Oh they now allow you to turn the awful so called music down to zero which is a vast improvement.
Horrendous draw distance and disgustingly extreme pop-in that still hasn’t been fixed or likely ever will, constant frame drops and microstuttering for half of the map, an online system that’s worse than any previous entry by a country mile and a shallow, featureless and bland world full of constant prompts to play modes you have no interest in?
Just a wild guess…
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I believe this is one of the most common criticisms levied against FH5 (by myself included.) It feels very similar to FH4, which fundamentally was very similar to FH3. It could just be burnout on the series, but FH5 also feels like a massive expansion pack for FH4 rather than a brand new experience.
This argument is what I kind of get it but at the same time i don’t. I understand if this is like a criticism that maybe there’s a need of a different story/location/setting direction. The part I don’t get it is that we are playing a fifth sequel where you play a famous superstar character. And that we play a racing game. The very core of any racing game is racing. PvP or PvE we are racing against others most of the time.
Maybe some find it strange but I can’t play older games anymore. FH5 offers the best racing experience right now for me. Even the AI. I love it. Tried Unbeatable in FH4 again and it’s not hard enough. I prefer Pro in FH5 anytime. When you try to race clean the AI is just good. Something you can’t experience when racing humans.
I look at the Crew2. I love the first game. But playing the second I didn’t feel any difference. The story was done in a week and than it was grinding again. The story changed nothing. The boats and planes changed the whole experience, but I really don’t want a FH with boats and planes. Or maybe I want. At the end of the day 98% of the time was spent driving on roads. Racing others. Ordinary stuff.
I’ve noticed a good majority of the time, people making posts specifically like the OP who criticize Forza Horizon 5, for being “the same thing we got before, but slightly better” aren’t actually criticizing the game. They’re just stating… without actually stating it… They want to play something else, and Forza Horizon may no longer appeal to them.
The Forza Horizon series is aimed at a [younger] casual console audience who don’t like racing games. This is not a generalization, or hyperbole. This is how Playground Games markets the FH series:
“A racing game for people who hate racing games.”
So, if hardcore racing, either arcade or more realistic, is what you (persons in general) are after, then this series is no longer for you at this point.
I know some people are upset about this and don’t want to admit it, but this is what the series is now, for better or for worse.
If you know this, and are fine with it, you can have a lot of fun with it despite all of its shortcomings because for the most part, it’s a fun and engaging experience for those who want it. It just may not be the experience many hardcore racing game fans are looking for, or have grown out of, perhaps?
By the way, I’m not excusing the poor state the game shipped in. There are countless bugs that need to be fixed. Namely, the online portion that is preventing players who want to stick with it in the long run from doing so. There are bugged events, MP itself is just broken and minimalist, and many, many other glitches and errors that exist in open world games. All of these need to be fixed, and fixed ASAP before the first expansion drops if PGG wants to retain a sizeable portion of its player base.
Well maybe it’s a mistake not to know who your fanbase are? Dr Who was there when I was a child in the 60’s, but now I want an adult version. Captain Scarlett Indestructible would make a good 15 movie. Star Trek was considered by Quentin Tarantino. The Six Million Dollar Man would be good for 15+. I think the mistake comes from not following your audience, and giving children something new all of the time. So for example Pokemon is quite new to me, I’m not interested in it, the same with Transformers, those two things would follow the next audience along. Games, TV, and Movies should follow their audience, and not the audience align to them. So kids now need a new game like Forza Horizon, but not Forza Horizon, and Forza Horizon should evolve with an older audience.
New additions to the Horizon series brought by Forza Horizon 5 are less features and less content. 
Honestly they could just focus on giving me a new map every year, fix bugs, and leave the game as is. I’d be happy. Racing is racing.
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Didn’t FH3 let you build festivals incrementally? Not all or none, but each level enabled more races. To get the Goliath (loved Australian one) took some effort iirc.
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I had 1452 hours in Fh4. Got about 100 in FH5 and still have hope that it will grow on me. Yes they did a huge job but they also took alot of bad choices in the making, so even if I end up enjoying the game in ways I have not done up until this point the game could and should have been so much more. I’ll probably end up with alot of hours anyway, to much livery and vinyls to make and trials to do.
FH5 is FH4 with a new map. For me that’s just fine.
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The map isn’t really any more barren than FH3, and discounting the desert isn’t more barren than FH4. On the other hand, FH4 had that lake taking up too much undriveable space 3/4 of the time. FH5 has a similar problem 1/4 of the time. The Crew’s map may not have looked as good, and it definitely had more barren stretches even before the sequel came along and made it slightly worse, but I spent more hours driving around it doing things like following railroad tracks…
But I digress. Whether a map is big or small isn’t as important to me as how much enjoyment I get driving around it. 4 and 5 are almost equal in that regard - if I had to place one above the other my answer might change on any given day depending on my mood. 2 would be at the bottom of my list - I’d disparagingly call it nothing but a bunch of farmland, but that’s almost certainly hyperbole. But I’m not super enthused about any of the base maps. They all get the job done well enough in the end.
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On terms of payout, do you think I got all the cars and current 350M Cr from racing … WS and SWS is where money is.
Playing broker in 4 got me all the cars and 999M.
Only getting money from races … no way could I ever afford anything, unless get into stupendous grind.
Winter season I really miss, love it in 4 and irl.
Also FH3 DLC was on snow, was it also impossible for many?
In game for everyone, why it must be competition only?
Tbh why everything must be competition, can’t something also be relaxing and fun?
FH4 was a great game with a great map which suited many of it’s replayable game modes. Seasons in FH4 were extremely well done, especially winter and spring.
The reason for FH5 success so far is not because it’s a good or bad game, it’s not because it won game of the year, it’s because it was the sequel to FH4.
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What ‘replayable game modes’? Other than ranked adventure the choice of modes is the exact same this time around and at this equivalent stage in FH4’s life it had no Super 7, no Eliminator and no FFA adventure.
Seasons was window dressing 75% of the time and was there more than anything to accommodate the live service garbage.
Somebody please call an idiot for thinking any decent discussion is going to come from bothering to say anything to this poster though.
It’s the first FH where you start as the star. You don’t even need to do many races to reach Hall of Fame due to Accolades dictating the advancement of the story, not the races. That is a bizarre choice to me and it left me feel like the game is lacking content. No idea why Accolades are the main driver in progression now and not the actual races on the map.
I really want to love this game like I did with the previous, but I’m a little disappointed. It’s still a great game, though. I just don’t find myself playing it to the full extent it deserves because there’s no story progression. So I just treat the Seasonal stuff as the story and play when new Seasons come in.
You were already the top dog at the beginning of FH3 and FH4.
You (persons in general) can argue Forza Horizon has always been about “just race” with no real stakes, or consequences, but that’s blatantly not true.
The point of a racing game is to race, win and acquire new vehicles to race, win, rinse and repeat. This aspect was in all the games up until FH4, and is back in FH5, even if some consider it a watered down form. Like I wrote, there are at least, incentives to make podium vs. FH4, where players can literally come in dead last and make the same amount as a player who comes in 1st. Another poster even confirmed, the payouts are so low as to almost discourage racing and promote other activities outside racing. This is the kind of thing some are saying has taken over the series and while it may be true in some aspects, I think PG learned not to take out the very basic and primal reason why people play racing games… Even if that’s not their core audience anymore.
As for Forza Horizon should be “for adults”… It was never for adults to begin with. Forza Motorsport is for quote-un-quote adults… and even this is debatable considering there is sim racing on PC. Forza Motorsport, was invented to take a chunk of the Gran Turismo crowd who are mostly teens on console. I know older people play these series, but the vast majority are teens and 20somethings given the platform and general appeal automotive racing games have.
My point still stands that a lot of the criticisms of FH5, and the entire direction of the FH series are by people who just don’t like it anymore, but are hoping to convince PG to make it something it will never be given where the franchise is at this point in its life. Yes, they can be disappointed and have every right to express their disappointment. But there comes a time where they need to accept what it is, or they’re going to spend all of their time making unproductive, mostly negative posts on a forum instead of enjoying other games that may give them the experience they’re looking for.
By the way, I have no problem with people criticizing the faulty technical aspects aka bugs, FH5 launched with. Playground Games and MS deserve every bit of it because we pay our hard earned money for these games, and we should expect them to at least, work on a fundamental level… Something the online portion of FH5 does not, regardless of any game play features that may have been stripped out, or toned down.
I know I’m not going to be popular for saying this, but a lot of the posts on this forum aren’t complaining about the technical shortcomings of the game, but the game play / game design decisions, and while those are valid discussion topics, a lot of the posters fit the profile of who I described above… even if they don’t know it… and should probably move on?
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All well and good saying move on but where to though?
You can check my profile for the games I’ve played, the only one who I think would ever have a shot at competing with FH on a sequel because it had a solid base physics-wise is Midnight Club: LA, a series that we will probably never see again since somehow people find GTA V’s blatant overpriced ripoffs of 2 real cars fused together with it’s laughably basic driving physics a worthy substitute.
The rest just don’t cut it, NFS hurts a little because you can see the devs are really trying in certain aspects but the base is sub-par, since Hot Pursuit released in 2010 most of the games seem to be obsessed with replicating the driving in that game but doing a much worse job of it, resulting in all those nice little touches and things NFS 2015, Payback + Heat do better than Horizon all ending up rather pointless when the core gameplay isn’t there.
Same with The Crew, great world, plenty of variety in content but the physics, the most important thing in a racing game let it down.
You raise valid points, but my comments are aimed mostly at those who just don’t like Forza Horizon (as a series) anymore, yet continue to post on this forum and other places like Reddit, just to be negative because A) They’re in denial about not liking what Forza Horizon has become, and/or B) They just refuse to move on to other games in general. Doesn’t even have to be racing games.
By the way, I’m not trying to stifle legit criticism, or discussion.
I’m just pointing something out certain posters might not even be aware of, so they can spend their time doing something more productive… Namely, playing games they will enjoy instead of spending all day on anonymous forums posting about how much they hate a game with no hope of it actually changing any time soon. That’s the definition of insanity, and life is too short.
As for what racing games might give Forza Horizon, a run for its money?
Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, looks to have the biggest potential, but given the series past track record (barring the first one), I’m not as confident as I would be if all three had been home runs from the start. Add the fact we have seen no game play whatsoever, and this is another red flag, but I’m still hopeful.
GRID Legends, is due out shortly, too. It’s not open world, but I loved the original GRID games (GRID 2 notwithstanding), and Codemasters is building on the GRID 2019, reboot for Legends. I thought the 2019 version was good, but could use a few tweaks the developers have claimed they’re going to address… The big one being the physics will feel tighter and like GRID Autosport. We’ll see.
And of course, the grand daddy of simcade racing games… Gran Turismo 7 is also coming soon.
So, there are actually a lot of alternatives for racing game fans being released very shortly. They may not be open world, but everybody who claims they hate what FH has become should be more than pleased with all the games mentioned placing the emphasis squarely on racing, allegedly?