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Microsoft’s premier racing game is back for 2023, but fans of the series are perplexed at launch. Take a look at Forza Motorsport!
Forza Motorsport is Back for 2023
PlayStation players have been enjoying Gran Turismo 7 while Xbox fans have had to look on in anticipation for the next generation of Forza Motorsport. After a lengthy development period at Turn 10 Studios, fans of the racing series are finally hitting the tracks and experiencing new features in what looks to be a refresh of the series. There is a lot to be excited about with this video game. There have been improvements to the handling physics, new features implemented, and improved visuals. Yet, along with the positives come some questionable choices from the developers that have fans feeling like this may be a step in the wrong direction. Here’s the rundown on this year’s Forza Motorsport video game for Xbox Series X|S and PC.
What’s New for Forza Motorsport?
The first noticeable change to Forza Motorsport is the updated AI competitors on the track. Previous games featured “Drivatars” that would learn from player input. This seems like an ideal way to recreate online racing, but online racing is very aggressive and can feature some trolling tactics to get to the front. This led to an AI that performed unrealistically when out of view of the player, rigid to the driving line when in view, and then they’d act overly aggressive while passing.
Turn 10 Studios has updated these AI racers to drive competitively while also being a lot cleaner and more realistic. They still follow the driving line around the track, but they adjust their own path and their braking to generate a unique lap that’s tailored to that specific Drivatar in that specific vehicle. They aren’t perfected as they’ll sometimes still plow into a car that’s in the way rather than make a maneuver around, but this should hopefully be alleviated as the game continues.
The other adjustment to gameplay is the handling physics. The tires used to feature a single point of contact over the surface of tracks that moved at 60 cycles per second for previous games. For this year’s Forza Motorsport, Turn 10 Studios updated the tire physics to feature 8 points of contact to the track surface that run at 360 cycles per second. What this means to players is that the tires can find grip more easily on uneven surfaces like if you were to roll over the rumble strips for instance. Previous games the vehicles would lose traction when encountering an obstacle such as this.
That isn’t the only update to the tires as players will now have to worry about their tire conditions and compounds in higher difficulty levels. Forza Motorsport has the classic Street, Performance, and Race spec tires available for upgrade (more on that in a bit), but they’ve added Wet tires to help with the updated dynamic weather conditions. Racing around a track with racing slicks isn’t going to help traction when the rain hits, so players can get a more realistic experience and prepare by adding Wet tires to their vehicle in preparation for an event.
The tires also feature different compounds that deteriorate at different rates just like real race cars at Grand Touring or F1 races. There is Soft which will give you greater acceleration with the added grip but fail quicker, Medium which finds a good middle between tire deterioration and speed, and then Hard which will last a lot longer but doesn’t help with vehicle performance since it provides less grip. If you heat up your tires too much and overdrive them to the extent that they fail on track, then you suffer in performance and have to limp back to the pits as the competition passes you by.
Turn 10 Studios also made changes to the visuals of the game to fully utilize the hardware found in the Xbox Series X|S and high-end computers. While most of the car models haven’t changed from previous games, the lighting and reflections have been improved as well as the availability for console players to fully adjust the field of view to better fit their tastes. Some PC players are encountering a mixed bag of visual experiences and runtime errors currently, but that will hopefully be alleviated through bug fixes and updates so that it can be appreciated on those machines. When it works properly, the laser scanned real-world tracks look great and really add to the racing simulation vibe of Forza Motorsport.
The last notable change to Forza Motorsport is how car upgrades work, and it has some fans a little frustrated. In previous iterations you had access to nearly every upgrade imaginable with the only thing holding players back being how many in-game credits they have. There is still a currency in game that players are paid out from racing championships, but that is only used for vehicle purchases now. When it comes to upgrading your car, you now must level it up to unlock upgrades and use the new Car Points.
If you want a better engine, better suspension, different tires, or even different wheels you need to reach a certain level to unlock it. The leveling maxes out at 50, but that’s for every individual car including duplicates of the same car. It can be a little frustrating for players as it adds more of a grind when most will want to simply jump in and race, but this new mechanic was added with the intention that you could grow a relationship with a car rather than just perfect it for one race and move on. Most players are voicing their dismay with the change not entirely just because it is different, but instead because it could have been done better with manufacturer unlocks or sponsorship unlocks rather than on a car-by-car leveling system.
500 Cars at Launch with More to Come
Now for the most important part of every Forza Motorsport game, the cars. Fans of the series will encounter a handful of new cars, but a majority are returning models featured in previous Motorsport and Horizon games. At launch, Forza Motorsport has 500 cars available with more to come through DLC car packs and the Car Pass. So far, there’s only one brand-new 2024 model, the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, and four 2023 models (Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, Nissan Z, Chevrolet Corvette Z06, and the Lotus Emira).
There are noticeably no SUVs or trucks as a decision was made to focus on more typical racing vehicles to help with realism. Most of our favorite cars still made the cut for Forza Motorsport though. The Buick Regal GNX, Dodge Charger R/T, Audi Sport quattro, Porsche 911 GT2 RS, BMW 2002 Turbo, Datsun 510, McLaren 720S, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X GSR, Subaru WRX STI, plus so many more can all be driven in game. Hopefully we can expect some modern race cars from Formula 1 or NASCAR eventually, but the Le Mans Prototypes and GT cars are still fun for now. They’ve currently added five cars via the VIP Membership, eight cars via the Race Day Car Pack, and started the Car Pass with the 2018 Volkswagen #22 Experion Racing Golf GTI.
Is Forza Motorsport Worth the Buy?
At launch, Forza Motorsport is a perplexing buy. The updates to the driving mechanics and tuning capabilities are nice additions to the series, but the car leveling system doesn’t feel well thought out for the average player base. A large majority of the vehicles are from previous versions of the game and the models are starting to show their age even with the new lighting advancements. For how long this game has been in development, it doesn’t feel like it’s polished in the right areas and leaves the door open for further updates and improvements. What’s great though is it comes bundled in the Xbox Game Pass subscription, so at that cost I can justify playing it along with access to tons of other games including the previous Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon games. If you’re looking to purchase this year’s Forza Motorsport separate from Game Pass though, I’d advise waiting it out a little bit for a nice discount later after more cars are added, gameplay has expanded, and any quirks have been flushed out.
