in 2 months.

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The fact you think a big map is good says a lot. Sure a big map would be great if it wasn’t so baren. IMO FH4 is far greater than FH5 and my advice to anyone who hasn’t played it is to buy it or play it on gamepass.

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Forza Horizon 4 is one of the most bland, boring “racing” games I’ve ever played.

Forget the map that was not only smaller and less varied, but FH4 is a game based entirely on casual participation vs. actual competition.

Meaning, even FH5 requires players earn a podium finish to receive better payouts and cars. FH4 is entirely built around “just race”, and if you come in dead last you get the same payout and rewards as someone who comes in first place. This is literally the antithesis to competitive racing (even in a video game against AI), and why FH4 is nothing but a glorified grind fest to unlock different race type levels, pointless houses and car levels. You just don’t see it because FH4 is technically more sound than FH5 at the moment, but that’s to be expected since it’s four years old at this point.

Also, the fact the seasons… Namely, winter… Were so extreme is another reason many just said, screw it, and never came back because they couldn’t race 1/4th of the time due to bad handling on the ice and snow even with snow tires and off road tunes. All the problems with off road racing and the wonky physics were exacerbated 10 fold with the Winter season even if you (persons in general) didn’t have any problem with it. Many did, and openly expressed their dislike for being handicapped in a game they bought and expected a lot more play time from.

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The entire blueprint of this series since FH4 has been “just race” ever since the dull festival playlist design came in. FH5 has just amplified the casual participation and the grind by generalising everything. Have you not paid attention to what the accolade system is? The antithesis of competitive racing is by putting an emphasis on how much “stuff” you can acquire rather than actually showing a level of ability.

Why can almost anyone reach the Hall of Fame?
Why did FH4 have ranked and FH5 does not?

Pre Forza Horizon 4 where this propagation of live service wasn’t touching everything that moved, the experience of the games had much more of a simple car festival vibe. All of this bogus content that everyone latches onto takes the spirit away from actually competing. FH1 even had a viable story narrative, where has that gone? This overindulged filtered checklist that they’ve thrown at everyone does not make it a better game. Look at what mainstream FPS games have become, it’s about what stuff you can keep coming back for than actually being immersed in a certain element of the game.

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The fact you think a small map is good says even more. Oahu in TDU2 and the mini US in the Crew showed me the potential of a bigger map. I also rather spend 2h crossing the Fuel map than doing the same in any of the Horizon expansions map.

I never said a small map would be good. My point is that there’s no benefit having a big map if the space isn’t utilized well which it is not.

They could improve the current map in several ways. Shrink it by half or even a quarter of it’s size while retaining all assets. Or add new assets such as expanding the current towns with more buildings and roads, lakes to fill in vast open areas, elevation, tunnels, etc. Ontop of this they should reposition all existing assets including the volcano to be more central. There are some great assets already but most are scattered on the edge of the map and thus rarely seen.

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Another thinly disguised lets whinge about FH5 thread. pmsl

Building up the Outposts was a new feature giving you freedom to decide what outpost you wanted earlier than others so you could unlock the Dirt one fully, for example, before even starting the PR Stunt one. My only complaint was that it was too short…I liked doing the Story Missions to unlock more Outpost races etc.

Horizon Tour: Although it feels like just an extension to the FH2 drive to the next Festival and Race part, it wasn’t in FH4 so is new.

Event Lab: It isn’t technically a new feature as Custom routes was in FH4 but it has greatly expanded on the concept.

True, there isn’t a specific feature that screams “this game is an improvement” but to say there’s nothing new is not being fair either. I am one of FH5s biggest critics but even I acknowledge there is a fair amount of new stuff…it just gets snowed under by other things

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