Forza Horizon 4: Game Preview

It might look and sound like Forza Horizon 3 on the surface, but the fourth chapter in the popular Xbox racing series on Xbox One an PC is "a different game".

That’s the word according to Ben Penrose, Art Director from Playground games, the team behind bringing the next iteration of the fun driving franchise Forza Horizon.

How is it different? Well, the premise is largely the same, you still get to blast around the open-world in over 450 vehicles – each of which can be heavily modified – racing others and completing objectives but the difference now is the setting… and quite a few other tweaks, naturally, like 72 player sessions.

This time around Forza Horizon 4 moves from the sunny shores, steamy rain forest and dusty outback of our own country, Australia, to Penrose’s home of the British Isles.

Ergo, we are once again driving on the left-hand side. However during our gameplay preview of Horizon 4, there will be plenty of left-hand-drive cars. Penrose explains.

"Actually there is a mix there, and that is all down to where the car has been sourced. We do a whole heap of research and laser-scanning around the cars we are representing in the game. Sometimes, if that car is a left-hand-drive car, then that is how it appears in game."

It is fun to explore the countryside and laneways of rural England. Or, if you wish, like previous games, just spear off the road and take carve up a paddock, plough through low rock walls, beautiful flowered fields, forests of thin saplings and maybe a few car-stopping oaks. Ouch.

There are slow-mo captured 'cool bits' and plenty of scene-stealing Top Gear-inspired match-up races – as in past games – such as racing a hot-air balloon.

One of the new elements in the game are dynamic seasons, which will change each week and provide a more dynamic (and challenging) gaming experience.

"With each passing season you will have a whole new experience, with the visuals you would expect as well as the kind of driving experience. So, in winter you will be driving on lots of ice, frost and snow, but also spring is a very wet season for us in Britain," says Penrose.

Each season is one real world week (across all of the Forza Horizon 4 servers) and at the end of that week, the season will change.

"If you happen to be playing during the change you will see a nice video transition," Penrose says.

These opponents are real.

Not moving away from Drivatars - the AI drivers of past games based on real-life friends - but equally, with the new 72-player multiplayer, Penrose is quick to point out that Playground Games is not making Fortnite in cars.

"No, no, no. There are three big ideas in this game, first is the location, it is set in Britain, the second is our dynamic seasons feature and the third is how we are reimagining that online experience.

"The term we are wrapping around this is 'Living the Horizon life', the whole idea here is that we are now a shared world game, so when you are out in the open world driving around, you are driving around with real players, not Drivatars.

"However, we know that is not the thing that everyone wants to do, so if you want to play offline you totally can. Just go to the menu and hit 'solo mode' and you will be up against Drivatars like you did in Forza Horizon 3.

"We spent a lot of time looking at the reasons why people might have a problem with an open-world online world, particularly in the context of a racing game. You have this idea of griefers right? People who just play the game to smash into everybody.

"If you are familiar with drift-zones in the game, if you are mid-way through a drift-zone and somebody comes and smashes you off the road, that is a frustrating experience. So, we have a number of quality improvements in there.

"One that address that specific issue is called auto-ghost. This means there will be no physical collision with someone unless you have joined them in a convoy. So, you are never going to be smashed off the road by anybody, unless you have actually joined them in a game play session.

"They will probably be a friend, in which case, maybe you should choose better friends," laughs Penrose.

That’s a perky little car you are driving there.

Rather than an overarching skill system, Forza Horizon 4 introduces perks for individual cars.

"We have skill trees for every single car," explains Penrose.

"That feature we have now is called car mastery. Every single car has a unique set of perks with it. You can sell that car on the auction house with those perks unlocked, so you can imagine a car with a fully unlocked skill tree would be slightly more valuable on the auction house."

Car tuning has always been integral to Forza racing games and now there's an extra set of customisations, comprising drift suspension, extra wide body kits and wheel spacers that push the wheels out for a hard core tuner look.

Because your driver appears during the game and up on the podium at the end of races, Forza Horizon 4 introduces a whole set of driver customisations with clothing and even dance moves, plus houses to find and own and much more.

At one point during our play test of the game we found ourselves spending more time on our driver customisation than actually sitting in the beautifully rendered cockpit of the car we owned. This did makes us wonder if the vehicular side of things was losing focus...

When we put this concern to Penrose however, he said that the driving experience was the core tenet guiding Forza Horizon 4.

"The overarching principal behind a game like Horizon is that Horizon is about having fun in cars with your friends," says Penrose. "Beyond that we have these guiding emotional cores which are beauty, fun and freedom.

"As the art director one of the most important, arguably, is that beauty pillar, it's about the sort of locations we pick. So, we are not necessary going to go somewhere that feels dangerous, which might throw up some cool visuals, but does not gel with the kind of vibe we are trying to give off," observes Penrose.

"For us Horizon is about showing off pretty landscapes, really beautiful vistas and, I would argue, show you the kind of environments you would like to drive a supercar in real life, a bit like we did with the Great Ocean Road a couple of years ago [in Forza Horizon 3]" <<https://www.motoring.com.au/game-preview-forza-horizon-3-103821>>

Forza Horizon 4 launches on October 2 with a recent announcement of an Ultimate Edition, which will include the 'Best of Bond' pack including the following.

The Best of Bond Car Pack features 10 cars from the James Bond films, including Goldfinger (1964) and The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015), and more. The car list features modern classics like the BMW Z8 from The World Is Not Enough as well as a bevy of classic Aston Martin models, including the most-featured car in Bond film history – the Aston Martin DB5.

Here’s the full line-up of James Bond Edition cars inspired by the films in the Best of Bond Car Pack:
• 1964 Aston Martin DB5 inspired by Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), GoldenEye (1995), Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015)
• 1969 Aston Martin DBS from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
• 1974 AMC Hornet X Hatchback from The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)
• 1977 Lotus Esprit S1 from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
• 1981 Citroën 2CV6 from For Your Eyes Only (1981)
• 1986 Aston Martin V8 from The Living Daylights (1987)
• 1999 BMW Z8 from The World is Not Enough (1999)
• 2008 Aston Martin DBS from Quantum of Solace (2008)
• 2010 Jaguar C-X75 from Spectre (2015)
• 2015 Aston Martin DB10 from Spectre (2015)