Forza Horizon 5 review: Kicking the Xbox Series X and S into top gear

(Pocket-lint) - When it comes to arcade racers, determination are fewer arsenic accomplished arsenic the Forza Horizon series. Each iteration has grown successful some size and quality, with Forza Horizon 4, successful particular, having overtaken its stablemate, Forza Motorsport, astatine the apical of our favourite racing games list.

Now we person a 5th outing - Forza Horizon 5 - which is the archetypal made firmly with the Xbox Series X/S successful mind, and lad does it grow upon everything that has travel earlier successful a wildly palmy way. So strap in, you're successful for a chaotic ride...

Basking successful the sun

After speeding crossed a rain-soaked Britain past clip around, the Horizon Festival has relocated to Mexico - thing of a seachange successful clime and surroundings. You get to cascade done jungles, crossed soil dunes successful the desert, traverse beaches, and zip on ungraded tracks extracurricular tiny villages. There are thoroughfare races too, successful larger cities, but the champion of the enactment takes spot acold from populated areas.

Mexico is often gorgeous and sun-baked, but besides prone to changeable upwind owed to a caller dynamic conditions system. Rain, thunder and lightning are possibilities, but truthful excessively are sandstorms. And, arsenic the portion besides features an progressive volcano, world tremors are not unheard of either.

The caller open-world determination is besides monolithic - easy the biggest representation successful a Horizon crippled to date. There are 11 antithetic "biomes", each with unsocial characteristics and way types, positive specified a value of races and unlockable events that it could marque your caput wounded if you effort to bash the numbers.

• Top Xbox Series X and Series S games for: Add these titles to your next-gen library
• Best upcoming games for Xbox Series X and Series S: The apical incoming next-gen games

Forza Horizon 5 isn't a cardinal miles distant from the past game, with a satellite representation that looks astir akin barroom its size, but determination seems truthful overmuch much to bash and explore. It's highly awesome to accidental the least.

Storyteller

Horizon 5's run is bigger too. As with the game's predecessor, you make an avatar and bedeck him, her oregon they with outfits and accessories of your choosing. There's a batch of similarity successful the usage of emotes and the mode you creation beside your car aft a race, but we consciousness there's a much immersive communicative this clip astir - beyond conscionable careening betwixt races for the involvement of it.

Expeditions are new, for example, presenting challenges and optional goals that are much role-player-like than successful astir racing titles. Your avatar volition complement the formed of characters you conscionable and perceive implicit the radio. They volition besides present notation to you by name, arsenic chosen astatine the commencement of the crippled from aggregate options. It each enhances the feeling that you are doing acold much than heading from A to B and earning currency with which to bargain caller cars.

Still, there's plentifulness of that too. Car collecting has ever been the constituent of Forza games - and that's precise overmuch the aforesaid again here. You get a Panini sticker album-style catalogue to capable with the hundreds of cars that are and volition beryllium made disposable implicit time, and adjacent that rewards you with further vehicles erstwhile you snag capable of a definite manufacturer's models.

Yes, that besides includes paid-for content, but from what we've played to date, you tin gain truthful galore in-game rewards that we're not definite wherefore you'd adjacent fuss with DLC packs. Your avatar tin level up, winning you wheelspins to usage to get random cars, outfits oregon crippled credits to past bargain your own. You tin besides gain accolade points during expeditions and the similar that volition yet effect successful Horizon Adventures unlocks and the constitution of an further outpost successful a caller biome. That excessively volition unfastened up much possibilities to collect: you guessed it, much cars.

As if that's not enough, barn finds are backmost (yep, much cars) and determination are aggregate different challenges and events - immoderate of which are user-generated utilizing the caller EventLab tools - to gain adjacent much XP and rewards. Oh, and we astir forgot, seasons are backmost - truthful events tin swap astir each truthful often arsenic the crippled enters a caller play (it started successful summertime for us). Phew.

There is simply a staggering magnitude of contented that tin really beryllium alternatively overwhelming astatine first. However, arsenic soon arsenic you get down the wheel, nary of that truly matters.

I similar driving successful my car

Driving successful Forza Horizon 5 is blissful. There's not a immense quality successful play to erstwhile games successful the series, particularly the past one, but we'd person it nary different way.

No substance which car of the 500 positive cars you are in, handling feels responsive and tangible. Naturally, determination are galore antithetic conveyance types that enactment successful antithetic ways - drift cars are hellish to support straight, for example, but are cleanable for slipping astir corners - yet each azygous 1 of those we've tried are a joyousness to control.

The environments assistance with the amusive origin too. Racing done a river-laden jungle way is conscionable arsenic satisfying arsenic leaping from the broadside of a volcano. And, arsenic is accustomed for the series, you tin tune and tweak each of your vehicles to your ain liking.

Difficulty levels tin beryllium altered too, with higher difficulties and less driving immunodeficiency ramping up your XP bonuses - you get to alteration them earlier each race.

Drivatars return, with the artificial quality (AI) drivers aping the styles of your friends, and astir races tin beryllium scaled to immoderate car people you privation to use. That mode you tin springiness immoderate of the much obscure oregon lesser driven vehicles successful your postulation a rotation - it's not conscionable a crippled for supercars, wherefore not tube astir a Mexican hillside successful a 1986 Ford Escort too?

There's besides multiplayer, of course, with Horizon Open online races. Forza Link, meanwhile, tin besides pull different drivers successful the crippled with acceptable phrases mapped to the D-pad. Timed Horizon Arcade segments connection brainsick stunt-based objectives for everyone to instrumentality portion in. Conveys and clubs instrumentality too. It truly is rather mindboggling however overmuch the game's developer, Playground, has crammed in.

Much of it is connected repeat, but we consciousness the paper presumption is amended successful Horizon 5 than games earlier - it's little cluttered and easier to find the game, contention oregon mode you want.

It's a beauty

The presumption doesn't halt there. Forza Horizon 5 is rather simply the best-looking racing crippled of each time. It is stunning.

We played connected Xbox Series X and S truthful can't springiness you an denotation of however it looks connected the older Xbox One, but some of the next-gen consoles service up a ocular feast.

The magnitude of realism and item Playground has enactment into each biome is extraordinary. It whips past you astatine a decent lick, but you tin inactive admit its magnificence. We besides recovered ourselves conscionable stopping erstwhile successful free-roam to instrumentality successful the view.

Ray-tracing is reserved for Forzavista mode solely, connected some Series X and S, but the reflections and lighting successful the main crippled are astonishing anyway. The Xbox Series X presents the crippled successful full-fat 4K (2160p) whether you take to play successful Quality oregon Performance modes (the main quality betwixt these is framework complaint - Quality is locked to 30fps, Performance 60fps).

Unlike different games though, the second is achieved by dynamically dropping immoderate of the graphics settings alternatively than resolution, truthful you inactive get a 4K experience, but with less terrain elements, shorter gully distances, that benignant of thing. Some volition similar the expanded framework complaint and spot that arsenic a indispensable trade-off, but we person to accidental that the 30fps prime mode inactive plays precise good so and you get the maximum ocular effect, to boot.

Amazingly, some options are disposable connected the Series S excessively - conscionable the solution dips to 1080p for each. Playground informs america that it plans to rise the solution of the Quality mode connected Series S to 1440p aft launch, but we are yet to spot that successful the flesh.

Another payment of the next-gen machines is that loading times are mercifully short. The erstwhile crippled could instrumentality an property to load. Perhaps the lone existent downside we could find is that the record size is simply a whopping 103GB connected Xbox Series X/S and PC. It's adjacent bigger connected Xbox One - 115GB. That could beryllium achy for those with smaller retention and/or dilatory broadband speeds. Maybe that's conscionable par for the people for triple-A games these days, though. You surely get a batch of bang for your subordinate here.

Writing by Rik Henderson. Editing by Mike Lowe. Originally published connected 4 November 2021.